Lyrics
I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
Chorus:
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become
Chorus
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She's coming in 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation
I stopped an old man along the way
Hoping to find some long forgotten words or ancient melodies
He turned to me as if to say, "Hurry boy, it's waiting there for you"
Chorus:
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
The wild dogs cry out in the night
As they grow restless longing for some solitary company
I know that I must do what's right
Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become
Chorus
Hurry boy, she's waiting there for you
It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa, I bless the rains down in Africa
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had
This song by Toto has become a bit of a cliché, but it still pretty awesome. Obviously Africa is here presented, using some stereotypes about the continent that are prevalent in the western world. I don't think that's really problematic in this case. The same things happen though in the movie I linked this song too. And there it is quite problematic.
The Movie: Out of Africa (Sydney Pollack, 1985)
During my Media & Culture studies, I had to read a lot of essays on the representation of black people in cinema. I also read a lot about how western culture presents Africa and Asia as an 'Other'.These representations can be pretty racist, as the African (or Asian) peoples are presented as uncivilized and uneducated, among other things. And they are presented in a romantic way. It is often implied that they are somehow closer to nature. The western world then used this ideas to present itself as better than their colonies, and to justify their colonization. Non-western characters are presented in such a way in quite a lot of Hollywood movies. I don't think that this makes these movies automatically bad or immoral. Nor is it always hugely problematic. Most movies have to tell a story in 90 - 120 minutes and to expect them to give an entirely objective and fair portrayal of everything is not really fair or sensible. But I did find Out of Africa to be really problematic, mostly because it wants to say something serious about Africa. And I have rarely seen a movie that's so unnuanced in its portrayal of the 'Other.'
But I will come back to that later. First I want to note that even if I hadn't studied all this things I would not have liked this movie. I suppose the movie wants us to swoon over the tragic romance between Denys (Robert Redford) and Danish writer Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep). Tragic, because while Karen is a staunch realist, Denys is a hopeless romantic. And in the end that keeps them apart. The problem was that I didn't find their characters believable and their behavior depended very much on the whims of the screenwriter. The movie to me didn't make it believable that they would fall for each other. And once they had fallen in love with each other, I found the misunderstandings that caused their eventually break up to be unbelievable too. Having said that, I can understand why other people would love it. If you connect to these characters, this can be a pretty great romance. Furthermore, I haven't read anything by Karen Blixen, but I understand she was a great writer, once even considered for a Nobel Prize. Yet, based on this movie, whose narration and some of the dialogue is based on her books, I don't find her writing all that interesting. Meryl Streep gives a pretty dull perfomance, that's only distinctive because of her Danish accent. I am no fan of Robert Redford (as an actor, I am a big fan of the movies he has directed), but he actually livens up the movie here. The movie's MVP is Michael Kitchen, who plays Denys' best friend Berkeley and brings much needed energy to the movie. What I liked most about the movie was actually the relationship between Karen and Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer). They have married for purely pragmatic reasons and do not care to pretend otherwise. Yet they don't hate each other and are quite blasé and realistic when their marriage ends. Afterwards they don't see each other very often anymore, but the interactions between them are utterly normal. Most movies would handle this relationship in a completely different way, and I thought this approach was pretty refreshing.
Now, let's come back to the representation of Africa here. It's pretty awful. I have never seen a mainstream American movie which deals so unproblematically with the European colonialisation of Africa, basically celebrating the good old times when the whites could do anything they want on the continent. Every single white person here lives a luxurious life and has African servants working for them. And this lifestyle is pretty much celebrated. And it is presented as being good for the Africans. Every single one of this servants is grateful and happy that he/she is able to serve for a white person. And according to this movie the Africans would remain completely uneducated if it weren't for Karen and her friends. There is a scene in which a black boy has a serious wound on his leg that may cause an awful infection. It is Karen who forces him to go to the doctor, saying that she will reward him if he does so. And how does she reward him? By letting him work for her. That would mean he'd get more money than as a farmer. Wasn't there anyone working on this film who thought that this scene, presented as uncritically as it is here, would not be considered at least slightly problematic. Denys does sometimes object to the insistence of the whites to educate the Africans. But he does so not because he believes that Africans can educate themselves, but because he believes things like math and languages are useless to these people. They are basically noble savages according to him, who live closer to nature and don't need civilization. Admittedly the movie does show that Denys is a hopeless romantic and that his romantic ideas will eventually lead to his death. So it does not neccessarily agree with his ideas, but it certainly does have a lot of sympathy for them. And, yes the movie also has sympathy for Denys' idea that Africa will be ruined by the white folks. But he is mostly concerned that the white people will ruin it for the white people living there instead of for the Africans. The movie almost makes it seem as if the colonization of Africa is bad, because Africa will be exploited for econmic reasons, instead of for romantic reasons.
I understand that the movie is (partly) a homage to Karen Blixen and her stories. And she lived in different times, when the western world had a much different view of Africa. Great writers such as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling also wrote some stories around that period we now consider racist, but weren't considered so back then. That's not fully their fault, as that's how they were shaped by the society they were part of. But still, this movie was made in 1985 and it could have provided a more critical view of Blixen's writing, while still showing the greatness of it. That it doesn't do that is quite unfortunate and quite surprising. Some of the scenes here are so obviously problematic and racist that I don't understand how people like Meryl Streep, Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford didn't see that. Because, to make one thing clear, I do not think that they are in any way racists.
But I will come back to that later. First I want to note that even if I hadn't studied all this things I would not have liked this movie. I suppose the movie wants us to swoon over the tragic romance between Denys (Robert Redford) and Danish writer Karen Blixen (Meryl Streep). Tragic, because while Karen is a staunch realist, Denys is a hopeless romantic. And in the end that keeps them apart. The problem was that I didn't find their characters believable and their behavior depended very much on the whims of the screenwriter. The movie to me didn't make it believable that they would fall for each other. And once they had fallen in love with each other, I found the misunderstandings that caused their eventually break up to be unbelievable too. Having said that, I can understand why other people would love it. If you connect to these characters, this can be a pretty great romance. Furthermore, I haven't read anything by Karen Blixen, but I understand she was a great writer, once even considered for a Nobel Prize. Yet, based on this movie, whose narration and some of the dialogue is based on her books, I don't find her writing all that interesting. Meryl Streep gives a pretty dull perfomance, that's only distinctive because of her Danish accent. I am no fan of Robert Redford (as an actor, I am a big fan of the movies he has directed), but he actually livens up the movie here. The movie's MVP is Michael Kitchen, who plays Denys' best friend Berkeley and brings much needed energy to the movie. What I liked most about the movie was actually the relationship between Karen and Bror (Klaus Maria Brandauer). They have married for purely pragmatic reasons and do not care to pretend otherwise. Yet they don't hate each other and are quite blasé and realistic when their marriage ends. Afterwards they don't see each other very often anymore, but the interactions between them are utterly normal. Most movies would handle this relationship in a completely different way, and I thought this approach was pretty refreshing.
Now, let's come back to the representation of Africa here. It's pretty awful. I have never seen a mainstream American movie which deals so unproblematically with the European colonialisation of Africa, basically celebrating the good old times when the whites could do anything they want on the continent. Every single white person here lives a luxurious life and has African servants working for them. And this lifestyle is pretty much celebrated. And it is presented as being good for the Africans. Every single one of this servants is grateful and happy that he/she is able to serve for a white person. And according to this movie the Africans would remain completely uneducated if it weren't for Karen and her friends. There is a scene in which a black boy has a serious wound on his leg that may cause an awful infection. It is Karen who forces him to go to the doctor, saying that she will reward him if he does so. And how does she reward him? By letting him work for her. That would mean he'd get more money than as a farmer. Wasn't there anyone working on this film who thought that this scene, presented as uncritically as it is here, would not be considered at least slightly problematic. Denys does sometimes object to the insistence of the whites to educate the Africans. But he does so not because he believes that Africans can educate themselves, but because he believes things like math and languages are useless to these people. They are basically noble savages according to him, who live closer to nature and don't need civilization. Admittedly the movie does show that Denys is a hopeless romantic and that his romantic ideas will eventually lead to his death. So it does not neccessarily agree with his ideas, but it certainly does have a lot of sympathy for them. And, yes the movie also has sympathy for Denys' idea that Africa will be ruined by the white folks. But he is mostly concerned that the white people will ruin it for the white people living there instead of for the Africans. The movie almost makes it seem as if the colonization of Africa is bad, because Africa will be exploited for econmic reasons, instead of for romantic reasons.
I understand that the movie is (partly) a homage to Karen Blixen and her stories. And she lived in different times, when the western world had a much different view of Africa. Great writers such as Joseph Conrad and Rudyard Kipling also wrote some stories around that period we now consider racist, but weren't considered so back then. That's not fully their fault, as that's how they were shaped by the society they were part of. But still, this movie was made in 1985 and it could have provided a more critical view of Blixen's writing, while still showing the greatness of it. That it doesn't do that is quite unfortunate and quite surprising. Some of the scenes here are so obviously problematic and racist that I don't understand how people like Meryl Streep, Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford didn't see that. Because, to make one thing clear, I do not think that they are in any way racists.
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