Chris Blattman

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Four African men school you on Hollywood stereotypes

Source. Do watch in its entirety.

Produced by Mama Hope, a rather sensible-sounding Western NGO. Am curious if that is the case.

h/t csu

6 Responses

  1. I have watched this video several times now, and I have come to agree with the comments listed above. At first I thought, “Well, It is true,” but then I realized every culture has a negative stereotype. It is a shame that when thinking of an African man the images of a Hollywood movie come to mind. The filmmaker’s intents are in the right place, but the video says more about the ideas of the filmmaker and less about what an African man really is.

  2. I totally agree with all previous comments: it’s paternalistic and seems to assume that Africans need some special handling, I cannot imagine German students showing off their smiles (‘hellooo, 67 years passed since WWII’) or, as pointed out, any other culture that may have suffered from negative stereotyping in popular western culture. There certainly is much to complain about one-sided media images about Africa but then start somewhere else..

  3. I agree with the good intents, but I don’t see it as necessary. The clips used were highly selective, featuring only a couple of films (Black Hawk Down, Tears of the Sun, Lord of War – where the main ‘evil’ character was western – and Blood Diamond, with a little of James Bond and others). You could find that number of negative stereotypes of virtually any culture, race or geographic locale – from Asia, Latin America, Middle East to Scandinavians and other western groups. Hell, you could do it just for New Yorkers or Texans. Meanwhile it ignores other portrayals of African men (Invictus, Power of One – yes I know they are both from South Africa, but I’m not constructing a water tight thesis here), or even characters within the films themself. In some cases movies reflect real life events or are inspired by them (Black Hawk Down, Hotel Rwanda or Last King of Scotland), and there were genuinely evil events and people. But people do not think all Germans are evil because of WWII movies, and we shouldn’t hide those events, so why make a fuss over these films? This smacks of bleeding heart, high horse smugness trying to solve a problem seen through a stovepipe. I don’t really see the point of it.

  4. I appreciate the intent, but agree with the comment above on the execution. I’m not sure why they use subtitles, when all four men speak flawless English. I’ve had more trouble understanding accents in the Southern United States! It seems paternalistic and at odds with the message of the video.

  5. I dunno. I appreciate efforts to dispel simplistic Kony2012-type stereotypes, but something about this seems off to me. It strikes me more as a script that a Northerner determined to present a “positive” portrait of Africa would come up with than something a group of young African men would say about themselves. The video says more about the person behind the camera and his/her agenda than it says about these guys.

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