Chocolat and Issues of Race - Essay Example

? Chocolat (1988) and Issues of Race in non-Mainstream Cinema s Chocolat (1988) and Issues of Race in non-Mainstream Cinema Mainstream media has a certain amount of responsibility to conform to the demands of the masses when it comes to portraying and laying down facts and figures. Therefore, matters of race and religion are usually sensitive issues to be directly confronted by the Mainstream media, so it is actually known to shy away from such matters and completely omit them. The Non-Mainstream media, on the other hand has the liberty to be a bit more open about these issues and further contain the filmmaker’s and writer’s own thoughts and take on the matter. The substance of this prose will examine the role of the non-mainstream media in dealing with these issues in the light of Claire Denis’ movie titled Chocolat. Chocolat provides an interesting insight into the dynamics of race and colonialism. It is set in the remote region of Cameroon and tells the story from the perspective of a European child, whose father is the colonial administrator. The story is slow paced and has no real elements of a commercial film. There is hardly any exchange of dialogues between the characters and most of the actions and events in the story are left open-ended for the viewers to interpret. The narrator’s mother and her servant weave the main conflict of the story; the latter being a well-built Cameroonian with integrity and moral fibre that goes unnoticed because of his race, while the former is a lonely housewife. The movie incorporates visual elements that seek to explain the West’s sexual fascination with the inhabitants of their colonized territories; the African people in this case. It is understandable that the African culture is indeed exotic, but it is not just a sexual preference but depicts a greater need to dominate the people that they now own. The Africans were just seen as slaves but the attitude of their colonizers continues to mould their perception of contemporary Europeans and the non-Mainstream media often shows a glimpse of it from time to time. I. Claire Denis’ Chocolat (1988) The movie is set against the backdrop of French colonialism of the West African region. The plot is propelled forward through the flashbacks of a woman named France travelling around the outskirts of Cameroon, who manages to get a lift from an African American man passing by. While on the road, she is flooded with the memories of her childhood and reminisces about the time when her father was the Colonial Administrator of Cameroon, which forms the subsequent parts of the story. The entire story is told from the perspective of young France, who is befriended by their handsome African servant, Protee. France has a beautiful companionship with the houseboy, but unbeknownst to her, her young, attractive mother harbours romantic feelings for Protee, which are hinted to be mutual and serves as the prime complication in the story. Her desire for Protee is further escalated by the fact that her husband, France’s father is scarcely present around the house. The house is set in a remote locale, in order to fully focus on the emotional development of a handful of characters. The sexual tension between Aimee and Protee is a fundamental theme throughout the story, because Aimee cultivated such desires for a man who was not anywhere close to her race. She was the colonist, whereas Protee was the slave; in the eyes of the society, any kind of courtship or romance was completely out of question and was tabooed by the then-society. The African slaves were reduced to a status of a sub-human form and were denied privacy, whilst their Colonial Lords had every single ounce of that luxury. Protee often bathed in the open, while he was being silently watched by Aimee. It is ostensible that Aimee developed her sexual desires for him because of these minor occurrences and the absence of her husband led to the mounting of her sexual frustration. Even when finally Aimee plucks up the courage to act out on her desires, her advances are rejected by Protee and searing with the hurt of rejection, she asks her husband to get rid of Protee. This is an overt display of colonial power on part of Aimee. In order to nurse her wounded pride following Protee’s rejection, she uses her authority to punish him and gets rid of him. Protee, like many of his other fellow Africans had indeed internalized the inferior role that had been given to them by their colonizers. Moreover, he was fully aware of how Aimee had come to develop these amorous feelings for him. The blacks even in that era were sexualized by their colonizers and had to carry out most of their toilet behaviours out in the open. Moreover, in several cases Protee’s virility was also hinted at by young France and as it is a known fact that Africans are endowed with a strong physique that is deemed sexually desirable. Despite their physical attractiveness, the slaves had been instilled with a deep-seated passiveness towards their masters and continue to exist within mindset and are now directed towards the white segment of the population. This is further underlined in the end when the much older France expresses her desire to drink with the African American man, who then turns her down. This shows that the divide that Colonizers had created between these races have to this day it is embedded in the minds of the people. This is why there is an air of reluctance surrounding the final scene, as the movie cuts back to the contemporary and even though colonialism is gone, but some of its remnants are still there to this day. The film closes with France’s epiphany that indeed nothing has changed in so many years. Chocolat was made in the year 1988 and upon closer analysis of the movie, it can be seen that the movie’s prime purpose is to juxtapose history with the current racial issue to highlight the overlapping aspects that can explain the dynamics of the matter. II. Colonial Power: A historical and psychological overview The theoretical work of Homi Bhabha is extremely apt in further explaining the aforementioned aspect. Bhabha draws his hypotheses from evidences regarding post-colonial racism and the “paradox of otherness” that has been responsible in constructing various racial stereotypes in the society. The stereotypes developed by these notions only exaggerate the difference thus widening the gap between the races. J.M. Coetzee alludes to the description of the Native people by colonial writers. The text cited by Coetzee compares the Native people with animals and is an extreme depiction of the notion of ‘racial otherness’ that were possessed by the writers of that era (Hook, 2005, p. 1). Coetzee cites the author’s words in his work that are as follows: The local natives have everything in common with the dumb cattle, barring their human nature… [They] are handicapped in their speech, clucking like turkey-cocks… Their food consists of herbs, cattle, wild animals and fish. The animals are eaten together with their internal organs. Having been shaken out a little, the intestines are not washed, but as soon as the animal has been slaughtered or discovered, these are eaten raw, skin and all…A number of them will sleep together in the veldt, making no difference between men and women…They all smell fiercely, as can be noted at a distance of more than twelve feet against the wind, and they also give the appearance of never having washed... (Hondius, Coetzee cited in Hook, 2005, p. 1) European colonizers had deemed every other culture and people, who did not conform to their standards as inferior to them and this superiority complex formed the basis of all their actions. They often viewed the inhabitants of their colony as crude and unrefined, and often at time they were hyper-sexualized. Since, society was primarily patriarchal; therefore, sexual relations between the European men and slave women were a symbol of power and were not frowned upon at all. Colonial power to them meant dominance in every form, including sexual domination; however in Chocolat, the gender roles have switched that intensifies the prime conflict between the two characters. Bhabha has also incorporated the notion of ‘ambivalence’ in his explanation, which refers to the coexistence of two completely antithetical emotions or urges. In this regard, the concept can be applied to the discriminatory power of the colonizers, as they dominate a culture or region that is completely opposite to their own and then they try to mould it according to their cultural values and beliefs. Ambivalence has now become a force that blows the existing racial differences out of proportions, which not only highlights the vast gap in the ideology but further instils the idea amongst the colonized people as to how irreconcilable their differences are. However, despite all the differences, the Europeans were successful enough to incorporate their culture with that of the Black masses, but made sure that they maintained their iron-clad control over them. Robert Young cites Foucauldian explanation of the colonial power struggle in the following words: “What gives power its hold, what makes it accepted, is quite simply the fact that it does not weigh like a force, which says no, but it runs through, and it produces, things, it induces pleasure, it forms knowledge, it produces discourses; it must be considered as a productive network, which runs through the entire social body much more than as a negative instance whose function is repression”. (Young, 1995, p. 14) Colonizers were unsympathetic to the colonized population and not only their culture, lifestyle but they even looked down upon them because of their looks. To them, they were crude in every sense of the word. They justified slavery on their unreasonable superiority complex and furthermore, in light of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of fetishism that is hypothesized by Bhabha to be quite adept at explaining the dynamics of racial discourse and stereotyping. Fetishism itself was described as anything that would substitute a phallus. This becomes a major conflict as the pleasure is derived from a non-phallic object that results in the build-up of tension. The tension causes the object to become regressed in the individual’s fantasy that then eventually results in the construction of stereotypes. Fetishism springs up in an individual’s psyche as a result of the disavowal of differences. The term disavowal means that the individual realizes that there are differences but decides not to acknowledge those. The anxiety resulting from this mental blockade is similar to the one experienced as a result of developing fetishes but it gradually manifests itself in the form of narcissism and then leads to full-fledged discriminatory practices (Hook, 2005, p. 19). Therefore, as per Freud’s theory, the behaviour of the colonizers and their establishment of those racial stereotypes stemmed from unresolved sexual conflicts. As mentioned earlier, the African population held a very exotic image in the eyes of the Westerners; obviously Freud’s theory serves as more of an allegory than an actual explanation of the dynamics of this particular appraisal process. The Fetish sparks from the difference, which in this regard is vastly physical in nature; considering the tall, broad, black stature of the Africans to the White and smaller physique of the Europeans. As postulated by Bhabha, these differences though may have been disavowed, but it is ostensible that the Europeans were motivated to ‘domesticate’ this difference as opposed to ‘eradicating’ it. Therefore, they took on the roles of their masters, while the Africans became their passive slaves. (Bhabha, 1983) It can be seen that through this method, the Europeans were actively trying to narrow down the level of divergence between the slaves and masters. It is the essence of colonial power that manifested itself amongst the Europeans and the formation of the notion of “Other”. The ideology discussed above is similar to that of the notions of Orientalism, which are the set of traits and characteristics attached with people from the Eastern cultures. Their perception of these colonized populations is not based on facts or figures but is indeed the result of their preconceived ideas about the people and a deep-rooted ethnocentricism. The aforementioned factors have been responsible in moulding the contemporary concepts of racism. In concurrence with the hypotheses presented by Bhabha, who associated sexuality with the dominant nature of the colonizers, Foucault further tries to elaborate upon this aspect of the matter that completely negates the ‘paradigm of dominance and subversion’ that were established by his predecessors. Foucault’s perspective on the association of sexuality with colonialism is not taken in terms of carnal behaviour of man, but it is largely from the perspective of procreation and puts the eugenicists’ views in action. Foucault’s theory of colonialism has plenty of loopholes and largely ignored traditionalist ideology due to which, the theory may lack practical applicability. Foucault further writes in his book titled, ‘History of Sexuality’: “We must conceive discourse as a series of discontinuous segments whose tactical function is neither uniform nor stable. To be more precise, we must not imagine a world of discourse, or between the dominant discourse and the dominated one; but as multiplicity of discursive elements that can come into play in various strategies...” (Foucault cited in Young, 1995, p. 4) III. Non-Mainstream Media Portrayal of Slavery The western media has established its reputation for having a profound impact on global dynamics, but their media is quite biased in depicting events and ideas pertaining to race issues. Since the western media aspires to become the prime fodder for global consumption, it readily adapts itself to produce homogenized media content that seems acceptable to all. It tries not to hit upon sensitive issues and in this regard has often been accused of producing kitsch and shying away from raising awareness about genuinely important matter. Moreover, even if western media began portraying the race issue, in the end, they relate the events from the perspective of the colonizers and thereby, it will not be an accurate representation of the issue. This aspect of the subject will be elaborated in the light of Chocolat that depicts the relationship between colonizers and natives as accurately as possible. It does not just reduce them to a status of a weak slave, but Claire Denis has beautifully given him traits that should have entitled him to a much nobler status than what was conferred upon him. Despite Protee’s righteousness, in the end he was a slave who was banished from the household even when he was not in the wrong. This depicts the true slave-master relationship; slavery is indeed important to understand the dynamics of race and identity in the contemporary society. Notions pertaining to slavery are often used by the non-mainstream media to depict the ideology sparked by it, which continues to exist amongst the people today. (Schwarz, 2012) As mentioned earlier, the last scene of Chocolat epitomizes this aspect; throughout the movie the white women hint their attraction to a black man and are both left rejected. This is because that even though, the colonizers had effectively sexualized the native people; the native people on the other saw them as mere colonizers and nothing more. This was fundamentally due to the unavoidable physically dissimilarities between the white population and black population. They are naturally drawn to women from their own race and this is where the subplot involving Mungo, the African American man who offers France a lift, becomes intensely pertinent to point in discussion. While France wanders around the Cameroonian countryside, Mungo is in Cameroon because he wanted to get closer to his roots and he is travelling with his son. He married a Cameroonian woman, but it is hinted that he is currently separated from her, which makes him romantically available. However, even then he rejects France’s advances that lead her to the conclusion that even with the passage of several years and the end of European colonial rule over then, things are still the same. The African man still did not see European women as the object of his romantic feelings and this behaviour can be understood using the notions of slavery and how it is responsible for this kind of attitude towards interracial coupling. As slavery reached new heights in various areas around the world, including North America and Europe, the African slaves were quite despondent because of the racial Diaspora that had not only taken them away from their homeland, but also reduced them to a despicable, serf-like status. Therefore, in order to divert their minds from the hopelessness of their situation, the African slaves had developed a self-defence mechanism and began taking great pride in their heritage and racial identity. Due to the fact that they were not getting their share of acknowledgement this led to a rise in Black pride and subsequently, Africans showed an inclination towards people and objects that pertained to their own culture and but began a silent rebellion against the European ideology that was being imposed upon them. (Murphy, 1992, p. 68) In the end, we come to see that young France, much like her mother was also infatuated with strong and sturdy Protee. Though, the houseboy was the object of Aimee’s lecherous desires, but in the eyes of France, he had been a source of constant support and was more of a man than anyone she had ever known. He offered the child a sense of security, because of which not only was she drawn to Protee as a child, but to Mungo as well, who is the reason behind her sudden flashback and she is flooded with the memories of the houseboy, whom her mother wrongly banished. France is depicted as a transient being in the story and it can be further postulated that her character was indeed a metaphor for the actual country, France’s colonial rule over Cameroon, which may have been oppressive but Cameroon does incite nostalgia, as like France there were many European children, who have spent their childhood in the region during the colonial rule. This characteristic of France can be seen when she gets her palms read by Mungo, who comments that never has he seen palm that is devoid of a lifeline and further stating that she is someone, who has ‘no past and no future’. (Chocolat, 1988) Mungo and Protee are two characters, which ran parallel throughout the course of the story, but Mungo exhibited a much stronger image of the African man than Protee. Protee was the silent rebel, who was mortified because of the shamefulness of his position in the household, but he held his head. Whereas, Mungo was an educated African American, who took pride in his racial identity; in another instance, Mungo politely declines, unlike Protee’s silent rejection of Aimee, which shows how greatly the African population had developed after the end of the colonial rule. Throughout the movie and even in reality, the African population is depicted as headstrong and dignified. Although, the African population were initially rendered disintegrated as a result of the brutal slave trading industry, but these events in the history has shaped their culture now. Chocolat, being a part of the non-mainstream media has used the notions of slavery to create a suitable comparison between the people and society then and how it has changed up till now. The non-mainstream media relies heavily on the concept of slavery because it is a crucial point in the history of colonialism that shows how racial identity was developed and led to the African pride that dominates almost every aspect of the African culture not. Had their colonizers not incited them to begin to take pride in their existence, the African ideology would have gradually deteriorated and they would have taken after their western counterparts, leading to a gradual westernization of the entire world. In conclusion, European Colonialism and slavery have been deemed as important factors that led to the development racial identity. It is an important part of history as well and thus it cannot be omitted either. Since, the mainstream media is obligated to cater to the demands of the masses; it is unlikely that it would ever hit upon such sensitive issue, which leaves only the non-mainstream media that is capable of weaving thought provoking storylines and scripts that truly describes the essence of racial identity and succinctly describes changes in the society over the years. Chocolat is a critically acclaimed movie not only because of its powerful script, but because of the powerful theme it entails and beautiful metaphors that sheds an interesting light on the matter. Bibliography Bhabha, H. (1983). The “Other” question: Stereotypes and Colonial Discourse. [Online]. Available at: Chocolat. (1988). [Film] Directed by Claire Denis. France: Orion Classics. Hook, D. (2005). “The Racial Stereotype, Colonial Discourse, Fetishism and Racism”. [Online]. London: LSE Research Online. Available at: Murphy, K. (1992). “The Color of Home: Blacks and Whites in the films of Claire Denis”. Film Comment: p. 68 Schwarz, A. (2012). “Chocolat (1988) by Claire Denis: A case-study for race and Representation in German and European cinema. Santa Cruz: GRIN Verlag. Young, R. (1995). Foucault on Racism and Colonialism .[Online]. Available at: Read More