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Pursuing Power in the Postcolonial City: The Women ofLa noire de"." and Paat Kine

By MoHy M. Klaisner Professor Katarzyna Pieprzak, Advisor

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment

ofthe requirements for the

Degree ofBachelor ofArts with Honors

in Literary Studies

Williams College

Williamstown, Massachusetts

MayS, 2009 Acknowledgements

I am deeply indebted to my advisor, Professor Katarzyna Pieprzak, for her

enthusiasm, expertise, and steady nerves in helping me with this project. I also want to thank Professor Stephane Robolin for being my second reader and for providing me

with many ofthe theoretical tools I put to use in my analysis. I want to acknowledge

Professor Christopher Bolton, who has helped me clarify so much about my own

thinking and writing, and to recognize Professor Jana Sawicki, whose course has

enriched my understanding offeminist and philosophical issues a great deal. I am

grateful for everyone who tirelessly extracted extra commas from my drafts, particularly

my father, Yanie Fecu, Matthew Wollin, Patricia Klein, and Silvia Juliana Mantilla

Ortiz. I want to thank the Sambou family in Dakar as well as my dearest friends at

Williams- Arletta, Bill, Christian, Joel, Lauren, Matt, Nico, Sean, and Silvia-who

provided me with so much pleasant distraction along the way. I am also very grateful to

those who encouraged me to start this project in the first place, particularly Doug Ehlert,

Rebecca Slocum, and Professor Gail Newman. Finally and most importantly, I want to

thank my parents, my brother, Jake, and my sister, Abby, for their constant love and

support.

2 Table ofContents

Introduction ...... 4

A Life Dedicated to Activism ...... 7

Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts . 10

Critical Perspectives on Sembene . 13

A New Approach to La Noire de ... and Faat Kine ...... •...... 16

Part I: Seeing the Sights, Returning the Gaze: Visu.al Privilege and Su.bjectivity in

La noire de...... 22

Subjectivity and the Sublime ...... 23

Exploring White Spaces...... 25

The Servant Becomes Spectacle...... 28

The Moth Pursues the Flame 31

White Guilt, Black Masks ...... 34

Part II: Female Power in a Changing Landscape: Sembene's Faat Kine ... 39

A Peugeot ofOne's Own ...... 40

A Donkey Disguised as a Camel ...... 42

Oppression as the "African Way" .... . 47

A Conflicted Superwoman...... 49

Wiggling Toes and Political Imperatives 54

Conclusion. . .D ••• O ••••••••• e ••••••••••• ., . . 58

Works Cited ...... 63

3 Introduction

When I first went to Dakar, Senegal in the fall of2007, the Senegalese media was abuzz with reports about Taxi Sisters, a new government program that had established a fleet offemale taxi drivers in the city. Everywhere, in the news, on the street, around the dinner table, everyone wanted to talk about this new program and why it was either inspired or idiotic. My host mother declared, "At last, men will have to share the road!" But my host brother teased her, "You can put women on the road, but that does not mean they can drive!" Yet, whatever one's opinion ofTaxi Sisters, everybody was always on the lookout for their distinctive new cabs. Whenever someone was lucky enough to spot one, everyone in the streets would point and exclaim, "Taxi Sister!" and wave to the driver as she drove past.

Though not embraced by everybody, Taxi Sisters was a major breakthrough for women trying to find work in Dakar's male-dominated professions. For a long time, most occupations in Senegalese society were considered taboo for women, who could only earn money as craftswomen in the Senegalese open-air markets. But now, as employment opportunities for women became more numerous, this is rapidly changing.

I was able to observe this phenomenon in my own host family. My host mother, Odile, had been her family's breadwinner for two years since her husband had passed away.

An administrative assistant at the Assemblee Nationale, Senegal's lower house of parliament, Odile earned enough money to support four children, in addition to the foreign students she hosted. The household maid, DjeIiba, had migrated from her rural home in southern Senegal to work in Dakar, sending much ofher wages to her family

4 back home. My host sister, Sire, was still in school, but talked about joining Senegal's military when she finished.

In the changing economy and society ofDakar, I observed these women pursue these new advantages in the hope ofgaining money, mobility, and power. Yet, in a way, my host brother may have been right-just because you put women on the road does not mean they can drive. Were these changes really allowing women to advance?

I often saw female cab drivers being harassed by taxi-men, who were resentful oftheir new competition and the Sisters' government support. My host mother, though she earned a decent salary, had to leave the house before dawn each day and return long after sundown. Though women have become highly visible in the Senegalese economy, are they reaping the benefits? What real social changes are occurring and what sort of power do they really offer women?

In thinking about women's roles in Dakar, I want to turn to the work of

Ousmane Sembene, whose books, short stories, and films have illuminated the struggles ofSenegalese women to gain empowerment in a male-dominated society. During his lifetime, Sembene observed and narrated women's changing roles in Dakar, as the city transformed from strategic colonial port, to capital ofan independent Senegal, to cosmopolitan hub ofmultinational companies and discotheques. In this thesis, I will look at two ofSembene's films that address the changing roles ofwomen in urban space: La noire de ... (1966), one ofhis first films, and Faat Kine (2000), one ofhis final films.

Though Sembene addresses the issue offemale empowerment in many ofhis works, the potential for power gain and loss is never starker than in these two films. La

5 noire de ... tells the story ofDiouana, a poor Senegalese woman living in Dakar, who tries to gain a sense ofagency through employment. But her pursuit ofpower backfires when she becomes a mistreated servant to a French family. Treated as an object,

Diouana is divested ofwhat little agency she once had. To regain her sense ofself, she is forced to take the one step that remains in her power, choosing to take her own life rather than live a life ofservitude.

Nearly thirty-five years later, Sembene picks up this same theme in Faat Kine.

Kine, like Diouana, is a poor Dakaroise who is similarly victimized, abused and cast away by every man she meets. As in Diouana's case, Kine tries to exert control over her life by earning a wage, [mally obtaining work as a gas station attendant. Though

Faat Kine's story sounds familiar, the ending has changed: Kine not only recovers from her exploitation, she manages to become exceptionally powerful through her modest income. In La noire de ..., Sembene shows women at their most powerless, driven to desperation to maintain even the slightest control over their own bodies. But in Faat Kine, he shows women at their most powerful, fending for themselves and giving orders to men.

How are we to understand these two different portraits offemale power? What causes these two women to fail or succeed, and why do they meet such different ends?

As Sembene chronicles Dakar's changing physical and social landscape from the early days ofSenegal's independence to the advent ofthe twenty-first century, how does he see women's roles changing as well? In the following analysis, I will discuss these films not only for what they reveal about these particular women and their struggles for empowerment, but also for what they can tell us about shifting power relations in

6 postcolonial urban space. But can we account for these two different stories simply with changing history, or might we also view these two films together as a tale of changing political goals? I also want to speculate about some possible implications of these two representations offemale empowerment and to consider the power relations surrounding the films themselves.

Before addressing these guiding questions ofmy analysis in greater depth, I will provide some background information that is helpful for contextualizing my discussion ofthe films. The following briefdescription ofSembime's life and work, specifically of his working class background and political activism, will help us to understand

Sembene's films as an extension ofhis own experience ofpower inequalities.

A Life Dedicated to Activism Even though he would go on to author seven novels and fifteen short stories, to write and produce five short films and eight feature films, and to earn the distinguished moniker, "the father ofAfrican film," at thirteen years old, Ousmane Sembene had only managed to drop out ofschool (Gadjigo 37). Born in 1923 in Ziguinchor, Senegal

(Russell 130), Sembene did not lead the life one might expect ofsuch a seminal figure in film, spending much ofhis young adult life in Dakar performing various manual labor jobs. He worked as a bricklayer, mechanic, carpenter, fisherman, and dockworker, though he was always fascinated by cinema. Biographer Samba Gadjigo describes Sembene's early adult life in Dakar: "By day, he earned a living at colonial construction sites; by night, he dreamed before the screens ofsegregated movie theaters" (37). Upon returning to Senegal after serving in World War II in the French

7 colonial army (Pfaff The Uniqueness 13), Sembime started to become politically active, fighting for worker's rights. He participated in the first trade union strike against the

French colonial empire, and after moving to France in 1947, joined the French

Communist Party and became a trade union organizer (Gadjigo 37).

While working in Marseilles as a longshoreman, Sembime began to write. His first novel, Le docker noir (The Black Dockworker), based loosely on his own experience on the docks, was published in 1956. Sembtme was intent on writing his own version ofAfrican histories to counter the "official" versions propagated under

French colonialism: "I had read all that was written about Africa by both Europeans and Africans; and nowhere did I find my Africa: the Africa ofthe workers, the farmers, the women; the Africa that suffers but also struggles" (Gadjigo 37). In 1957, Sembime published 0 PaysMon Beau Peuple (0 My Country, My Beautiful People), about the modernization ofa farming village (Pfaff, Cinema ofSembene 182), and in 1960, he published Les Bouts de Bois de Dieu (God's Bits ofWood), a fictional account ofthe

Dakar-Niger strike of 1947, in which he highlights the importance ofa women's resistance movement. Sembene's short story, "La noire de..." ("Black Girl") first appeared in Voltaique (Tribal Scars), a collection ofshort stories published by Sembene in 1961. In these early works, Sembene's stories focus around poor workers in rural and urban settings, and increasingly emphasize women issues and their unique roles in class and anticolonial struggle.

In 1961, Sembene returned to Senegal and continued to write, but began to shift his attention to filmmaking. Noting that few Africans could read or even access his novels, he decided to seek funding for training in filmmaking, which he hoped would

8 reach a larger local audience. In 1962, Sembime received a scholarship to study film in

Moscow, where he spent the following year. When he returned to Senegal, he wrote two novels, L 'Harmattan (1963) (Pfaff, Cinema ofSembime 182-183) and Le Mandat

(The Money Order) (1964), and he began to make short films, filming Borom Sarret

(1962), about the daily life ofa poor Dakar cart driver, and Niaye (1964), about a young girl who is impregnated by her father (Russell 130). In 1966, Sembime released his first feature-length film, La noire de ... , a film based on his earlier short story. His first film to reach an international audience and receive critical acclaim, La noire de ... launched

Sembene's career as a renowned feature film writer, director, and producer.

Sembene would spend the rest ofhis life making politically-engaged films with the goal oftransfonning the cinema into an "ecole du soir," or night school (Gadjigo

39), a place where the populace could watch films and educate themselves about political issues. InXala (The Curse) (1973) and the novel Le dernier de l'empire

(1981), he attacks Senegal's conupt political elite. Sembene continues to rewrite

Senegalese "official" history in Emitai (1971), and Ceddo (1976), and Camp de

Thiaroye (1989), giving alternative accounts ofhistorical resistance to Islam, slavery, and colonial oppression. In Guelwaar (1992), Sembene deals primarily with the issue offoreign aid to Africa, criticizing the corruption it encourages and the structures of dependency it perpetuates. Toward the end ofhis life, he became increasingly occupied with the issue ofgender inequality in West Africa, focusing his last two feature films

Faat Kine (2000) and Moolaade (2005) on women's concerns. Though I will not discuss Moolaade in this thesis, this film is perhaps Sembene's most in-depth critique of women's oppression in rural West Africa, in which he raises the issues offemale

9 education and female circumcision. Through his films, Sembene aimed to bring issues ofcolonial, class, and sexual oppression to the forefront ofpolitical discussions.

Colonial and Post-Colonial Contexts Although neither La noire de... nor Faat Kine are historical films like

Sembene's Emitaf or Ceddo, it is helpful to approach them with some understanding of

Senegalese colonial history and post-independence politics. Therefore, I will provide a briefdiscussion ofthis contextual information geared toward its role in these films.

Prior to colonization, the region now known as Senegambia was organized into chiefdoms, largely controlled by two large empires, the Muslim Teknrr Empire along the coast, and the larger JolofEmpire in central Senegal (Gellar 2-3). These empires were fairly stable social structures until civil wars in the mid-15th century caused them to disintegrate, splintering the Jolofand Tekrur Empires into independent provinces that continued to experience instability and conflict. These civil wars occurred almost simultaneously with the arrival ofthe Portuguese, who came to trade for gold, ivory, spices, and slaves (Ross 16-18). As the demand for slaves increased, the French,

English, and Dutch began to replace the Portuguese as the primary trade partners in

Senegal. By 1677, chartered French trading companies had established trade monopolies on Goree Island (which lies offthe coast ofCape Vert), and in Saint Louis

(a coastal city north ofDakar), while the English maintained control over the Gambia

(Gellar 5). Until the end ofthe 16th century, Senegal was the largest supplier ofslaves to Europe (Gellar 4). In response to the slave trade's rapid depopulation ofthe region',

1 It is estimated that between 200,000 and 500,000 people were enslaved in the Senegambia region. The total population ofthe region was probably just over one million (Ross 18).

10 a number ofIslamic revolutions tried to dislodge the French and shut down the slave trade, but these resistance movements were suppressed by French firepower and the powerful trading interests behind it (Ross 19-20). The slave trade was officially abolished in 1794, but the practice continued secretly until the mid_19th century (Ross

21).

By the end ofthe 1800s, French colonization in Senegal had begun, in spite of resistance movements lead by Islamic leaders such as Al Hajj Oumar Tall and Cheikh

Amadou Bamba (Gellar 6-11). Under French rule, the region was divided into provinces called cantons, which were controlled by French-educated elite. France also designated Dakar, Rufisque, Goree, and Saint Louis as the Four Communes. The inhabitants ofthese cities were recognized as full French citizens represented by their own deputy in the French National Assembly, while all other inhabitants of Senegal had only "subject" status, making them subject to colonial law without rights or political representation. Dakar occupied a particularly important position in French West Africa as an important railhead for the colonies and strategic port for the French fleet. In 1902, the city was made the capital ofthe new colonial federation, Afrique Occidentale

Franc;aise (Ross 21-22). As a prominent symbol ofFrance's colonial endeavor as a whole, Dakar also became the locus ofmodernization projects in the colonies (Gellar

14). The colony as a whole was soon ushered into the market economy when France began promoting the peanut crop, largely to replace the profits lost due to the slave trade's abolition.

After Senegalese soldiers fought alongside the French in World War I and

World War II, the colonial citizens and subjects ofSenegal began to demand better

11 treatment from France. Intellectual and labor movements pushed the colonial government for reform, particularly the extension ofFrench citizenship to all

Senegalese and the elimination ofcertain laws that allowed the French the right to use

Senegalese subjects for forced labor (Ross 21-23, Gellar 15-16). Following the uprising in Algeria in 1958, President de Gaulle gave France's colonies the option of independence. Senegal voted for its independence in 1960 and elected Leopold Sedar

Senghor president ofthe new republic (Gellar 17-18). Under Senghor, socialism became a state ideology, and French was designated the primary national language

(Ross 27). In 1980, Senghor voluntarily resigned, handing over power to his chosen successor, Abdou Diouf, who remained in power until 2000, when he was defeated by

Abdoulaye Wade, the first instance ofan election which produced a change in government. Elected for a second term in 2007, Wade continues to pursue policies to modernize Dakar and integrate its economy with the global free-market, goals which

Wade has characterized as the "emergence" ofSenegal (Ross 29-30).

Sembene rigorously engages with many of these historical events III his complete body of work, but in terms ofLa noire de ... and Faat Kine, it is important to note Senegal's extended pre-colonial and colonial relationship with France, as well as its continued economic, social, and linguistic ties to France after independence. In particular, we get a sense ofthe tumultuous history that marks Dakar's landscape, as the most frequent site of contact between Europeans and Senegambians, the focal point of the slave trade, and the modernized capital of France's West African colonies. But as we will see, Dakar is not just a backdrop to the action of these two films. The city

12 facilitates and frustrates characters' desires, structures characters' relationships to one another, functioning almost as a character in Sembene's narrative.

Critical Perspectives on Sembene In order to situate my own critical approach to Sembene's work, I will first discuss the larger body ofcritical work on Sembene. One ofthe first book-length studies ofSembene's work was written by Franyoise Pfaffin 1984. Like many critics to follow, such as Sheila Petty and Josephine Woll, Pfaffhighlights Sembene's role as a political filmmaker: his condemnation ofcolonial and neocolonial violence as well as gender and class oppression in Senegal, and his hopes ofeducating his audiences on social issues and inspiring them to political activism. In examining Sembene's critical perspectives on these issues, Pfaffand others have read Sembene's films as responses to

European accounts ofAfrican life and history, representations that were frequently demeaning and simplistic, and often deployed to justifY colonial and neocolonial domination. As Sembene contests representations about Africans, critics have praised

Sembene's own representations as "more authentic and realistic portrayal[s] ofAfrica from an African viewpoint" (Pfaff, Cinema ofSembene xv). Taking Sembene as a representative ofan African perspective, these critics have sought to analyze this quality of"Africanness" as Pfaffterms it, in Sembene's style, particularly in Sembene's role as a "modem-day griot" (as Sembene has often described himself), the storyteller, historian, and political conscience ofms community.

Recent criticism has taken issue with some ofthese approaches to Sembene's work that have, in many ways, defined subsequent methodology for critics ofSembene and other African filmmakers. David Murphy has criticized scholars who discuss only

13 the political dimension ofSembene's work and spare little attention for his films as aesthetic texts. Murphy, Kenneth Harrow, and JosefGugler have also argued that while it is important to acknowledge Sembene's response to a history ofexploitative misrepresentation, we should not limit the meaning ofSembene's films to a dialogue with Western representation. Furthermore, Gugler and Harrow emphasize that we must also be wary ofSembene's own biases and limitations in trying to reflect African life and history. Gugler cautions critics who praise Sembene as "genuinely reproduc[ing] his world" (Russell 123), pointing specifically to Sembene's dramatization ofhistorical events in Camp de Thiaroye. Gugler maintains that Sembene's representations are also constructions that require a critical eye. Similarly, Fredrick Cooper discusses

Sembene's over-schematization ofthe Dakar-Niger railroad strike in Sembene's novel,

God's Bits ofWood, arguing that Sembene subsumes complex alliances into simple binaries ofFrench vs. Senegalese and white vs. black (Cooper 1996). Kenneth Harrow has criticized Sembene for the very structure ofhis films, criticizing Sembene for phallocentrism and for employing narrative structures that "inscribe 'authenticity' on

[his] films' ideological claims" (42). At the same time that he critiques Sembene,

Harrow reproaches critics for ignoring Sembene's shortcomings, instead "retreating into the space created by Sembene's truths" (125), the "[t]he safest place for the Western critic to occupy in reviewing...celebrated African classic[s]" (125).

In addition to problematizing the relationship between Sembene's narratives and

"authentic" historical truth, many contemporary scholars have found the labeling of

Sembene's viewpoint as "authentically African" similarly dubious. Critics who have tried to parse out which elements ofSembene's style can be attributed to his African

14 cultural background assume, as Harrow says, "that an African identity struggles with the infiltration ofnonauthentic elements" (115), positing "Africanness" as fixed or centered around certain essential qualities. In rejecting claims ofauthenticity, both in terms ofauthentic historical fact and cultural identity, Harrow and other contemporary scholars ofSembene deny not only the possibility oflegitirnizing Sembene's narratives, but also the need to legitimize them, allowing them to stand on their own without appealing to authenticity.

Related to this idea ofrepresenting a genuine African perspective is the positioning ofSembene as African griot. Many critics, presuming the authentically

"African" quality ofSembene's voice, are led to suppose that his own views speak for all Africans, for all Senegalese, or for all African women. As Harrow points out,

Sembene himself assumes this authority, ignoring the exploitative potential ofthe griot's role2 and "fall[ing] into the griot's trap ofthinking himselfa mouthpiece, of being the one who can define and then speak for all those diminished beings...as well as for the weak or oppressed in need ofbeing conscientized" (Harrow 124-125). As a griot, Sembene speaks to preserve the history ofhis community and to improve its future, but along with this responsibility comes the right to decide whose stories are to be told and how. Sembene assumes a position ofauthority in relationship to the people he tries to represent and to the audience to whom he addresses his vision.

2 Harrow points to a sequence in Sembene's own film, Borom Sarret (1962), to demonstrate the potentially oppressive power ofthe griot. In this sequence, a griot sings the praises ofa poor cart driver, who is pleased, but then must give up his meager earnings in order to compensate the griot. Harrow reads this moment as a critique ofgriots who can extract coins with flattery.

15 A New Approach to La Noire de... and Faut Kine Taking account ofthese critical methods and their pitfalls, my own approach, like that ofDavid Murphy, pays close attention to the formal and aesthetic qualities of

Sembene's films. Given the problematic nature ofappeals to authenticity, I am not interested in discussing Sembene's work in relationship to a standards ofhistorical accuracy or cultural legitimacy" though this does not mean an uncritical acceptance of his views. In fact, it is our acknowledgement ofhis films as political ideologies that makes a formal analysis ofSembene's images so essential. Through close readings of these two films, I aim to underscore the constructedness ofhis images and to develop an understanding ofthe intersection between Sembene's visual style, his ideological perspectives, and the political imperatives he communicates to his audience. This intersection is ofparticular importance in this comparison ofLa noire de ... and Faat

Kine. Though both films deal with themes offemale mobility and power relations in urban space, Sembene portrays these themes very differently in each film. In comparing his two styles, I will consider their differing implications for depictions of oppression and for the political messages these depictions convey to audiences.

The problem of"speaking for" which Han-ow raises is a central issue in criticism sun-ounding La noire de ... and Faat Kine. Many critics write about

Sembene's attention to issues ofAfrican womanhood. In Samba Gadjigo's Dialogue with Critics and Writers, Sembene explains the integral place that women's issues must have in the politics ofSenegal as a whole:

Men are always the ones to go to war. But who looks after the education of

the children, who raises the crops, who cares for the cattle, who does the

grinding ofthe grain? It is women who perform these tasks. The development

16 ofAfrica will not happen without the effective participation ofwomen. Our

forefathers' image ofwomen must be buried once and for all. Women are the

most solid component ofa community, ofa society. (100)

At the same time that Sembtme's films can spur an important dialogue about women's issues, in much criticism ofSembene's films, these issues are typically treated as symbolic ofso-called "larger" struggles for empowerment on a national or Pan-African stage. Sembene's female protagonists are typically seen as speaking for all African women or the Senegalese nation, or even functioning as metonymic "Mother Africa" figures, standing in for the entire African continent. These interpretations ofDiouana and Faat Kine's characters are frequently circulated by critics, yet these readings generalize their stories, subsuming the rich details oftheir individual or gender-related struggles into a nationalistic or Pan-African narrative. In this study, while I will situate these characters' stories in relationship to a national and anti-colonial narrative, I want to take care not to generalize or homogenize these characters and situations.

While this molding offemale characters into national or continental symbols remains a central question in both La noire de ... and in Faat Kine, I do not treat this issue fully in my thesis; instead, in the same way that this symbolic "mapping" of gender onto geographic spaces divests these women's narratives oftheir force, I am most interested in the ways in which gender, racial, and class oppression become imbricated with space. In my attention to Sembene's spatial tropes, I rely heavily on the critical work ofRachel Langford. Focusing on space in her analysis ofSembene's films, Langford connects Sembene's use ofspace to Senegal's historical struggle to resist spatial domination under colonialism.

17 Langford argues that colonialism, at its most abstract, was a spatial project. This conception ofcolonialism is corroborated by V.Y. Mudimbe in his book The Invention ofAfrica. Mudimbe asserts that "colonialism" and "colonization" essentially mean

"organization" or "arrangement," deriving from the Latin word co/ere meaning to cultivate or to design. Mudimbe cautions that this theoretical understanding of colonialism cannot possibly describe the violent character that this "organization" took on; yet, we can understand colonization, at its roots, as a process ofsettling in or exploiting space, or "organiz[ing] and transform[ing] non-European areas into fundamentally European constructs" (1). We can see colonialism's "organizational" impulse in the image ofthe "Scramble for Africa," the parceling out ofthe African continent into territorial lots divided up among European powers in the late 19th century, but we can also see the colonial urge to organize space in more subtle but equally violent manifestations. For example, we can see ethnography and assimilation as colonial attempts to organize intellectual and cultural space.

Ifcolonization can be partly understood as a reorganization ofAfrican space according to Western models, we can see the African city as one ofthe most visible and enduring symbols ofcolonization. Langford points to the vertical, visible markers of colonialism that remain in postcolonial Dakar: the barriers between "native" and

"French" quarters ofthe city, the skyscraper, and monuments (Langford, Locating

Colonization 97), all hierarchical divisions ofspace that continue to mark Dakar's landscape and to structure its inhabitants' daily lives. In treating urban space in his films, Semb~me reveals and critiques the power dynamics underlying the physical and social architectures ofDakar. In my analysis, I will build offofthis spatial

18 understanding ofcolonialism and its visible manifestations in postcolonial Dakar, but I will also discuss the way Sembene engages with other relations ofdomination through space. In the same way that colonial subjects are circumscribed in hierarchical space,

Sembene shows that victims ofpatriarchal and class oppression are similarly hemmed in by physical and social stmctures ofpower.

These stTIlctures ofpower are directly related to the notion ofsubjectivity. I want to provide a briefdefinition ofwhat I mean by "subjectivity," although I also want to emphasize that part ofmy project is to think about what subjectivity is and can be in a post-colonial urban context. The term "subjectivity" can operate in a number ofways.

Cultural and queer theorist David E. Hall defines subjectivity as related to the concept ofidentity, but also distinct from it, using subjectivity to mean the "social and personal being that exists in negotiation with broad cultural definitions and our own ideals. We may have numerous discrete identities, ofrace, class, gender, sexual orientation, etc., and a subjectivity that is comprised ofall ofthose facets, as well as our own imperfect awareness ofour selves" (D. Hall 134). Subjectivity, according to Hall, implies self­ affirmation ofone's selfas a human being and also recognition ofthe constmction of one's identity by external forces, such as one's society or state, which produce categories such as class, race, and gender. Thus, subjectivity can imply a sense of power and awareness which derives from both internal and external recognition ofone's humanity. But as philosopher Michel Foucault argues, subjectivity as a constTIlction can also be severely limited by the forces that form it. In "Exhibiting Masculinity," media theorist Sean Nixon discusses Foucault's article, "The subject and power," in which Foucault argues that a subject's conduct is "shap[ed] and prescrib[ed] according

19 to certain norms which set limits on individuals but also make[s] possible certain forms ofagency and individuality" (Nixon 315). So while the term subjectivity may refer to power and self-awareness in identity construction, we must also be aware that subjectivity points to processes that impose limitations on one's free will as well as the external forces ofpower which can manipulate and confine the individual.

In my analysis ofLa noire de ... and Faat Kine, I am interested in the personal agency that can be derived from an understanding ofone's selfas fully human, but also in the way that forces ofpower can divest individuals ofthis agency. My thesis will be divided into two sections: the first on La noire de ... , and the second on Faat Kine.

Where I use the term "subjectivity," particularly in Part I, I do so in order to emphasize a process ofself-recognition ofhumanity, because this section deals with Diouana's struggle to see herself as a human subject as opposed to a dehumanized object. In Part

II, the issue ofsubjectivity is less abstract. Though Kine's humanity is often questioned and circumscribed, she does not need to affirm or receive affirmation from others to verify her humanity and sense ofself. Kine's pursuit ofpower is more practical, and I will therefore use words like "agency," "power," and "freedom" to signify this more concrete form ofpower that derives from a sense ofsubjectivity.

My investigation ofspace and urban power dynamics will proceed as follows.

In Part I, I discuss La noire de ... and its depiction ofpower dynamics in Dakar during the immediate aftermath ofSenegal's independence. Exploring Sembene's use of spatial tropes and drawing on the work ofSara Mills, I will examine the connection between Diouana's experience ofspace and her pursuit ofsubjectivity and agency.

Like a colonial travel writer whose privileged viewpoint allows him or her to look out

20 over a sublime landscape, Diouana seeks the ability to inhabit and view spaces in the city, in the hopes that she will become a seeing and knowing subject. But as I will argue, each ofDiouana's attempts to affirm her subjectivity only enmesh her further in colonial structures ofdependence and oppression that continue to thrive even in an independent Senegal. Rather than achieving a privileged viewpoint, Diouana is made the object ofher French employers' gaze, which imprisons her in space and robs her of subjectivity. Finally, linking Diouana's struggle for subjectivity to Senegal's national struggle for colonial independence, I will discuss Sembene's indications that Senegal's new self-governance has not dissolved the deeply-rooted power structures of colonialism, and have simply given a new name to a colonial system ofdependence.

Part II continues to examine the power dynamics ofurban space in the film Faat

Kine, set in Dakar just as the city enters the new millennium. In this section, I discuss

Kine's ability to realize Diouana's dream ofmobility and subjectivity, moving freely throughout the city, accessing privileged spaces and creating her own. Yet, even as

Kine obtains mobility and empowerment in the modern city, we also see the subtle mobility ofoppressive structures finding new routes, suggesting that many seeming advancements for gender equality conceal new and more devious forms ofdomination.

Finally, I will question Kine's power itselfand its source in the capitalist market, and the way in which Kine's ability to organize and colonize space necessitates her own participation in these new architectures ofpower. My analysis concludes with a comparison ofSembene's vastly different cinematic styles in these two films, with consideration ofthe political implications ofhis narrative techniques in representing accounts ofoppression and resistance.

21 Part I

Seeing the Sights, Returning the Gaze: Visual Privilege and Subjectivity in La noire de...

First published as a short story in 1961, Sembene's "La noire de..." ("Black

Girl") was inspired by a briefarticle in the Nice-Matin, reporting the suicide ofa black maid. Dissatisfied with such a paltry memorial for this unnamed woman, Sembene decided to imagine the story ofDiouana, a young Senegalese woman living in colonial

Dakar (PredaI36). In Sembene's story, Diouana is hired by a French couple to take care oftheir two children while they are staying in Dakar, and when the couple decides to return to France, they ask Diouana to come with them to continue looking after the children. Sembene tells ofDiouana's disillusionment with France and her mistreatment at the hands ofher employers, eventually leading to her suicide. In 1966, when

Sembene translated "La noire de..." into a film, his written story underwent a number ofchanges. Though it retained the same basic plot, Sembene's film is set a few years later than his story. Originally envisioned as a story ofcolonial oppression, the film La noire de... unfolds in 1960, in the immediate post-Independence climate. As we will see, Sembene's transposition ofDiouana's tragic story into the postcolonial era suggests that, for people like Diouana, independence has done very little to relieve the suffering ofcolonialism.

In one ofthe first sequences ofLa noire de... , Diouana looks out on the French landscape from the window ofher employer's car. Mountains, tall buildings, rows of

22 palm trees, traffic, beaches, andflaneurs appear in the window as they drive through the city, to the tune ofa cheery French soundtrack. Even the motion ofthe car itself is invigorating. Grand and overwhelming, this view ofthe French coast is a sublime experience, a moment oflong-awaited travel, movement, and discovery. Though this sequence introduces the exhilarating possibilities ofexploring space, it stands in stark contrast to the disturbing scenes ofisolation, captivity, and hopelessness that follow, as

Diouana's employers confme her to ever smaller and more intolerable spaces. From the beginning ofthe film, Sembene shows the importance ofspace, signaling the link between the experience ofspace and the structures ofcolonial domination in which

Diouana becomes entrapped. In this chapter, I will consider the spatial tropes ofLa noire de... as a way ofunderstanding the underlying colonial structures ofdependence that Diouana endures and resists; however, before we can comprehend the significance ofspatial formations in the film, we must take into account the relationship between space, vision, and power. In order to discuss this intersection, I will draw from Sarah

Mills' work on colonial travel writing and the visual command ofspace.

Subjectivity and the Sublime In Mills' Gender and Colonial Space, she examines the relationship between a viewing subject and a viewed object in the context ofcolonial travel writing. She first discusses the concept ofa colonial explorer figure that describes the "discovery" of landscapes never before seen by Western eyes. Though travel writers often report on the sublimity oftheir experiences, their feelings ofbeing overwhelmed and overpowered by the landscape, Mills proposes that this sublime experience

23 simultaneously empowers explorer figures through their ability to master the vast landscape and occupy a privileged "seeing space" (Mills 704). From this "seeing space," a viewer beholds a vast landscape, along with all the people and living things that inhabit it, but from a perspective external to the landscape, from a position outside ofphysical space. The viewer occupies a panoptical position ofauthority, able to survey all without being seen. The power ofthe "seeing space" affords the viewer a

"position as a unified seeing subject" (Mills 704), in comparison to the landscapes and people the viewer sees, which occupy what Mills calls a "body space." The viewed objects ofthe explorer's gaze become mere physical objects, devoid ofsubjectivity.

Mills uses the concepts of"body" and "seeing" spaces in travel literature to show how British women attained a "seeing space" position relative to colonial landscapes and subjects, but Mills' model can be used to understand how Sembene's spatial tropes signal visual power dynamics in La noire de ... precisely because ofits focus on power and subjectivity. In light ofMill's "seeing space," Diouana's dream to explore the French countryside, like the travel writer's impulse, is an effort ofself­ empowerment. Significantly, the sequence is one ofthe few in the film that positions the camera in nearly the same position as Diouana's line ofsight, here, directly behind her head, so that Diouana's viewpoint dictates the viewer's own. In her briefglimpses ofthe sublime French landscape, Diouana attains a visual privilege and transcendent seeing-space from which she is able to produce visions, landscapes, and knowledge, and thus to affirm her subjectivity.

Yet, Mills also shows us why Diouana's moment oftranscendence is so fleeting and ineffectual. Examined, interrogated, and aestheticized by the constant gaze ofher

24 French employers and their guests, Diouana fails to occupy a "seeing space" for any extended period oftime. She is bound by the limitations ofa viewed object, imprisoned in a "body space." Mills exposes how power is exercised through violent spatialization ofthe colonized body, helping us to understand the forces Diouana endures and how they deny her subjectivity. Under the colonial eye, Diouana is circumscribed by architectures and boundaries, and in her attempts to transcend them, she only becomes more trapped, until even her own skin becomes an insunnountable barrier.

Exploring White Spaces Diouana's story begins with her struggle to secure ajob, which would afford her financial independence, mobility, and a way oftranscending the narrow limits of poverty. In order to fmd ajob, however, she must navigate the colonial architectures of the French district. After crossing the land-bridge that separates the "native" district from the French neighborhoods, Diouana approaches the downtown apartment buildings where she will solicit work. The camera catches her in an extreme long shot, showing the huge, white colonial building that towers over her threateningly. She enters the building but has difficulty navigating the unfamiliar corridors and elevators.

The camera shows her through the small elevator window, and she moves tediously from floor to floor, up and down, finding everywhere the same contemptuous reactions: doors slammed in her face, vicious dogs chasing her away. Her exhaustive search for work is useless; she is cast out ofevery building she tries to enter. Diouana is denied entrance into the wealthy French interiors where she might be able to free herselffrom financial burdens and attain the subjectivity they seem to promise.

25 When Diouana is finally hired by Madame and Monsieur, we see how relieved she is, not only at the prospect ofgetting paid, but at finally gaining admittance to those forbidden interiors "chez les Blancs," a phrase Diouana repeats over and over. The camera observes Diouana in a moment ofreverie in the couple's outdoor garden, relishing her access to the white world that was once blocked by closed doors and guard dogs. Rachel Langford too, notes the autonomy Diouana seems to have in the couple's

Dakar villa. Its sunny, open plan permits her to move freely through the interior while also allowing her frequent outings with the children in the affluent French neighborhoods (Locating Colonisation 98). With the money Diouana earns, she has leisure time to walk around the Place de l'Independance instead ofsitting idly in the maid market. But Diouana seeks more than just money or an abstract sense of autonomy. In Sembene's short story, "La noire de...," Diouana dreams of"the freedom to go where she wished without having to work like a beast ofburden" (Sembene 46).

Diouana links her new contact with wealth and white spaces to her own agency and humanity, to attaining a full-fledged subjectivity.

Not only does Diouana gain access to the colonial quarters ofDakar, she is offered the chance to go beyond the border ofDakar's coastline to the colonial motherland itself. Madame fills Diouana's head with thoughts ofFrench cities and baits her with gifts ofdresses and a suitcase, so that Diouana is consumed with the glittering promise oflife in France. In the "La noire de..." short story, Diouana remarks that next to her imaginings ofFrance, her everyday life in Dakar was drab that "everything around her had become ugly, the magnificent villas she had so often admired seemed shabby" (Sembene 45). Diouana boards a ship to the south ofFrance without

26 hesitation, convinced that this migration will set her free to see cities, meet people, become wealthy, and to traverse all the colonial boundaries that once shut her out.

Diouana's new life in France permits her entry to these once-forbidden spaces, but her access is circumscribed at the same time it is granted. Aside from Diouana's brieftour ofthe coast out her passenger-side window, Diouana's hopes ofexploring

France will not be realized, as her movements become confined to her employers' tiny apartment and her activities restricted to housework. The camera shows only four small rooms in the couples' claustrophobic, almost windowless apartment. As small as the space is, it seems to shrink as the camera is always pointed at the walls and comers, trained on Diouana at her solitary work. Sembene gives only briefglimpses ofthe windows that open onto the beautiful, unattainable coast below. Madame, who had previously offered to show Diouana the sights ofFrance, neglects to take Diouana into town and takes deliberate measures to keep her inside, refusing her a day offand insisting that she wear an apron and cleaning clothes, rather than a dress and heels.

Madame shouts at Diouana, "You're not going to a party!" and later reminds her,

"Don't forget you're the maid!" Madame denies Diouana her one source ofpride, her stylish clothing. Forced to wear clothing that marks her as a domestic servant, Diouana is unable to go out into the city on her own. In interior monologue, Diouana laments as she scrubs the bathtub, "The kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the living room.

That's all I do! That's not what I came to France for!" Diouana begins to realize that the impenetrable colonial buildings that once shut her out can also imprison her within.

27 The Servant Becomes Spectacle Diouana's confmement and isolation is a result ofmore than just physical barriers, but also imprisonment under her employers' gaze. From the moment Diouana is hired, she is inspected behind Madame's dark sunglasses. Similar glasses reappear on many French characters throughout the film, dissolving the body ofthe wearer into an evacuated seeing space, from which one may gaze at Diouana without becoming the object ofa returned gaze. In France, Diouana's employers subject her to constant surveillance. While Madame and Monsieur hardly ever address Diouana directly, they frequently talk about her and inspect her as ifshe were not present. Diouana's employers discuss her "laziness" right in front ofher, assuming that she can neither understand nor sense that she is being discussed. Even the camera refuses to respect

Diouana's personal space, following Diouana around the house, catching her in extreme close-ups and backed into comers. Viewers observe her back, bent over sweeping or cleaning, and her naked body as she undresses for the night. There are moments where

Diouana seems trapped under the camera lens itself, forced into the cracks ofdoor frames, and driven back into the darkness ofthe kitchen or her bedroom. Sembene's invasive camera expresses the stifling and violent visibility that Diouana constantly suffers. Diouana is immobilized in the body space created by her employers' inescapable gaze.

This gaze grows more nefarious as Diouana's employers treat her body as an exotic curiosity for their privileged viewing. In the film, the camera observes a dinner party in which Madame and Monsieur invite a number ofFrench guests to their house.

As Diouana serves the guests, they discuss, even joke about her behavior, her cooking, her country, and the nature ofthe entire Senegalese people as ifDiouana were not

28 present. One guest approaches Diouana without ceremony, kissing her because he has never before "kissed une negresse," and though he begs pardon for his action, he directs his excuses not to Diouana, but her employers. Rather than a person to be treated with respect, Diouana is a colonial curiosity, a body aestheticized by the French gaze. In

Semb€me's novel, Diouana must endure this humiliating experience repeatedly, as she is dragged from house to house and exhibited like one ofthe African masks in the French couple's collection of"authenticities." Ironically, Diouana believes that this is at last her chance to earn Madame's respect through her cooking, imagining that she and

Madame will then become companions and see the sights ofFrance together. But the guests are already "seeing the sights": Diouana does not realize that she is the attraction, the object ofanother's experience ofthe sublime. Diouana herselfbecomes an object ofawe and astonishment under the eyes ofthe French couple and their guests, who strip her ofthe subjectivity she seeks.

Diouana's subjectivity is denied; she is humiliated by her employers' colonizing gaze. Forced into a vacant body space, denied all agency and even consciousness,

Diouana becomes little more than the slave ofher employers. Sembene evokes the history ofslavery early in the film as Diouana stands at the "maid market" with other

Senegalese women desperate for positions in French homes. As in the once-infamous slave market ofGoree Island, only a few miles offthe coast ofDakar, these women are reviewed and then selected by potential French employers, but these so-called

"employers" exercise such power over their "employees" that they are de facto owners.

Sembene shows the extent to which Diouana becomes a mere object ofservitude in the eyes ofher employers. In one sequence, Monsieur, staggering around the apartment

29 after drinking, approaches Diouana while she works in the kitchen, examining her with a bold, predatory look. In another scene, Madame barges into Diouana's room while

Diouana is sleeping, shaking her awake. Diouana cannot even find refuge in her dreams; she is evacuated even from her imagined, interior space that her employers' assume she does not have. The camera assumes Diouana's viewpoint, looking at

Madame from above as she screams, "Get up lazy! We're not in Africa!," a harsh reminder that the architecture that encloses Diouana is not her own. When Diouana blinks awake, she tries to fmd safety in the bathroom, but Madame tries to force her out ofthe space. "Out! Come out ofthere!" Madame cries, banging on the door. Diouana backs up against the door, as ifbracing against Madame's blows, and the camera comes extremely close to her face, showing her eyes darting nervously. Diouana's tragic situation, while not slavery, reaches its extremes ofviolence and dehumanization, showing the continuation ofan appalling phenomenon that, as Sembene suggests, is not so decisively in Senegal's past.

Faced with the violent negation ofher subjectivity, Diouana's attitude changes, as ifaccustomed to her status as an object. Sembene makes this effect even more apparent by inserting flashback sequences ofDiouana's life in Dakar. In these scenes,

Diouana navigates the city confidently, greeting and smiling at neighbors, zipping around her neighborhood playfully masked. She barely resembles the silent, sullen girl whose movements have become mechanical, at the command ofher mistress. Even her relationship to the camera has changed. In Dakar, Diouana is at ease with the camera, sharing the frame frequently with other people, moving naturally in and out ofthe camera's range. She keeps her distance from the camera's eye, unlike in France, where

30 Diouana seems powerless to walk out ofthe camera's sight. After these flashback scenes, Diouana's expressionless, down-cast look seems even blanker, as ifshe has internalized her status as an object.

Guinean writer Tierno Monembo explains the power ofanother's gaze on one's self-perception: "A partir du moment OU nous nous regardons avec Ie regard de l'autre, nous nous perdons. II faut une vision propre sur nous-memes. II faut faire attention a notre propre regard, car c'est souvent Ie grand piege" (qtd. in Langford, Locating

Colonisation 92). Diouana begins to see herselffrom her employers' perspective and starts to act the part ofthe object. Sembene expresses Diouana's thoughts in the short story, "The wide horizons ofa short while ago stopped now at the color ofher skin, which suddenly filled her with an invincible terror. Her skin. Her blackness. Timidly, she retreated into herself' (Sembene 51). Coming to France, Diouana anticipates the expansion ofher horizons, hoping to gain the empowerment ofan adventurer looking out over new lands; instead, she feels her horizons shrink around her, limiting her subjectivity all the more. Faced with insurmolmtable barriers to her subjectivity and dehumanized to the extreme, she closes herselfoff. In her final act, her suicide, she cuts herselfofffrom the world completely. Relinquishing her subjectivity and consciousness, Diouana becomes the very object that she is taken for by her French tormentors.

The Moth Pursues the Flame While in one sense Diouana's suicide is her ultimate defeat, it also ironically signals her sudden coming into consciousness. She is a strong, aware character, determined to achieve her dreams despite her innumerable disadvantages; yet, until she

31 decides to end her life, she is blind to the systemic forces that are at the root ofher poverty and lack ofagency. For much ofthe film, Diouana naively believes that she can solve her problems through materialistic gain (Langford, Locating Colonisation 99).

When she first gets to France, Diouana muses to herself, "Cannes, Nice, Monte

Carle...we'lliook at all the pretty stores, and when the mistress pays me, I'll buy pretty dresses, shoes, silk underwear, and pretty wigs. And I'll get my picture taken on the beach and I'll send it back to Dakar, and they'll all die ofjealousy!" Diouana confuses the promise ofwealth and social standing with the promise ofsubjectivity, without realizing that these promises ofwealth only lure her into servitude to the French.

Unaware ofthe larger structures ofcolonial oppression, Diouana cannot recognize that her own struggle is connected to many other historical instances of colonial persecution. Diouana, in her trip across the ocean, "follow[s] in the footsteps of [her] slave ancestors, who were also transported and transplanted into economic dependence and exploitation outside Africa" (Thomas 35), but despite this historic precursor to her situation, Diouana does not make any comparison between her own sea-journey to France and the transatlantic slave trade. Similarly, Diouana is so preoccupied by her daydreams about France that she absentmindedly climbs up on the wall memorializing Senegalese soldiers who were killed fighting for the French in

World War II. Caught up in her delusion ofFrance's riches, she not only commits a

"sacrilege" against Senegalese national heroes, but fails to consider her own situation as similar to that ofthe soldiers. As Langford points out, this wall reminds us ofthose who died in the service ofthe French, prefiguring Diouana's own death while literally serving the French (Langford, Locating Colonisation 99). But these parallels are more

32 than just a foreshadowing ofDiouana's eventual servitude and death in France; rather,

Sembene shows the connections between slavery, colonialism, and neocolonial

economic dependence, representing them as a continuous exploitive force. Despite

Diouana's apparent freedom from colonial forms ofviolence, Sembene suggests that

these forms have simply morphed into new and less visible manifestations in a post­

colonial world.

Yet, even ifDiouana was able to understand her situation within the larger

colonial context, it seems unlikely that she could escape the powerful forces that propel

so many Senegalese men and women into postcolonial structures ofservitude. Living

in poverty, Diouana has no choice but to become dependent on the French for work.

Sembene treats the question ofDiouana's agency more directly in his short story, in a

scene just before Diouana is about to depart with Monsieur for France. In the scene, the

drunkard Tive Correa, who spent many years as a soldier in France, tries to convince

Monsieur not to take Diouana to France. Monsieur protests, "We haven't forced her to

go! She wants to" (Sembene 49). Tive Correa responds with a proverb from his native

Casamance, in southern Senegal. "[W]e don't say the way you do that it is the light that

attracts the moth, but the other way round...we say that the darkness pursues the moth"

(Sembene 49). In this cryptic warning, Tive Correa hints at the methods ofenticement

that the French couple have used to lure Diouana into corning to France, and her lack of

agency in the decision. The job "chez les Blancs," the invitation to France: these

auguries ofgood fortune give Diouana a false sense ofautonomy and freedom.

Diouana's sense offree will is illusory, serving only to mask the forces that lure

her into servitude and captivity. She is caught up in systems ofoppression so all-

33 encompassing that they have the power to convince the objects oftheir domination that they are subjects acting oftheir own free will. Thus, while Diouana seems increasingly

stripped ofher subjectivity, Semb€me suggests that her subjectivity was limited from the very beginning. But in the final hours ofDiouana's life, her former naIvete disappears:

she recounts the crimes against her, understanding their interconnectedness and their

unique source. Rather than be drawn into it against her will, Diouana seeks the flame

herselfin a final, self-destructive act offree will. Thus, Diouana's suicide does not

show her crushed under the oppressive forces around her, as a Foucauldian reading

might argue; it shows rather her ability to launch an individual act ofresistance in spite

ofthese forces. Through her suicide, Diouana escapes the forces ofthe domination and

takes back her agency by violent force.

White Guilt, Black Masks Though Diouana's suicide can be seen as a moment ofcoming-into-

consciousness, it is also a calculated confrontation ofherpatrons. Her employers, who

ignored and denied her humanity to the point oftreating her as a "beast ofburden"

(Sembene 46), now must finally face her lifeless body and her blood spilled in their

white bathroom. Diouana, trapped in a Catch-22, must give up her subjectivity in order

to assert it, obliterating her consciousness as ifto prove that it once existed. Though she

is unable to go on living, her refusal to live a life ofservitude challenges her employers'

entire worldview, their perspective which deems her "la noire de..." an object that is a

function only ofits origin and its owner.

34 Condemning the worldview that condones her exploitation, Diouana's suicide also functions as a powerful accusation ofher employers. For all the suffering they cause Diouana, the French couples' assaults on her have been largely invisible, in part due to the intangible, yet violent nature ofthe gaze. Diouana's mutilated body makes their crimes visible, which the couple clearly realizes as they hurriedly purge the apartment ofany trace ofDiouana's existence and any residue oftheir crime. Similarly, the inspectors who investigate Diouana's death in Sembene's novel try to minimize the threat ofblame behind Diouana's suicide. They discuss the possibility that Diouana was murdered, mostly to determine ifany sensational story could be cooked up out of the death, but ultimately they decide her case was a straightforward suicide, and "the case was closed" (Sembene 54). They determine definitely that no crime took place: no one was responsible for Diouana's death but herself. The evidence ofthe French couple's crime is washed away, and her story receives only a few lines in the ''fait­ divers" section ofthe Nice-Matin newspaper (Langford, Locating Colonisation 99).

Normal life resumes swiftly: the happy French tune ofthe film's first sequence plays again, now ironically as it makes light ofthe situation's gravity, and even the camera quickly diverts its gaze from Diouana's tragic death to the happy beachgoers stretched out on the sand. Unlike the Senegalese soldiers remembered at the Place de

I'Independance memorial, Diouana's death is wholly marginalized, her story silenced; she is as nameless and unremarked as the body ofthe African slave.

But despite his attempts to erase Diouana's memory, Monsieur is forced to confront his roles as colonial oppressor in the "native" section ofDakar, where

Diouana's memory is not forgotten. When Monsieur attempts to recompense Diouana's

35 mother, she refuses to accept his money in exchange for her daughter. Her refusal forces Monsieur to realize that Diouana's death can be neither undone nor erased by money, that black bodies are not objects to be purchased. Monsieur is forced to keep

his money and live with his guilt. This confrontation is even more direct in the moment that follows, as Diouana's little brother, wearing Diouana's wooden mask, chases

Monsieur across the land bridge and out ofthe neighborhood. The mask, which has

followed Diouana throughout the entire film, is first a gift ofher goodwill towards her

new employers, then a reflection ofher own status as a colonial curiosity, and fmally an

object ofher own cognizance and agency as she reclaims the mask from herpatrons'

collection. In one ofthe rare moments in the film in which the mask is actually worn,

Diouana's young brother animates the mask, using it as a symbol ofresistance. The

mask haunts Monsieur down the street, a symbol ofthe post-colonial guilt that he will

never be able to shake.

The mask's accusatory glare has a special significance given Diouana's struggle

to escape the violent spatialization ofthe colonial gaze. Until this point in the film,

Monsieur's gaze has never been challenged, but now it is met with that ofthe masked

spirit. Forced out ofthe neighborhood under the mask's stare, Monsieur can no longer

observe the inhabitants at will and cannot obtain another disposable maid. Sembene

comments on the ending ofhis film as compared to that ofhis novel, which ends with

Diouana's suicide: "I had to show people that the issue is not to commit suicide but to

fight because colonialism is not over" (qtd. in PfaffThe Cinema 122-23). In the film,

Diouana's suicide becomes more than just a personal reclamation ofthe self; it is a

political act that mobilizes her community against economic and spatial exploitation.

36 But at the heart ofthis political resistance is the issue ofindividual subjectivity. In the last frame ofthe film, the mask stares into the camera, and is lowered to reveal the

boy's crying face, a powerful image ofsorrow, accusation, and human dignity. The

mask is a useful tool for combating the colonial gaze, but there is an equally powerful

human subjectivity behind it. Recalling Fanon's image ofthe colonial subject, whose

mask ofwhite culture divides his subjectivity, this unmasking symbolizes the boy's

radical reclamation ofsubjectivity.

Sembene shows Diouana's struggle to gain a position from which to feel, to act,

to see, to know, and though her subjectivity is fragile and costly, she shows us that it is

ultimately the key to transcending the narrow spatial and personal bounds imposed by

colonial domination. But how much does this realization accomplish? Diouana's brief

glimpse ofsubjectivity seems a dismal message, and her brother can stop only one

Frenchman from continuing the cycle ofexploitation. Even ifthe film is intended as a

cautionary tale for viewers like Diouana, Sembene would hardly succeed. Though

Diouana's thoughts are voiced in French for the benefit ofthe audience, it is clear that

her character can speak only Wolof. Thus, Diouana would never understand her own

story as told by Sembene, filmed in a language that excludes her. The film taken as a

whole seems rather hopeless, not only in its portrayal ofDiouana's plight, but also in its

implication that there exist thousands ofother untold stories just like Diouana's,

centuries ofvictims subjugated by slavery and colonial oppression.

At the same time that La noire de... shows the struggle for subjectivity to be

crucial in the fight against colonialism, it is also skeptical that subjectivity can be

attained without dissolving the deeply-rooted power structures. In the optimistic post-

37 independence climate in which La noire de... was made, Sembene points back to 16th century slavery, showing that the same systems ofoppression continue to exist in

Senegal as an independent nation. Examining the legacy ofslavery and high colonialism, Sembene questions the extent to which Senegal's newly-independent government has actually redressed colonialism's underlying structures. He seems to suggest, even, that the new leadership is profoundly wedded to these former structures ofoppression. At one moment in the film, as Diouana desperately searches for work,

she is almost run over by a group ofbickering bureaucrats discussing underhanded dealings. It is perhaps to these characters most ofall, who are in positions ofpower yet cannot seem to see the problems ofthe people right before their eyes, that Sembene addresses his film. Sembene calls for a new political order in Senegal, a government that acknowledges and nourishes its citizens as people, not the spatialized, exploited,

and colonized bodies that were created under French rule. It is not incidental that in La

noire de... the resistance against the French is led by a child. Diouana's brother is an

image ofa new generation ofleaders that do not build on top ofold colonial

architectures that contain and shut out, but construct new structures that support,

protect, and elevate citizens as they realize the promise ofsubjectivity.

38 PartH

Female Power in a Changing Landscape: Sembene's Faat Kine

In the previous chapter on Sembene's La noire de ... , I discussed the ways in which Diouana seeks physical and financial mobility in an attempt to transcend the narrow spatial bounds that circumscribe her life. In her desire to travel, to sightsee, to

earn money and to spend it, Diouana pursues the promise ofempowerment and

subjectivity. Nevertheless, the colonial power structures that surround her prove too

powerful; mobility is unachievable, and she is left unable to escape colonialism's

immobilizing and objectifying gaze. Sembene's Faat Kine (2000) tells a very different

story. Set thirty-five years later, Faat Kine's eponymous protagonist achieves a degree

ofmobility that for Diouana would have been almost unthinkable. Sembene makes the

striking contrast between Diouana and Faat Kine apparent in the films' first sequences.

Sembene introduces Faat Kine as he does Diouana, showing her riding in a car; but

where Diouana is only a passenger in Monsieur's car, Kine is behind the wheel.

An affluent, utterly mobile businesswoman, Kine seems to be living the happy

ending that was impossible for Diouana. From the driver's seat ofher Peugeot, Kine

effortlessly steers through this Dakar ofthe new millennium, a city that has been a site

ofrapid transformation, in spite ofits streets choked with gridlocks. The Dakar we see

in Faat Kine little resembles the Dakar that provided so few opportunities to Diouana.

Now a sprawling metropolis ofmultinational companies, Dakar appears to offer

financial and physical mobility to women like Kine. The barriers ofrace, class, and

39 gender that constantly hampered Diouana's mobility seem to dissolve before Kine's impetuous car hom.

In modem Dakar, Kine seems to have realized the emancipatory subjectivity that

Diouana sought so desperately. Yet, as she continues to run up against architectures of power, structures that appear even more binding, we must question the extent ofKine's

mobility and autonomy. Have the former colonial and patriarchal power structures

really disappeared, or are they just as mobile as Kine, shifting and resettling into new

configurations in the modem, post-colonial city? As we follow Kine through Dakar's

rapidly changing landscape, navigating its new freedoms and hidden snares, Faat Kine

leads us to interrogate Kine's hard-won subjectivity, her new participation in modem

power relations, and even Sembene's representation ofthe moral dilemmas he raises.

A Peugeot ofOne's Own Its blue chrome shining amid the streets ofrusting taxis, Kine's Peugeot is the

mechanical embodiment ofher economic and physical mobility in the modem city. As

we saw in La noire de.. , the rigid gender roles ofthe past gave Diouana and other

women in her position little option but to sell themselves into servitude at the maid

market. These roles are now more fluid, allowing women to assume positions

traditionally reserved for males. Instead ofbeing driven to prostitution in her extreme

poverty, Kine finds salvation at the Total petrol station, the urban oasis where she is

given a job as an attendant. In the modern city, she need not suffer a fate akin to

Diouana's: she survives by taking a man's job. Through hard work over many years,

Kine even climbs the career ladder, becoming manager ofthe station. By earning a

40 wage, she gains direct access to Dakar's growing capitalist market and can afford to traverse Dakar in her own car, frequent upscale restaurants, and provide her children

with a beautiful horne full ofmodem conveniences.

Along with Kine's purchasing power and comfortable lifestyle corne authority

and control. As a powerful patronne, she commands respect. Kine runs her business

from behind a large desk in a comfortable office, honking a hom to delegate tasks to the

male attendants who work for her and demonstrating her business savvy as she interacts

with other managers and executives. Unlike Diouana, who works under the constant

gaze ofher employers, Kine commands private spaces that shut out prying eyes. Kine

shuts her office blinds to prevent Professor Gaye from gazing in, and though B.O.P. and

Gaye briefly threaten the protective space ofher home, Kine has the power to throw

them out. Kine's car provides shelter as well. When the bank manager compliments

her figure, Kine jokes, "Not for public transportation!" She is being coy, but her self­

description is fitting; Kine enjoys the private, privileged space ofher car's interior, even

while traveling around the city. In Picturing Casablanca, Susan Ossman writes about

the power that comes with possessing a car in an urban space: one can traverse the

filthy, crowded city on one's own schedule, an while staying clean, dry, and safe (37).

Within her car, Kine maintains control over her own private space, no matter where she

goes in the city. Quite the reverse ofDiouana, who had no control over the people and

spaces around her, Faat Kine is master ofthe Total Station, ofher home, ofthe road,

exercising her agency without apology.

Even Sembene's camera, which constantly invaded Diouana's space in La noire

de ... , respects Kine's authority completely. Kine is almost always shown seated, with a

41 desk, kitchen table, or car door intervening between her body and the lens. In the rare moments when we see Kine in a close-up shot, it is because she approaches or leans toward a stationary camera; in fact, these images tend to express aggression rather than intrusion or emotion. Only once or twice throughout the film does Sembene attempt a close-up ofKine's face. When Kine sits with Maamy in the courtyard and Maamy begins to recount past troubles, Sembene zooms in on Kine's face, which is beginning to show signs ofemotion. But, as ifaware ofthe camera's frame closing in, Kine begins to rock violently in her chair, pitching rapidly on and off-screen. Kine defies

Sembene's camera, which is so close to her that it registers her movement as blurry.

Sembene's camerawork makes visible Kine's aura ofpower, as ifher image is too

strong to be seen at close range.

A Donkey Disguised as a Camel Compared to Sembene's unflinching depiction ofDiouana's oppression in La

noire de.... Kine's financial and physical mobility seems a wholehearted celebration of

the modem, emancipated life she is able to lead amid Dakar's changing society. Yet, at

the same time that the new conditions ofDakar allow Kine to secure certain privileges,

Sembene shows that these new sources ofpower can conceal new sources of

oppression. Kine is allowed to occupy traditionally male-oriented positions, such as

going to school and working at Total; yet, these ostensible spaces ofempowerment, for

Kine, also become spaces ofsexual abuse, divulging the limits ofher freedom.

Sexually exploited and impregnated by her professor, Kine is cast out ofher school, and

the promise ofeducation and advancement once extended to her are retracted, through

42 no fault ofher own. Similarly, after being denied her chance to become a lawyer, Kine is graciously permitted to pump gas. However, she must break strict taboos in order to do so and thus she becomes an easy target for male attention. Kine earns the money she needs to scrape by, but only by brooking constant male harassment for meager tips. As

Kine demonstrates, women may have broken out ofthe domestic sphere and gained access to male spaces in Senegalese society, but at the same time, these new spaces have become precisely the site where male violence seeks women out.

As a woman trying to break through gender restrictions, Kine is not only prey to constant sexual exploitation, but she is blamed for her own abuse by a zero-tolerance chastity law. Instead offiring Professor Gaye for exploiting Kine, Kine's school expels

Kine for her resulting pregnancy, punishing her for the results ofthe abuse. When she retreats to her father's house, she finds an even more hostile space. Her father is so ashamed ofhis pregnant daughter that he tries to murder her, and even her loving mother wishes death upon her. Kine's parents prefer her to end up like Diouana; they would rather her dead than disgraced. Kine endures more social humiliation, not only for her two children born out ofwedlock, but also for the impropriety ofher job at

Total, where she interacts with men and accepts money from them. Even when she becomes manager ofthe entire gas station, her children are still ashamed ofherjob.

Unlike men who pursue careers and relationships without coming under society's scrutiny, Kine is held to ideals ofpurity and propriety that prove impossible to maintain outside the home. Manlmy describes Kine's public shanle using a transportation metaphor, telling Kine, "You got offthe camel to get on the donkey." Kine appeared to be taking the noble path: educating herself, breaking through gender barriers, pursuing

43 the dream ofmobility. Ultimately though, this mobility proves illusory, as Kine's path leads instead to disgrace. Weighed down by the shame forced upon her, Kine is made to ride a donkey instead ofthe camel she was once promised.

In the same way that Kine's breaching ofgender barriers generates her abuse, her independence evinces not her emancipation but her continued oppression. She is the breadwinner and head ofher household, but her autonomy is essentially forced upon

her when she is abandoned by her father, brother, and two lovers, all ofwhom share

responsibility for her support and the support ofher children. When Kine is discarded

by her nuclear family, the fragmented social network ofurban Dakar offers no

assistance. Unable to rely on the support supplied in traditional community life, she

brings her children into the world entirely on her own, her every movement strained

under the weight ofsingle motherhood. Unlike the happy couples Kine sees passing in

front ofTotal-a man with his arm supportively around his wife, a father with a baby

strapped to his chest so his wife is free to hail a cab-Kine is denied this male support.

Kine is independent, but must bear the physical, emotional, and fmancial burdens of

parenthood on her own. Kine supports not only her children, but also her abandoned,

invalid mother, who calls herselfKine's "daughter" because she relies upon Kine's

strength as iftheir roles were reversed. In light ofKine's arduous struggle to support

her family, Kine's car and financial clout give her a superficial mobility that belies the

heavy burdens that she has shouldered for many years. Towards the end ofthe film,

Kine's maid, Adele, admires Kine's ability to support her family, commenting that

"women nowadays are men's columns." We may value Kine's immense strength, yet

she is forced to expend all her energy just to hold a roofover her family. Abandoned by

44 all male figures and the modern society that casts a blind eye on her plight, Kine maintains her autonomy despite her desperate situation. However, Kine's autonomy dooms her to a static, supporting role, denying her the possibility offulfilling her own dreams.

Society tolerates Kine's independent lifestyle when it comes to her financial needs, but when it comes to Kine's social "responsibilities", that is, serving as a wife, her single status is considered a violation ofnatural law. Even Kine's children

stigmatize her, telling her she "needs" a partner and calling her single motherhood

"depressing." In order to better understand the stigmatization Kine endures for her

unwed motherhood, we might turn to the work This Sex Which is Not One (1977),

written by French feminist theorist Luce Irigaray. Irigaray's work helps us to

understand how Kine's refusal to marry threatens society and why it punishes Kine so

harshly for her transgression. Irigaray argues that patriarchal society is based upon the

exchange ofwomen between men. In this system, Irigaray describes men as subjects or

"exchangers," while women are "commodities," serving only as social and economic

objects that are circulated by men. As commodities, women are ascribed a value that is

determined by the needs ofthe male consumer; their "price... no longer comes from

their natural form, from their bodies, their language, but from the fact that they mirror

the need/desire for exchanges among men" (181). According to this assigned value,

women's bodies are "us[ed], consum[ed], and circulat[ed]" (171) in male society; their

bodies are necessary to maintaining social and economic ties between men and male

power.

45 Thus, in refusing to marry, Kine threatens the patriarchal structure, because she cannot be drawn into its mechanism. Indeed Kine's own family, stung by Kine's violation ofsocial mores, tries to marry her offwhether she likes it or not. When Djib tries to convince Jean to marry Kine, he recalls the language ofIrigaray almost exactly, calling his mother a ''femme de qualite," as ifdescribing premium merchandise for the market. In trying to draw Kine under the thumb ofa husband and thus into the patriarchal system ofexchange, Kine's community tries to neutralize her by turning her into Irigaray's conception ofa commodity. While modem society appears to give Kine the leeway to be autonomous, she is treated like a loose cog in the social machine. In order to maintain her single status, Kine must agree to suffer society's resentment, subterfuge, and anger until she resigns herselfto becoming a benign "objet it deplacer"

Despite the steps toward emancipation that Kine is permitted to take within the modem city, Sembene shows every gain comes with a new loss. It is not simply that

Kine manages some empowerment in spite ofcontinued patriarchy: rather, new forms ofempowerment carry seeds ofa new form ofoppression. At the same time that society gives Kine access to a job, a wage, and increased mobility and independence, its structures ofoppression have also shifted, so that, in order to exercise these new

3 We might see Kine's struggle to remain independent as a comment not only on the structured dependencies ofpatriarchy, but also on those ofneocolonialism. By perpetuating relationships of dependency originating during the colonial period, neocolonialism continues to force former territorial "dependencies" into economic and political reliance on their former "mother countries." This is a moment where Kine's race and gender oppression intersect: she is forced to combat structures of dependency both as a woman and as a Senegalese citizen. Semb~me treats the issue offoreign aid to Africa in detail in his 1992 film, Guelwaar.

46 privileges, Kine is threatened by new forms ofviolence. Sembene shows that under the banner ofemancipation, new forms ofoppression are reinscribed.

Oppression as the "African Way" Even when characters unmask these new forms ofoppression and try to confront them directly, Sembene shows that modem patriarchy has evolved an equally effective defense mechanism: branding female emancipation as "Western" and therefore anti-

African. We first see Alpha, one ofKine's fellow Total managers, employ this strategy when another manager attacks Alpha for polygamy. In defense, Alpha calls his accuser a "neo-colonialist," turning the issue from a question ofwomen's rights to cultural rights. As a cultural value, Alpha sees polygamy as his African birthright, despite encroaching "Western" values offemale equality. Similarly, when Djib finally confronts his father for his many crimes against Kine, Professor Gaye's brother rushes to support B.O.P. and, without even knowing the circumstances ofthe argument,

forbids Djib to ''judge [his] father." This character proclaims to the young graduates

gathered at the party, "My children, here in Africa, fathers are respected, old men are revered. You should not ignore African values." From this perspective, abusive

patriarchs must be honored, male power must go unquestioned, and females must be

oppressed, all because it is "the African way."

These claims about the relationship between African culture and women's rights

position the fight for women's rights not only as less important than the struggle against

neocolonialism, but even counterproductive. David Murphy addresses this kind of

resistance to women's rights as a "conservative reaction to change that aggressively

47 defends the status quo, proclaiming that the subjugated position ofwomen forms an integral part ofthe immutable identity ofthe community" (Murphy 127). In this view, women's oppression should be not only excused, but encouraged as part ofthe ostensibly more important struggle against colonialism. Thus, to oppress women is to respect African culture and to fight for equality is to betray it. In this schema, emancipated women are, at best, mere dupes of"the West"; at worst, they are traitors of their own cultures.

Ironically, as characters like Alpha or Gaye's brother maintain patriarchy in the name ofanti-colonialism, their claims are rooted in a colonial understanding ofAfrican culture. Rachel Langford discusses the colonial construction ofAfrican culture in her article, "Challenging the Colonization ofSpace," arguing that African culture, understood as a discrete and stable unity, was produced through colonial discourse.

Colonial rhetoric defined African culture as unchanging and traditional, and in distinct opposition to Western cultures. This colonial understanding ofAfrican culture is perpetuated in arguments like Alpha's, which continue to conceive ofAfrican culture as inherently conservative and mutually exclusive of"Western" values.

Djib sees through this colonial construction ofAfrican life. He responds to

Gaye's brother, "Are you speaking ofAfrica? Ofwhich Africa? ..Our forefathers proved incapable ofgiving birth to a new Africa." Djib questions this fixed, colonial conception ofAfrica that leaves no room for change and remains incompatible with women's rights. As Djib speaks out against RO.P. and Gaye at the party, Maamy looks on, struck not by Djib radical views, but by his resemblance to his grandfather "as a young brave." Maamy sees no contradiction between Djib's denunciation ofpatriarchy

48 and tradition, even connecting his courageous confrontation ofhis father to the battles ofpast warriors.

Despite its problematic reliance on colonial models ofAfrican culture, this strategy ofshoring up patriarchal privilege by pointing to colonial privilege is pervasive in Faat Kine. Unlike the clear, black-and-white power dynamic that existed in La noire de... , Faat Kine's world is a tangled web ofpower, in which patriarchy and colonial systems ofoppression are interconnected and support each other in complicated formations.

A Conflicted Superwoman Seen in this light, the modern landscape seems a very frightening place indeed, with power structures that playoffone another, each one masking its own force by pointing to another's. Yet, this new network ofpower has a silver lining. Rather than one totalizing force that is all-powerful, there is no longer one system that can manipulate everything. In fact, this is partly the reason why Kine can, to a degree, place herselfout ofpower's reach. Despite the dangers that have evolved along with Dakar's transition into a modern city, Kine builds private buffers-her car, her house, her office- that allow her to avoid these threats.

When we compare Kine's situation to that ofDiouana, forty years earlier, we see that the possibility for these protective spaces is a relatively new occurrence.

Diouana, in many ways, is just as courageous as Kine: though she is a poor, black, unsupported woman, she seeks work to escape poverty, tries to sustain her family, and dreams about a better future. But, as discussed in the previous chapter, though Diouana doggedly tries to maintain control over her life, every action she takes to escape her

49 victimization only enmeshes her further in the system ofcolonial power. Colonialism, as represented in La noire de..., is so totalizing that it cannot be escaped; its forces work

invisibly through Diouana's every action. The more she struggles, the more she is

enslaved. But Kine, through her self-created shelters, is effectively able to make herself

invisible to power. Inside these protective spheres, Kine can escape these forces and act

ofher own free will. Though subjectivity may remain slippery for Kine, she is able to

maintain private space in which she exercises agency.

Even as we see Kine assuming the subject-position so unattainable to Diouana,

Sembene asks us to question the source ofthis new power. While Sembene criticizes

characters like Alpha and Gaye's brother, who try to frame women's oppression as an

anti-colonialist maneuver, he does not deny that 'modem values' such as gender

equality are bound up in other oppressive systems, particularly capitalism. On one

level, Sembene celebrates Kine's ability to escape power structures through the creation

ofprivate spaces, but he does not overlook the fact that Kine's ability to construct these

sheltered spaces is a direct result ofher class privilege. Kine is effectively protected by

her material possessions: at home Kine occupies the privacy ofher villa, at work she

has the glass walls ofher office, and everywhere else, she is shielded by her car. As we

have noted, Kine constructs barriers between herselfand the camera, barriers that seem

necessary for her protection. As soon as she makes the mistake ofletting her window

down to speak with Madame Wade, or leaves her door open for a party, her space is

invaded and she is threatened. Kine cannot afford to leave a breach in her defenses; in

fact, she so rarely leaves her protective spaces that she often forgets to wear her shoes,

since she simply goes from one protective environment into another. Through material

50 accumulation, Kine creates a barrier around her personal life, separating inside from outside, private from public. Kine does manage to transgress certain spatial, gender, and race barriers, but it seems she can only do so while protected by material shields. If

Kine manages to achieve a level ofagency that eluded Diouana, in effect, she falls into the same spatial trap. Just as Kine is walled in by her skin, Kine is walled in by her possessions in the materialist culture ofDakar.

While Kine realizes certain types ofsocial empowemlent, these victories are

contingent on her ability to buffer herselfagainst violent retribution through her class

privilege. But Sembene does not forget to show that violence only ignores those who

can pay to be ignored. In contrast to Kine's effortless mobility within her car, Dakar is

a dangerous landscape for the indigent and unemployable, who have to beg and shout to

be noticed among all the noise and traffic. Even Kine experiences the vulnerability of

poverty when Kine's father tries to attack her. Kine has no money, no material shelter

under which she can escape his power. Kine's only shelter is the skin ofher mother's

back: the body itselfis the only protective shield that the poor can claim. Once she is

rich, Kine is sealed up in her wealth, able to enjoy store-bought cake and ice water from

the maid, even ifthe less fortunate still suffer outside her walls. Ofcourse, Sembene is

careful to show that Kine does care, giving to the poor and helping Pathe in whatever

way she can. Yet, Kine clings to her privileges, and must necessarily exclude some

from sharing them, including the beggar Kine ignores outside the Total corporate office,

who asks her to "give to the poor aU the wealth you are accumulating." Kine's gated

garage and walled-in courtyard are a far cry from Diouana's neighborhood, with its

communal spaces and interlocking cOUliyards. The same public/private banier that

51 prevented others from helping Kine when she was in need now absolves Kine ofthe same responsibility to the poor. Even as Kine serves as an example offemale empowerment, she is clearly an exception to the rule, to the many women and men around her who cannot equally afford to purchase their emancipation.

As Kine buys commodities and exercises her class privilege, Sembene shows

4 that Kine is implicated in Dakar's capitalist power system • Not only is it necessary for her to exclude others from her private commodities, but she translates her financial power into social clout, which she uses to control others. Kine takes glee in grounding a rude customer's car, in requiring a man using the bathroom to buy gas, even in ruthlessly telling offJean, the man she loves, for double-parking in front ofher car. In

some ways, Kine seems to perpetuate unequal gender relationships. We noted that, in resisting marriage, Kine refuses to submit to commodification on the market, but,

curiously, she insists on takingpart in the market, exercising her economic and sexual

power to get what she wants. Kine pays her boyfriends for sexual favors and does not

hesitate to declare them "renvoye" ifthey become too demanding. Hiring and firing

her partners, Kine does not disrupt the unequal relationships ofpatriarchy that Irigaray

describes, but merely reverses them by exchanging men on the sexual-economic

market. In the process, Kine herself avoids victimhood, but in tum victimizes not only

her boyfriends, but also their wives, as she provides a way for their husbands to be

unfaithful. When Kine sprays Madame Wade with mace, threatening to do far worse

4 It is important to acknowledge Kine's participation in capitalism as a protective move within a patriarchal system. Oppressed on the basis ofher skin color and gender, Kine is forced to defend herself from a position ofclass privilege. Kine takes advantage ofthe existing capitalist system in order to provide for herselfand her family. At the same time that we acknowledge Kine's own victimization and her limited ability to change vast structures ofoppression, it is important to be critical ofthe resulting situation: the perpetuation ofeconomic inequality and oppression on the basis ofclass.

52 and to "put pepper on it," Kine reduces Wade to a crumpled heap on the sidewalk. It seems clear that Kine does more than defend herself, attacking a woman whose marriage she has already destroyed. Kine's house even resembles the French couple's sunlit, spacious Dakar in La noire de ... , so that Kine appears to inhabit the same position as Madame. Coming full circle, we are even reminded ofDiouana's oppression in seeing Kine's maid, Adele, who is treated far better, but is still subject to

Kine's unprovoked anger and suffers the same linguistic alienation as Diouana. While

Kine manages to transcend boundaries ofrace and gender, she can do so only at the

expense ofothers, only by exercising her class privilege.

At first glance, we might corroborate the other characters' assertions that Kine is

a "superwoman," but upon close inspection, we must question the source ofher

empowerment. She is like the many other women in the film, the class ofwomen

whom Kine describes as "ajJluentes et conjluentes" (affluent and conflicted). From one

perspective, Kine is a resilient survivor ofoppression who has finally attained some

degree ofautonomy through her earnings; from another, she abuses this hard-won

power, and fails to interrogate its source. It seems apt, given her ambivalence, that one

ofthe most powerful symbols ofher struggle is a near-collision. In the first sequence of

Faat Kine, Sembene shows a line ofwomen, burdened with heavy buckets and children

on their backs, crossing the street in front ofthe Place d'Independence, where Diouana

once promenaded with her boyfriend. In one sense, this difficult walk against the grain

oftraffic captures Kine's snuggle to navigate the modem city; she is weighed down but

resilient, and finds strength in her fellow women around her. But while impatient to get

to work, Kine nearly hits these sluggish pedestrians, unaware that she is honking at her

53 own metaphor. No matter how much empowennent Kine manages to achieve, she is never free from the conflicts and contradictions ofmodern life, which Sembene shows to be impossible to resolve.

Wiggling Toes and Political Imperatives What are we to do with this complicated heroine and the questions that her story raises about female power in the modern city? Sembene paints a thorny picture oflife

in the modern city. In its implications, Faat Kine is nothing like La noire de..., in which

Sembene's "right" and "wrong" are literally black and white, and the message, as

Sembene tells us, is clear: "fight, because colonialism is not over" (qtd. in PfaffThe

Cinema 122-23). But in Faat Kine, the clear, political message that is a trademark of

Sembene's didactic and revolutionary cinema is noticeably absent. It is difficult to

place characters in hero(ine) or villain categories, particularly when it is so difficult to

wholeheartedly endorse even Kine. Some beggars are pitiable yet dignified; others are

hypocritical and manipulative. Some French speakers are pompous Francophiles;

others are forward-thinking and well-educated. The valorization ofAfrican values has

also become suspect, when those values are called upon to keep women submissive to

men in the name ofcultural authenticity. Sembene suggests that we can no longer abide

by hard and fast rules and that we must be wary ofwhat may seem like finn moral

footing.

Perhaps some messages ring clear: Sembene wants to inspire women to seek

empowerment, to abandon the houses oftheir fathers, to reject loveless, forced

marriages, to leave polygamous husbands. Yet, as we have seen in Kine's case, the

54 ability to recover from these radical moves is predicated on fmancial independence, which necessarily requires certain choices ofexclusion and antagonism. Sembfme brings these complications to light, but does not engage the implications ofwhat happens when women seize men's power and provides little advice on how women should approach it. Through the character ofDjib, called "Presi," Sembfme seems to call for some government-level change in order to rectify women's oppression. And, yet, for an audience watching the film, it is unclear what sort ofpolitical change must actually occur: Djib has only a nascent conception ofwhat his contribution to women's rights will actually be.

For many critics, this moral ambiguity is precisely what is so appealing about

Faat Kine. Rather than the binary scenario that Sembfme sets up in La noire de.. , in which characters were divided into colonizer/colonized, powerful/weak, wrong/right categories, in Faat Kine, Sembene recognizes the need to move beyond limiting dichotomies. Rachel Langford, in particular, views Sembene's use of"dialectical relations over dichotomies as an essential move in the struggle to win back subjectivity"

(Langford, Challenging the Colonisation 121). She sees Kine's role as largely

successful in this move, breaking down the boundaries between categories like

"feminine" and "masculine" or "tradition" and "modernity (124)." Congolese minister and philosopher Charles Bowao similarly observes in his article "Desethnologiser":

To be modem is to live in one's own era but, moreover, it means being in tune

with the contradictory values it suggests, both in action and in thought. After

all, modernity is. It is precisely because modernity has never been and will not

be that it is quite simply the open horizon ofa never-ending human quest.

55 Modernity derives its dynamism from humanity itself. Therefore, modernity is

reinvention not repetition. (Bowao, qtd. in Murphy 31)

Bowao suggests that there is something irreducibly complicated about modernity itself, that to try to reconcile its contradictions is as impossible as understanding this concept that has never occurred, and never will. These critics point to the limitations ofbinary thinking, particularly in a landscape as complicated as that ofmodem Dakar, and, for these reasons, we can celebrate Sembene's nuanced portrait ofmodernity and his subtle treatment ofpower dynamics in modem Dakar.

Yet, as Sembene's message becomes more subtle, his call to resistance is also quieter. A black-and-white understanding ofpower relations can be limiting, but we must also understand the cost ofcomplicating the message ofresistance. Binary thought is often pejoratively characterized as "reactionary," and yet, ifSembime is no longer "reacting" to oppression, does that mean that we are somehow beyond oppression, that the need for change is no longer urgent? Where the final image ofLa noire de ... , is the weeping face ofDiouana's young brother, mourning his sister and

seething with anger, Kine's wiggling toes do not call for revolution. What sort of political message are we to take from Faat Kine, ifany? This is not to insist that either ofSembene's stylistic approaches to these films is better than the other, or that it is necessary for Sembene or African film as a whole to take a stand on political issues.

Rather, I mean to suggest that neither ofSembene's representations offemale empowennent can deny their ideological baggage, whether the film cans for us to resist the status quo or for us to celebrate it.

56 Sembtme's examination ofKine's own oppressive role leads us to believe that there are still changes to be made and power structures to dismantle. We might read

Faat Kine as a grim picture ofmodem women's emancipation: a movement in which power systems are not dislodged, they are merely restructured to incorporate women.

In escaping victimization and attaining a subject-position, women gain the privilege to oppress on the basis ofclass alongside men. Yet, even as Sembene raises these problems with modem life, Faat Kine undeniably celebrates Kine's emancipation while ignoring its complications. In Sembene's paper "Man is Culture," addressed to an

American university audience in 1975, he tells us, "It is not a question ofrefusing

modernity but rather ofmastering it and directing it" (cited in Murphy 31). Sembene

suggests that modernity is not a list ofimmutable conditions-technological and

scientific advancement, urbanization, capitalism, or liberalism-that we have to accept

or reject as a whole; rather, modernity is what we make ofit, a force for change that has

to be monitored and channeled. But ifFaat Kine is meant to offer this imperative for

change or any vision ofmodemity, they are delivered without conviction. While Faat

Kine brings complications ofmodem life to light, it leaves their untangling to us.

57 Conclusion

In considering La noire de ... and Faat Kine side-by-side, we have seen

Sembl!me's vision ofshifting power relations in Dakar and women's roles within them.

Through her pursuit ofvisual privilege and mobility, Diouana seeks to affirm her subjectivity. At first, Diouana's job in France seems to be the opportunity for which she has been waiting, but as we see, her pursuit ofpower is doomed to fail in the context ofcolonial oppression. Subjected by colonial architectures and the colonizer's gaze, Diouana is forced into an object-position, manipulated by power forces with nearly every action she attempts. As Sembime shows the persistence ofcolonial structures ofoppression in the guise ofindependence, he suggests that we should not be lured into a false sense offreedom. While La noire de... claims that the radical changes ofindependence are illusory, in some ways, Faat Kine seems to do the reverse, cataloging women's advancements since independence. Yet, Faat Kine complicates these gains, and though some may be genuine and important, Sembene shows that many are simply new vehicles for old forms ofoppression. In the same way that Diouana suffered colonial oppression even in an independent nation, so too can patriarchal power operate under the sign of"emancipation."

Faat Kine also raises troubling questions about postcolonial subjectivity. Upon attaining the visual privilege and mobility ofDiouana's fantasies, Kine's power seems to be contingent upon her capacity to abuse it, whether with or without intention. As we see Kine incorporated into a capitalist power structure, Sembene leads us to reconsider what it means to be a subject. What happens when the line between one's own empowerment and one's coercion ofothers becomes blurry, when g an affirmation of

58 one's subjectivity confers the right to oppress? Must subjectivity necessarily mean gaining a position ofpower relative to others? Perhaps Kine's story suggests that there will always be power systems and that we must simply learn to work within them. And ifnot, do we have to envision a utopian or communist community in order to imagine how one individual's empowerment is not necessarily tied to another's oppression?

Faat Kine may not provide solutions to these questions, or even lead us to any kind of satisfactory understanding ofthem. Yet, these tensions in the film are present, and provide us with a foothold for thinking about what is at stake in the fight for women's empowerment.

Whether we see the messages of Semb~me's films as twisted or tidy, as politically engaged or politically detached, these messages signify very little ifthey reach no audience, which is why we have to consider carefully the power relations surrounding the films themselves. As I noted earlier, the reason that Sembene became a filmmaker in the first place was to find a local audience, hoping to use the popular power ofcinema to reach large audiences ofvarying educational and literary backgrounds. His intent was to cultivate a politically-conscious spectatorship, to educate and infoffi1 people on social issues. Sembene says ofhis filmmaking:

I consider the cinema to be a means for political action. Nevertheless I don't

want to make "poster films." Revolutionary films are another thing.

Moreover, I am not so naive as to think that I could change Senegalese reality

with a single film. But I think that ifthere were a whole group ofus making

59 films with that same orientation, we could alter reality a little bit. (Pfaff, The

Uniqueness 19i

We can see Sembene's consciousness-raising goal as related to Mill's visual understanding ofsubjectivity, in attempting to provide a political education, to carve out a space for Senegalese to understand their larger political world and to make decisions based on that comprehension. In the same way that Diouana seeks subjectivity through a visual privilege, the ability to see and know, Sembene offers a version ofthis visual privilege to his audience.

Yet, who is Sembene's privileged audience? As a student, I first became part of this privileged audience when I screened one ofSembene's films in a college course.

When I became increasingly interested in his work, I decided to study abroad in Senegal in hopes ofseeing more films and learning more about Sembime. Not long after my arrival in Dakar, I began scouring the city for movie theaters, but could find very few.

When I visited the handful oftheaters I did locate, I never saw a single film produced by one ofSenegal's many filmmakers, though I did see a wide array ofBollywood,

Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Kung-fu films.

Needless to say, this was not the cinematic experience I had hoped for in coming to Senegal, and throughout my four-month stay, I could only get my hands on a handful ofSenegalese-produced DVDs and videos by combing through university libraries and borrowing university professors' personal copies. Even though I did not get to see

5 We have to be careful with Sembene's own words here, and his distinction between "poster" films and "revolutionary" films, as ifto suggest that former is ideology and the latter is not. Related to this is Sembene's own claim to be a kind of"educator" through film, neutrally "revealing" the way power relations "really work." Kenneth Harrow attacks Sembene's truth claims and his somewhat messianic educational mission at length in Postcolonial African Cinema.

60 many ofSembEme's films while in Senegal, something else had piqued my curiosity.

Why are SembEme's films shut up in university libraries? Where are SembEme's films shown on screen and why is there no place for them in Senegalese cinemas?

Senegalese films have always had difficulty reaching a Senegalese audience.

The Senegalese government is notoriously uncooperative with its local filmmakers, partly stemming from a somewhat hostile relationship between Sembene and former president Senghor. But the government is not entirely to blame for the absence oflocal screenings ofSenegalese films. As we saw in Faat Kine, the climate ofrapid globalization in Dakar has meant that films from Hollywood and other large film production centers compete with local films that are produced on shoestring budgets.

The globalizing forces that allow Kine to achieve success at Total are the same forces that prevent her story from being heard.

While it was not within the scope ofthis analysis to address the complex power relations that surround Sembene's films and define his audiences, it is important to bear

in mind that SembEme's films rarely reach his intended audience. In the same way that

Diouana is shipped to Europe and cannot find her way back, Sembime's films become

confined to privileged, white spaces-large, European and North American cities and

universities. Though Sembene's films increasingly garner recognition in these spaces,

we have to question the power dynamics that lay claim to these films while denying

them their intended audience. What economic and political forces exclude African

films from being exhibited on the continent, and what can be done to prevent these

filmmakers from being silenced before their OvVll communities? Sembime saw film as a

tool for fighting colonialism's domination ofphysical and intellectual space, and yet,

61 each ofhis films must also fight for space in the cultural consciousness ofthe

Senegalese people.

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