Sean Jacobs's Blog, page 629
July 8, 2011
The Cairo Derby
If you want to know more about why every Egyptian football fan you know is in hysterics right now, the Guardian has provided a pretty nice summary of the Cairo Derby:
'The African Booker'
The last two stories on the shortlist for the Caine Prize for African Writing (Lauri Kubuitsile (Botswana) 'In the spirit of McPhineas Lata' and David Medalie (South Africa) 'The Mistress's Dog' ) are so disappointing and predictable that I don't think my jetlagged self can summon up the energy to write anything about them. One reads like Alexander McCall Smith's African lore (which has its place, and is thoroughly enjoyable on train rides and as gifts to non-African aunties as an introduction to how 'civilised' Africans can be); the second reads like another tale of suburban/elite-set angst, so de jour in Tina Brown-New Yorker fiction, circa the '90s. Katherine Mansfield knew how to do it gorgeously (see "Bliss", 1920). But Mansfield's ability to get to the heart of wrenching ecstasy and horror, possible even in well-heeled domesticity, is not evident here.
It's a wonder that choices such as these for a prominent prize don't create disillusionment in more talented African writers. And there's no dearth of excellent writing in the vast land of Africa, as evidenced in journals like Chimurenga and Kwani? Happily, the Caine judges have picked a few brilliant gems during past years, like that of Binyavanga Wainaina, who won the prize in 2002 (and founded Kwani?).
Instead of a review, I'll link us to an excellent interview with Wainaina (subsequent to the recent publication of his memoir, One Day I Will Write about this Place), by Rob Spillman in the current issue of BOMB magazine. The obvious blip in the introduction is a claim that the Caine Prize is "commonly referred to as the African Booker" – if so, that's a poor assessment of the Booker. Read it here.
July 7, 2011
A 'new wave' of African film
"Sometimes I wonder: Will God ever forgive us for what we've done to each other?" says Leonardo DiCaprio, sullen and bleary-eyed, stoically staring just off camera.
"… I look around and I realize…" pause for emotion, "God left this place a long time ago."
DiCaprio, as the white African "soldier of fortune," leans back in the shadows, wiping away tears by rubbing his eyes as though he just woke up, and takes obvious care not to look directly at Jennifer Connelly, a do-gooder American journalist who dreams of exposing the real stories in Africa, not just the infomercial refugee children with flies in their eyes and distended bellies.
God has left the civil war-torn country of Sierra Leone in 1999, the setting for 2006s Blood Diamond. Using the illegal diamond trade as the backdrop for the primarily character-driven storyline, the film carries a hefty social conscience for a big budget Hollywood action/drama.
Blood Diamond is one of Hollywood's "message films" that allow Americans to leave the Cineplex feeling a little bit better about themselves after seeing an "educational" film about disenfranchised Africans. And you can now impress your friends at parties with your knowledge of world events.
Don't get me wrong, Hotel Rwanda, The Last King of Scotland, DiCaprio as the "bad guy with a heart" who helps the black man find his son—these are all good mainstream films. Meaning they won numerous awards and only the best things win awards.
This is why I noticed Viva Riva!, the Congolese gangster film that won the "Best African Film" award at the 2011 MTV Movie Awards last month in Los Angeles, CA.
Yes, the MTV Movie Awards now has a "Best African Film" category.
I think it was presented while the stars of Twilight: Eclipse were shuffling back and forth from their seats with their golden popcorn statues. But, as Sean Jacobs pointed out on Africa is a Country last month, "That's the kind of publicity African films can't buy and should count for something when the film opens in [the US]…"
New York Magazine's brief review of Viva Riva! notes that the movie, "gives us reason to get excited for a new wave of films coming out of Africa: It's well acted and slickly made, all while exposing a part of the world we haven't really seen before."
At the fashionable international film festivals like Cannes, Sundance, and the Toronto International Film Festival, and at regional venues like Austin, Texas' South by Southwest and the New York African Film Festival, organizers are showcasing more African filmmakers. This year, Cannes awarded the Chadian film A Screaming Man with the 2011 Jury Prize, and Viva Riva! was chosen as an Official Selection in Toronto and at SXSW. Ultimately, demand for what the film industry aristocracy deems praise-worthy helps foreign filmmakers to land deals with US distributors. Everyone is hoping to find the next "sleeper hit"; last year's unexpected crowd-pleaser was the South African film District 9. Released in August 2009, the faux-documentary sci-fi thriller earned four Academy Award nominations in 2010, including Best Picture.
The folks at MTV, who also honored DiCaprio's Inception co-star Ellen Page in the "Best Scared-As-Sh*t Performance" category, may be onto something with their inaugural Best African Film award, pointing to a larger trend among Western audiences who are finding that there is more to Africa than what Hollywood tells us about in its "message films."
There are several possible explanations as to why Westerners have a growing and earnest interest in learning more about African pop culture. Perhaps I could continue citing the success of critically acclaimed African cinema, or mention the growth of the Nigerian film industry, known as Nollywood, into the third highest grossing film industry in the world, behind Hollywood and India's Bollywood. Or maybe I could point to the inquisitive, over-zealous, at-times-inane reporting on South Africa by international media as they set out like Louis and Clark to discover the country hosting the FIFA World Cup last June. OR I could just put up a link with a picture of George Clooney in Chad, looking ragged but smiling as he shakes the hands of children—who I assume are orphans because it's Africa and I'm American—and someone would click on it because they're curious or to satiate their unrequited love for George Clooney. Simply put, it's the Internet.
Hollywood has spent decades and billions of dollars making movies from a distinctly white-American-male perspective that depict Africa as a homogenous landmass populated by despots, refugee camps, and lions. But perhaps this story is starting to change; as the number of cell phones and access to Internet increases in remote areas of Africa, so to increases the flow of information out from individuals throughout the continent. As a result, a twenty-something living in Brooklyn can read this fantastically intriguing blog out of Cape Town, documenting what appears to be a thriving hipster culture in South Africa. People in Portland, Oregon can catch a showing of Viva Riva! or someone in Texas can watch the trailers of the three other films nominated by MTV for Best African Film.
The digital collective experience created by the Internet has opened doors to places that previously required a passport and an expensive plane ticket to get to. The next time you go online to watch Lady Gaga's newest music video, your curiosity may get the upper hand and maybe you'll actually learn something by spending an hour wandering around Youtube.
Despite my snark, Blood Diamond, Hotel Rwanda, and The Last King of Scotland are successful films, but they only tell one, highly-fictionalized story from one perspective. MTV may not be the cultural spearhead it once was but that gilded box of popcorn provides us with another link to click on, another clip to watch, and another celebrity to follow on Twitter.
In the words of Leonardo DiCaprio, in an unidentifiable African accent, "This. Is. Africa."
July 6, 2011
'The African chambermaid' and the media
By Dan Moshenberg
I had said I wasn't going to write no more pieces like this, no more pieces on the bad Western media and African women. I was wrong.
I had said I wasn't going to write about the doggish reporting on that powerful wealthy white French guy, you know who, and the "African chambermaid in the posh hotel", a kind of inversion of Heloise.
But then `reasonable' people started claiming that the collapse of the case is a justification of the system, a victory for corroboration and justice. People started saying, "The system worked". Reasonable people started writing that we should be thankful for the criminal justice system we have, well, then it's time to say something.
So, here's something.
Yesterday The Root ran a piece titled "The Lighter the Skin, the Shorter the Prison Term?": "Villanova researchers studied more than 12,000 cases of African-American women imprisoned in North Carolina and found that women with lighter skin tones received more-lenient sentences and served less time than women with darker skin tones."
Why do lighter skinned women get light sentences? According to the study, because they are deemed "more attractive". If they're "thinner", bonus.
That's "the system".
That's "the system" that has inspired almost all the representations of the Guinean hotel worker, asylum seeker, accuser. Those that portray her as "prostitute" or "liar", and those that presume to know her situation because, after all, she's from Guinea, and you know, Guinea, it's full of mud huts, bad men, corruption, and desperate housewives: "She was born in a mud hut in an isolated hamlet in Africa with no electricity or running water, a 10-minute hike to the nearest road."
Instead of claiming to know her or her story, let's talk about "African women" who have responded to rape and all forms of sexual violence.
UN Women released a report today that studies women's pursuit of justice around the world. As you might imagine, it's a mixed bag. (At least Guinea ratified CEDAW, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. What is the only country in the world that has signed but not yet ratified CEDAW? The United States of America. We're number none.)
One of the report's recommendations is for "one-stop shops and legal aid": "Because of the institutional and social barriers that women face, they need specialized services – from legal aid to domestic violence courts – tailored to meet their needs. One promising approach is to integrate services, for example through one-stop shops. These help to reduce attrition by cutting down the number of steps that a woman has to take to access justice."
The model one-stop shop comes from South Africa, the Thuthuzela Care Centres. In Xhosa, Thuthuzela means "comfort". In life, it means justice.
The Thutuzela Care Centres care for women who report rape and other forms of sexual violence. They take care of the women and they help the women take care of themselves and of justice. In Soweto, the TCCs have reported a conviction rate of 89%. According to Monique Davis, a TCC manager, in Mannenberg, near Cape Town, the successful conviction rates have gone from around 4 or 5% to 70 or 80%. As Davis says, around the world, women survivors of sexual violence are loathe to pursue criminal proceedings against their attackers. Thuthuzela changes that dynamic.
Place the claims of "the African chambermaid" in that context, in the context of various struggles by different women and women's groups and networks across the African continent to secure justice and well-being. Justice, not pity.
July 5, 2011
Music Break
"MotoTaxi" by Guinean dancehall artist Singleton. Tiken Jah Fakoly makes a guest appearance.
July 5th, Cape Verde
Like we said everyone wanted to get independent in June and July. It's also Cape Verde's independence today.
We know young Cape Verdeans want to protest tonight since there's not much to celebrate. Doesn't mean they don't like music and not sure what's the soundtrack to their revolution, but's here some of the Cape Verdean sounds.
The pop of Cordas dos Sol:
Suzanna:
Beto Dias:
Lura:
Mo Kalamity:
Oh, and since Cape Verde is probably the only African nation where more of its citizens live outside the home country, especially on the US East Coast, we had to include the diaspora. Like the very political Paris-based rap group MC Malcriado (they're a group of MC's with Cape Verdean roots). Their 2009 song "Viva Amilcar Cabral" celebrate the leader of the independence movement:
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July 5, Algeria
On its 49th year of independence from France, Algeria is undergoing another popular anti-colonial (and anti-Bouteflika) movement. Like some other African states whose independence days we're celebrating through pop music, Algeria may have an entirely different independence day in the very near future.
First the popular: Cheb Bilal, who still hangs with the kids, while keeping his traditional fan base happy. Filmed in Morocco:
Sean's "Algerian source" (who I think is just Sean trying to deny his love for trashy Algerian pop) came up this. First, Cheba Zahouania:
And Cheb Abdou, who is something of a scandalous figure in the Algerian music scene)
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A song from Amazigh Kateb's (son of Algerian writer Yacine Kateb) 2009 album Marchez noir.
]Thanks to Tom for recommending the rapper Diaz to me:
And while this is not a recent song, it remains one of the most popular Algerian pop songs in the world. I give you Cheb Khaled, Rachid Taha and Faudel's Abdel Kader:
Bouteflika dégage! Yalla Algérie!
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