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

Pt. 1

[catiechu.livejournal.com]

The more I think about it, the more I think the details known about a famous writer's life may have to do with the works completed. More is probably known of the late J.D. Salinger than of Dumas. Both were celebrities and are still widely read, but the highly prolific writers such as Dumas tend to be given less attention toward personal habits and more toward their many published (and sometimes unpublished) works. The very most the average reader seems to know about Dumas is that he was a lover of excesses, but then that fact adheres to the resplendent manner of his works, so. ;)

However, to refute that notion too, American Psycho is a novel that's widely read and highly esteemed, yet I'm not sure how many readers know that Bret Easton Ellis is homosexual. *shrugs* And maybe the fact of Dumas's heritage and other details of his person were more commonly known nearer to his day, when reading was not so often kicked aside in favor of TV.

I'm pretty sure I received a good grade for that project--but that was, oof, three years ago now. Jesus.