Colonialism, Racism and Representation:An Introduction

COLONIALISM , RACISM AND REPRESENTATION :AN INTRODUCTION
Robert stam and Louise Spence
Discussion of Third world cinema represents an inevitable counter current to

the theory and practice of a predominantly western cinema. Many western film
makers and critics are active supporters of the effort to develop progressive
national cinemas in the ‘Third world', and they are highly appreciative of the
difference of strategies and priorities that often develop. But to a considerable
degree the terms of analysis that continue to be applied to ‘Third world films' and
to women and members of minority groups in American and European films, are
those of an older tradition that stresses the analysis of content and social
stereotype.
Robert Stam and Louise Spence acknowledge the value of that tradition as a
starting point in their essay ‘Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An
Introduction, but they go on to indicate it’s limitations and propose an agenda that
takes into account recent examination of cinematic discourse and textual
specificity. They attempt to sketch out the background of the questions raised in
the looks and essays on Racism and Colonialism in cinema. They also offer some
preliminary definition of key terms and propose the outline of a methodology in
the form of a series of concerns addressable to specific texts and representations.
Their discussion draws from and applies to the analysis of other oppressions such
as sexism, class subordination and anti-Semitism and to all situations in which
difference is transformed into otherness and exploited by power.
DEFINITIONS
An attempt has been made by Robert Stam and Louise Spence to define terms
like ‘Colonialism', the ‘Third world' and ‘Racism’. By colonialism they refer to the
process by which the European powers reached a position of economic, political,
military and cultural domination in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America. It had
begun with the ‘Voyages of discovery' and reached its height between 1900 and
the end of world War I. This situation was reversed only after World War ll with the
disintegration of European powers.
The idea of the ‘Third World' evolves from the idea of ‘colonialism'. It refers
to the historical victims of this process -the colonise, neo -colonises or de -colonised
nations whose economic and political structures have been shaped and deformed
in the course of structural domination.
Racism, though not limited to the colonial situation, has been both an ally and
a product of the colonisation process. The most obvious victims of racism are the
blacks in the US, Asians and west Indians in Great Britain, Arab workers in France
all of whom share the status of second class citizens. Racism for Albert Memmi is a
rationale for an already existing or contemplated oppression. It comes in the wake
of concrete oppressions.
Europe constructed it’s self – image on the lacks of it’s equally constructed
other – the ‘Savage', the ‘Cannibal'. Cinema and television might be said to inscribe
certain features of European colonialism and affirms the colonisers’ sense of power
while making the inhabitants of the ‘Third world' objects of spectacles for the first
world's voyeuristic gaze. Colonialist representation did not begin with the cinema.
It had long before been present in western literature (both the process of
colonialist image making an resistance to that process).Daniel Defoe's ‘Robinson
Crusoe' and Shakespeare's ‘The Tempest' are examples of these two. Since the
beginning of cinema coincided with the height of European cinema portrayed the
colonised in an unflattering light. Indeed, many of the misconceptions concerning
‘Third world' people derive from the long parade of lazy Mexicans, shifty Arabs,
savage Africans and exotic Asiatic that have appeared in our movie screens.
Often the representation of ‘Third world' is biased and misrepresented. The

innumerable ethnographic, linguistic and even topographical blunders are
illuminating in this regard. At times the flow is not from the presence of distorting
stereotype, but from the absence of representation of an oppressed group. At
other times the absence has nothing to do with the people but with a dimension of
that people's History or institutions. A whole realm of Afro-American history, the
slave revolt for example is rarely represented in film, or is represented as a man,
already deaf, in a ditch. The absence of the language of the colonised is also
symptomatic of colonialist attitude. The language spoken by the ‘Third world'
people are often reduced to an incomprehensible jumble of background murmurs.
Major ‘native ‘characters are obliged to meet the coloniser on the colonisers'
linguistic turf.
In response to such distortions, the ‘Third world' has attempted to write its
own history, take control on its own cinematic image, speak in it’s own voice. A
central impulse animating many Third world films is precisely the effort to reclaim
the past. Women and Third world film makers have attempted to counter pose the
objectifying discourse of patriarchy and colonialism with a vision of themselves and
their reality as seen from within. But this laudable intention is not always
unproblematic. ‘Reality is not self-evidently given and ‘Truth' cannot be
immediately captured by the camera. Furthermore , a distinction has to be made
between realism as goal and realism as style capable of producing an illusionistic
‘reality effect’. Realism as a goal is quite compatible with a style which is reflexive
and deconstructive.
POSITIVE IMAGES
Much of the work of racism in the cinema has stressed the issues of the
‘positive image’. This reductionism is inadequate and fought with problems. The
exact nature of ‘positive' , first of all is relative, for example black incarnation of
patience and gradualism have always been more pleasing to writers than to blacks.
Similarly , simply inserting new heroes and heroines, drawn from the ranks of the
oppressed into the old functional roles that were themselves oppressive, is also
suspicious. Complimentary to the search for positive images is the exposure of
negative images or stereotypes which entails similar methodological problems. This
preoccupation with images, whether positive or negative leads to privileging of
characterological concerns and the critic reduces a diversity of portrayals to a
limited set of stereotypes. This kind of simplification runs the risk of reproducing
the very racism they were initially designed to contact. (attempting to show a non
racial attitude).
The analysis of stereotypes must also take cultural specificity into account,
for example many North American black stereotypes are not entirely congestive
with those of Brazil, also a multi-ethnic New world society with a large black
population. The stereotypical ‘mammy' or the 'tragic mulatto' do not have an exact
correspondence in reality here. Similarly an ethnocentric vision rooted in North
American cultural patterns which can lead to the ‘racializing' or the ‘introjection'
(internalisation) of racial themes into filmic situations which Brazilians themselves
would not perceive as racially connoted.
A comprehensive methodology must pay attention to the mediations which

intervene between reality and representation. Its emphasis should be on narrative
structure, genre conventions and cinematic style rather than a perfect correctness
of representation or fidelity to an original ‘real’ model or prototype. We must ward
off mistakes in which the criteria appropriate to one genre are applied to another.
POLITICAL POSITIONING
One mediation specific to cinema is spectator positioning. Often the spectator

is positioned on the side of the coloniser and the spectators' sympathies are with
the white mercenaries. The viewer is forced behind the barrel of a repeating rifle
and it is from that position through its gun sights, that he receives a picture history
of western colonialism and imperialism. One of the crucial innovations of 'Battle of
Algiers’ was to invest this imagery of encirclement and exploit the identification
mechanisms of cinema on behalf of the colonised rather than the coloniser. While
never caricaturing the French, the film exposes the oppressive logic of colonialism
and fosters our complicity with the Algerians. This time it is the colonises who are
encircled and menaced and with whom we identify. The question of point of view
is thus crucial and also more complex than it might appear at first. It must also be
remembered that the granting of point of view shots to the oppressed does not
guaranteed a non colonialist perspective.
A more comprehensive analysis of character status as speaking subject, not

as spoken object, would attend to cinematic and extra cinematic codes and to their
interweaving within textual systems. It must address the instances through which
film speaks, composing, framing, scale, off and on screen sound, music as well as
questions of plots and characters. The music track can play a crucial role in the
establishment of a political point of view and the cultural positioning of the
spectator. Film music has an emotional dimension : it can regulate our sympathies,
extract our tears or trigger our tears. In many classic Hollywood films African
polyrhythm signify an encircling savagery and create an atmosphere of menace. In
contrast there are films which treat the same with respect, as music.
ABERRANT READINGS
The filmic experience must inevitably be inflected by the cultural awareness

of the audience which is constituted outside the text and traversed by self of social
relations such as race, class, and gender. So there is a possibility of aberrant
readings. Although fiction films produce specific impressions and emotions, they
are not at all powerful , they may be read differently by different audiences.
Hollywood is I’ll informed portrayal of Latin America. American life were sometimes
laughed off the screen within Latin America itself. A particular audience's
knowledge or experience can also generate a counter pressure to colonialist
representation. The movement of an Aberrant reading can also proceed in the
opposite direction; an anti racist film when subjected to the ethnocentric
prejudices of a particular critic or an interpretative community, can be read in a
racist fashion.
We must be aware of the cultural and ideological assumptions spectators

bring to the cinema. We must also be conscious Of the institutionalised
expectations that serve as the subjective support to the film industry, which leads
us to consume films in a certain way. But many Third world film makers find such a
model inappropriate. They argue for a model rooted in the actual circumstances of
the Third world. To expect to find First world production values in Third world films
is to be both naïve and ethnocentric. Similarly to prospect for Third world auteurs
is to apply a regressive analytical model which implicitly valorises dominant cinema
and promises only to invite a few elite members of the Third world into an already
established pantheon. (a group of particularly respected, famous, or important
people).
Robert stam and Louise Spence conclude that their study aims only to
learn how to decode and deconstruct racist images and sounds. Racism is
not permanently inscribed in celluloid or in the human mind; it forms part of
a constantly changing dialectical process within which we arefar from
powerless.

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COLONIALISM , RACISM AND REPRESENTATION :AN INTRODUCTION

Robert stam and Louise Spence

Discussion of Third world cinema represents an inevitable counter current to

Often the representation of ‘Third world' is biased and misrepresented. The

A comprehensive methodology must pay attention to the mediations which

One mediation specific to cinema is spectator positioning. Often the spectator

A more comprehensive analysis of character status as speaking subject, not

The filmic experience must inevitably be inflected by the cultural awareness

We must be aware of the cultural and ideological assumptions spectators

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