Media Criticism

I remember watching the seminal western The Searchers in a film studies course and hearing about how great the movie was from my instructor. The company line was that the sets were wonderful, the direction was magnificent and John Wayne was prototypically American in his portrayal of a hardened cowboy. I think portrayals about Africa are similar to John Wayne movies in their use of Westernized versions of Africa. The dangerous part about these portrayals is that they seem to confirm our diplomatic history with the continent. The one advantage of Wayne’s movies was that the wars had been completed during filming.

There are two articles in the recent issue of GOOD Magazine that cover the issue of American diplomacy with Africa. An article by Sasha Polakow-Suransky speaks to frustrations with portraying Africa with notable exceptions like Don Cheadle’s turn in Hotel Rwanda. The second article by Andrew Woods discusses the use of poor Africans as contractors in Iraq. These articles point to a frustrating development in dealing with Africa. The power of the pocket book is used to donate to charities headed by celebrities in a shallow effort to help faraway Africans without dealing with fundamental diplomatic issues that keeps aid out of the hands of those who need it. We are suffering from Western guilt in dealing with former colonies pushed down by centuries of racism.

Everyone should be pissed about the way Africa is addressed in our daily life. Voters should demand a conversation with politicians and business leaders beyond the superficial discussion of solving the AIDS crisis. Africans need roads, phones, food and homes instead of surplus grain and a sympathetic smile. Consumers need to boycott movies where actors without any knowledge of Africa try to speak to intensely parochial issues on the continent. In the end, American consumers have an immense amount of power to direct money, time and energy toward changing the system instead of feeding money into our own corrupt government into the mostly corrupt governments in Africa.