Jungle Fever

This week’s reading of Gender and the Culture of Empire and the Musee d' Quay Branly's exhibit of The Invention of the Savage illustrate the ways in which the other is portrayed in an "exotic" and often erotic manner. This exotic and mysterious portrayal of colonized people provided a way for colonizers to demonize the natives and prove that “they are not like us.” Perhaps by depicting the maladies and the perceived deformities , colonizers were attempting to justify their occupation and exploitation of these other cultures and people.
The exhibit explored the carnival style portrayals of the men and women that were exploited and mistreated to satisfy curiosity regarding the “natives.” The idea of savage was created by the manipulation of images and side-shows. While watching the video footage, I continually wondered about the lingering affects this type of spectacle treatment has on a person or a race of people.
I was also intrigued by the fact that in the exhibit the women of color’s bodies seem to be fair game to be captured without any regard for modesty or respect. We rarely see Western women so scantily clad or depicted nude in their natural habitat, but it seems that exploiting the nude frames of these women provided a way to prove that they were “strange” and that their nudity without shame provided evidence to that effect.
The images in the films Shohat discusses serve as some of the first and only images of this exotic “other” that were seen by the Western world. Although the films Shohat discusses are fiction based films, it is clear, that the subtext of these films defines for Western viewer the qualities of these people that were from distant lands. Shohat’s description of the Birth of a Nation truly made me think about how so many of the messages and stereotypical performances in this film reflected the ideology of the Klu Klux klan, and provide a basis for radical racist beliefs to be furthered.
I am especially struck the spectacle of difference and how many of the films in Shohat’s piece make mention of the “jungle”. This mythical jungle serves as the backdrop for a great majority of these films which clearly sends the message of primitive and uncivilized.
As an example in Shohat’s piece she mentions Brazilian born actress Carmen Miranda. Miranda’s stereotypical Latin roles in Hollywood cast her as a scantily clad” chica chica –boom boom” chic or the Tutti Frutti Girl. Miranda’s films were set in some exotic place or a proverbial “jungle”—In the duet with the Western actor he actually refers to the jungle in his verse.

Lyrics | Carmen Miranda lyrics - Chica Chica Boom Chic lyrics
Watching this video I immediately think of African American performer Josephine Baker. Although Baker had enormous appeal in Paris and in France, clearly the fascination was less with her talent, but more of an interest in the exotic other. Baker’s banana dance which was performed as a part of the Danse sauvage, with Baker wearing a costume consisting of a skirt made of a string of artificial bananas. As shown in the video this dance was performed for the French uniformed military man which clearly represents the colonizer. The scene is additionally set in a jungle and Baker is shown as primitive with breast bare to “entertain.”
Baker was also featured in the exhibit at the Muse De Branley as a representation of the ways in which the image of colonized islanders were depicted in film. Although both Miranda and Baker were seen as exotic and erotic “others” in cultures outside of their home culture, neither actress received roles that were essential to a narration and all roles were centered on the exotic qualities they both possessed.

In the article Exotic Puppets (Jane Nardal , Pantins exotiques, “La Depeche Africaine,1928), Nardal criticizes Baker and says that Baker’s performances reinforce French stereotypes of black people. Nardal went on to say that Baker’s primitive, exotic and sexual performances played into the sexual fantasies of the French men. Jane Nardal and her sister Paulette Nardal were intellectuals from the island of Martinique and among the architects of the Negritude movement. The Negritude movement, in France included Colony born blacks who organized to embrace their culture and to refute the racist treatment by the French. In the Baker Film “Princess Tam-Tam” Baker displays the “perpetual heat” that Sohat refers to in her article. By seductive primitive dance Baker is not only appealing to the fantasies of the white Frenchmen—she is apparently appalling to the white women who react quite differently to her performances.

Most African Americans think of Josephine Baker as an example of how the French loved black people during the time period between the two wars. Baker is lauded as an example of how race was not an issue in France. The examples illuminated in the exhibit which chronicles events through 1930’s demonstrate the ways in which race was being communicated in Franc paint a very different picture for me now. By deconstructing Josephine Baker’s actual performances including the costumes worn and the design of the set the stereotypes and primitive portrayals abound. Although the French enjoyed the entertainment of the Black Americans living in Paris, their fascination was more about the exotic other than it was about being “colorblind”. For me, this realization is quite difficult to comprehend and to accept. Viewing some of the footage from Josephine Baker’s performances and films along with clips from of the films mentioned in Shohat’s article makes me wonder what would be the motivation for directors and filmmakers to create entertainment with such clear political messages. Were both Josephine Baker and Carmen Miranda merely unsuspecting vehicles used to further the political agenda of the day and to create exotic images of the “other” that would justify oppressive and racist ideology?