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COPYRIGHT 2008 Indiana University Press
ABSTRACT
Djibril Diop Mambety's film Hyenas (1992) has typically been read as an Africanized version of Friedrich Durrenmatt's 1962 play, The Visit. Although the play is an important influence on Mambety's film, it is not the only one. The form and iconography of Hyenas seem to derive from the Hollywood western. Mambety engages the western in his film in order to critique materialism, American cultural hegemony, and Western economic imperialism. Moreover, Hyenas suggests that the western serves as a narrative that promotes and legitimizes all of these. Ultimately, Mambety presents globalization, and the narrative of the western to which it is linked, as a new form of colonization, one that Africans have willingly embraced.
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Le vent souffle en Arizona Un etat d'Amerique dans lequel Harry zona Cow-boy dingue du bang bang du flingue De l'arme, du cheval et de quoi faire la bringue Poursuivi par Smith & Wesson, Colt, Derringer, Winchester & Remington Il erre dans les plaines, fier, solitaire Son cheval est son partenaire Parfois, il rencontre des indiens Mais la ruee vers l'or est son seul dessein Sa vie suit un cours que l'on connait par cceur The wind blows in Arizona A state of America where Harry wandered Gun-crazy cowboy Nuts about weapons, horses, and parties Chased by Smith & Wesson Colt, Derringer, Winchester, & Remington He rides on the plains, proud, solitary His horse is his partner Sometimes, he encounters Indians But his only interest is the gold rush His life follows a path we know by heart La riviere sans retour d'Otto Preminger Tandis que John Wayne est looke a la Lucky Luke Propre comme un archiduc. Oncle Sam me dupe Hollywood nous berne. Hollywood berne! Dans la vie de tous les jours comme dans Les nouveaux westerns MC Solaar, "Nouveau western" (1994) Otto Preminger's River of No Return John Wayne dressed like Lucky Luke Clean like an archduke. So says Uncle Sam Hollywood deceives us. Hollywood lies! In every day life just like in The new westerns
In his song "Nouveau Western" from 1994, the French rapper MC Solaar problematizes the Hollywood Western and asserts that it is a narrative that justifies, legitimizes, and in many ways lays the foundation for a form of American economic imperialism associated around the world with globalization. Solaar describes a stereotypical western where a fictional cowboy named Harry, whom Solaar classifies as "dingue du bang-bang," or "crazy for guns," rides his horse through Arizona. Solaar evokes an Indian presence but asserts that the gold rush, or money, is what really counts for Harry. He then presents another more familiar landscape where "saloons are bistrots," where Harry's horse is a 2 CV, and where "the bankcard replaces the Remington." For Solaar, the present day in the industrialized world is the logical consequence of the consumption of narratives about the American West, a fact he renders explicit by asserting that "Hollywood lies," a line he repeats for emphasis. According to Solaar, contemporary culture in the industrialized world shares with the film western an extreme valorization of the individual, a fascination with violence, and a value system in which the search for wealth figures prominently. Finally, both globalization and the Western have their roots in the United States.
Why begin an analysis of Djibril Diop Mambety's 1992 film Hyenas with a song by a French rapper? The obvious answer is that both the film and the song constitute critiques of Americanization and globalization, and the two critiques are from the same period. Hyenas, a revenge narrative that recounts the once disgraced Linguere Ramatou's return to her native village of Colobane, has been read from the time of its release as a critique of globalization.' Mary Ellen Higgins, for example, has read the film as a commentary on "those whose plights are rhetorically significant in international development discourses, but who are not included in [those] development discourses [...] (59)." Mambety himself asserted that the film demonstrated the way in which Africans are "betraying the hopes of independence for the false promise of Western materialism" (cited in Ukadike). Various characters in the film comment that Linguere Ramatou, one of the film's central characters, is "richer than the World Bank," the institution most closely associated with Western and particularly American economic policy. Moreover, since Ramatou's return motivates much of the action, the film would seem to be engaging in an analysis of the effects of the influence of such institutions on Africa and Africans. I would suggest, however, that the connection between Solaar's song and Mambety's film runs much deeper than the simple critique of the expansion of global capital, and that, in fact, Mambety, like Solaar, references the Hollywood western as a narrative that justifies and promotes materialism, American cultural hegemony, and Western economic imperialism. Moreover, Hyenas presents globalization, and the narrative of the western to which it ties globalization, as a new form of colonization, one that Africans have willingly embraced.
Given that a good deal of critical space has been devoted to exploring the "Africanness" of African cinema, it may be counterintuitive to explore the way in which an African film engages the a well established Hollywood genre. As David Murphy has asserted, however, debates about "the nature of African cinema have too often been trapped within a reductive opposition between Western and African culture (241)." If the relationship between Africa and the West cannot be reduced to oppositional logic, it is true, as Francoise Pfaff has noted, that African directors have often sought, in their films "to challenge hegemonic Western iconography and assert their African identity" (1). In fact, African directors are, in many ways, obliged to engage Western culture directly when making films. If it is not true that the medium of filmmaking belongs to the West, it is nonetheless true that film practice and film language as they have evolved are bound up in Western worldviews and cultural values. (2) This has particular significance for Africa.
Ella Shohat and Robert Stam have commented on cinemas inherently colonial ideology. Colonial-era cinema, according to Shohat and Stam, "combined narrative and spectacle to tell the story of colonialism from the colonizer's perspective" (109). Cinemas colonial function was guaranteed by negative portrayals of indigenous peoples that served to legitimize Western imperialism's purported civilizing mission (109). Such representations were guaranteed by laws, such as the Laval Decree, which gave European powers the ability to control the images of the colonies presented in films and therefore to effectively deny film authorship to indigenous people. While the imperial adventure film is the most obvious example of a pro-colonial cinema, it is far from the only type of film to have advanced and legitimized the imperial enterprise.
Shohat and Stam have also read the Western, one of the earliest film genres to evolve, as a filmic cousin to the imperial adventure. They suggest, for example, that westerns and colonial films shared basic narrative and ideological characteristics, with the primary difference being that colonial films were set in Africa, India, or other European colonies, whereas westerns "told the story of imperial-style adventures on the American frontier" (114). The myth of the frontier is itself intimately bound up in colonial ideology, according to Shohat and Stam, both because it emerged in the colonial era and because it valorizes the hierarchical, competitive logic that justifies imperialism (115). Finally, the westerns imperial narrative was compounded by the existence of a temporally condensed representation of history and a spatially condensed setting, both of which are also typical of the colonial film (115). Therefore, the western, like the imperial cinema, constitutes "a hegemonic colonial discourse" that encourages non-Europeans to identify with the West and against their own interests and people (103).
Unlike the imperial adventure film, however, the western is a significant genre. David Lusted has argued, for example, that from the earliest days of Hollywood until the 1970s, "the production of Westerns was central to the popularity and profitability of the Hollywood film industry" (11). In fact, the Western accounted for nearly a quarter of all Hollywood film production from 1927 to 1967 (Shohat and Stam: 114). The western was one of the only early genres Hollywood can be seen to have invented entirely on its own (French cinema being the dominant cinema in the early days of the industry). No less a scholar...
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