African Attention

Watching Leonardo DiCaprio share the screen with genuine handless black Africans or Ralph Fiennes’s gardener learn a lesson in postcolonial realpolitik while I munch my popcorn doesn’t rouse me to action; it stirs horror, pity, sometimes repulsion, sentiments that linger uneasily until the action starts up again to sweep away that empathy with another explosion, gunfight or rousing chase.

So writes Mahohla Dargis in her excellent essay, “Africa at the Cineplex,” in today’s New York Times about the true outcomes of the recent swatch of commercial features about Africa. Movies like Blood Diamond along with recent ad campaigns and celebrity trips — all are certainly making the continent and its troubles more familiar to Americans. But, as Dargis, points out, what of it? Are Americans understanding Africa any better? Doing anything, really? We Americans are lucky to be able to spend a few hours in the cinema feeling for Africas or to be able to buy something nice for ourselves and, on the side, give a few dollars to Africa as well. And the film companies make money for themselves, their investors, with a bit goes to Africa as well.

Don’t know the answer, but I’m glad there are folks like Mahohla Dargis pointing out the realities of Our African Attention.