Whitewashing in movies: French edition

[salinea]

So yesterday, I went to the movie theater (to watch Princess and the Frog, which was good, btw, nice songs); and I saw an ad for one of those big historical dramas that French cinemas like so much, called "L'Autre Dumas" (The other Dumas); about Alexandre Dumas; and his relationship with one of his writing collaborator/ghost writer Guillaume Maquet. Gerard Depardieu plays Alexandre Dumas.

In case you're wondering "so, what?", this is a picture of Alexandre Dumas:
Dumas was a little bit Black, you see. Grandson of a Black slave from Saint Domingue aka Haiti. Yeah.
Funnily enough I never learned that one in any of the classes at school.

For added irony, the French word for "ghostwriter" is the same word as the French N-word. (Yes, people keep using it widely in the media without wondering if it might offend anyone). So all the synopsis are talking about it as the relationship between (white) Alexandre Dumas and his "N-word" with a heavy connotation of "and his slave". (One article I saw, not about the movie, but about a book on the same subject re-edited for the occasion uses the sentence: "L’ironie de l’Histoire veut qu’à l’heure où la France s’apprête, en 1848, à abolir l’esclavage trime dans les soutes de Paris un nouveau type d’esclave, le « nègre littéraire »." = "The irony of History wills that at the time when France, in 1848, is on the verge of abolishing slavery, a new type of slaves is working in the holds of Paris." Yeah, really. Ghostwriting = exactly like slavery! *facepalm*). Which, interestingly, back in 1845, was exactly the sort of word games a Pamphlet against Dumas on the subject of ghostwriting by Eugene de Mirecourt, who really liked to use racist language against Dumas, and for which Dumas even got him condemned. Which, it gets worse, according to the wikipedia is even where the etymology of this particular use of the word "nègre" in French comes from. Oh, for fuck's sake!

Are they really making a movie about Dumas and ghostwriting without addressing the context of racism that shaped the whole controversy? Or are they going to address the controversy blindingly ignoring the irony of what the fact having a white actor playing a biracial historical figure means about racism in contemporary France? Either way, this is full of fail.

ETA: Two articles in French criticising the whitewashing as well.

Comments

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's common knowledge, not compared to how well known Dumas is. I mean, everyone knows Les Trois Mousquetaires, right? Huge part of pop culture. People who know Dumas was mixed race, though, they are only people who are specifically knowledgeable in French Literature History or Dumas specifically. I'm pretty sure we studied Count of Monte Cristo when I was in middle school (my memories are vague, though), and the fact certainly wasn't deemed worthy of mentioning. Then again,, France can be very weird about race, as in, even mentioning it is considered sort of taboo, so perhaps in places when it's not such a taboo, they more openly talk about it.

And yes, a whole fucking lot of fail :(

[laurus-nobilis.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I know I didn't learnt it at school, certainly. But we're pretty weird about race here, too.

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yeah, well, who isn't :( though in many different ways.

Anyway the movie is certainly not going to propagate the fact widely.