Vodou and the U.S. Counterculture

VODOU AND THE U.S. COUNTERCULTURE Christian Remse A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY August 2013 Committee: Maisha Wester, Advisor Katerina Ruedi Ray Graduate Faculty Representative Ellen Berry Tori Ekstrand Dalton Jones © 2013 Christian Remse All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Maisha Wester, Advisor Considering the function of Vodou as subversive force against political, economic, social, and cultural injustice throughout the history of Haiti as well as the frequent transcultural exchange between the island nation and the U.S., this project applies an interpretative approach in order to examine how the contextualization of Haiti’s folk religion in the three most widespread forms of American popular culture texts – film, music, and literature – has ideologically informed the U.S. counterculture and its rebellious struggle for change between the turbulent era of the mid-1950s and the early 1970s. This particular period of the twentieth century is not only crucial to study since it presents the continuing conflict between the dominant white heteronormative society and subjugated minority cultures but, more importantly, because the Enlightenment’s libertarian ideal of individual freedom finally encouraged non-conformists of diverse backgrounds such as gender, race, and sexuality to take a collective stance against oppression. At the same time, it is important to stress that the cultural production of these popular texts emerged from and within the conditions of American culture rather than the native context of Haiti. Hence, Vodou in these American popular texts is subject to cultural appropriation, a paradigm that is broadly defined as the use of cultural practices and objects by members of another culture. One form of cultural appropriation is cultural exploitation, a concept that is central to the chapter on film and manifests itself as a mode of misrepresentation. iv Following in the wake of the early twentieth century, when the U.S. occupation of Haiti denounced Vodou as violent anti-white cult and widespread media frenzy in America sought to demonize the Nation of Islam by relating it to the distorted version of Haiti’s folk religion, Hollywood perpetuated Vodou’s disrepute to an extent that it can be read as a means to further denigrate growing black resistance to white oppression after World War II. In order to divert from its racist undertone and justify the maintenance of ostensibly oppressive white supremacy, films like Voodoo Tiger, Voodoo Woman, and Macumba Love are not only symbolic of demonizing black resistance as chaotic and random violence but also suggestive of portraying whites as victims of black aggression. Unlike film, music and literature appropriated Vodou in order to ideologically support the revolutionary course of the U.S. counterculture. Music had a particular impact on the three New Left currents black liberation, feminism, gay rights activism, and their interconnectedness insofar as Vodou in the lyrics of songs such as “Voodoo Voodoo” and “Voodoo Man,” “Voodoo Eyes” suggests different gender, sexual, and racial hierarchies. Vodou in U.S. literature such as Reed’s postmodern novel Mumbo Jumbo, by comparison, disseminates ideologies that are emblematic of buttressing the anti-imperial discourse of the peace movement during the Vietnam War. These ideologies, for instance, suggest mediating between two oppositional sides in order to balance out conflict and are thus significative of resonating with liberal activists who traveled to Southeast Asia in order to negotiate between the U.S. and North Vietnam. v For mom, dad, and Mo vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my family for their unending and unconditional support throughout my academic career. I would like to particularly thank my parents, who encouraged me to pursue my degree and never gave up believing in me. My special gratitude goes out to my girlfriend Mo, who not only inspired me but also took the everyday work out of my hands and thus helped me to sustain my mental health during the exhausting writing process. I also wish that all of my grandparents had lived to witness my academic achievements. I would like to believe that they would have been very proud of me. I am also deeply indebted to my dissertation committee chair and advisor, Maisha Wester, for her ongoing encouragement, help, and outstanding mentorship. She has not only guided me through good and bad times during the dissertation phase but also taught me how to become a professional academic in her various classes, which I enjoyed so much. Furthermore, I would like to thank my committee member Ellen Berry, who introduced me to the world of culture studies, Tori Ekstrand, whose distinguished teaching skills helped me to retain a practical perspective on academia, Dalton Jones, whose flexibility granted me a wonderful addition to my committee, Matt Davis, who watched out for me during a crucial phase of academic hardship, and – last but not least – my graduate representative, Katerina Ruedi Ray, who I trusted blindly. My friends equally deserve a great deal of thanks. I would like to particularly thank my friends in Germany, as they believed in me and never forgot me, despite the thousands of miles that separated us over the last few years. Special appreciation goes out to Sudipto “Deep” Sanyal, who helped me back on track more than once, Billy Stratton, who taught me the secrets of successful teaching, John “J.R.” Rawlins, whose vii cheerfulness brought light into the academic darkness that surrounded us all too often as well as Bryan McGeary and Ed Uszynski with whom I had great discussions over food and drinks after class. I truly believe that without these wonderful people in my life I wouldn’t be where I am today. viii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................. 1 CHAPTER I. CINEMATIC VODOU AND THE RISE OF BLACK RESISTANCE ........ 23 CHAPTER II. VODOU IN U.S. POPULAR MUSIC AND THE NEW LEFT................... 49 CHAPTER III. VODOU IN U.S. LITERATURE AND THE ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT 77 CONCLUSION...................................................................................................................... 105 NOTES................................................................................................................................... 110 WORKS CITED .................................................................................................................... 116 APPENDIX A. SONG LYRICS........................................................................................... 131 1 INTRODUCTION Throughout the history of Haiti, its folk religion Vodou has repeatedly served as a bul- wark of freedom against external and internal powers of oppression. When the Spanish ceded the western third of Santo Domingo to France at the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, the French renamed it Saint Domingue and turned their newly acquired territory into one of their most profitable col- onies. In order to maximize their profits, the colonizers stole Africans and exploited them as slaves. Apart from exposing them to malnutrition, poor housing, and long hours, French slaveholders made concerted efforts to fully strip bondsmen of their African heritage in general and African Vodou in particular since they feared that their native religion provides them with the means to secretly coordinate revolts. In order to prevent potential insurgencies, slaveholders sought to replace African Vodou with French catechism, as this, they thought, allows them to maintain control over their slaves. Their plan, however, failed. Bondsmen managed to retain their African belief under the disguise of Catholicism and were thus able to use coded language and rituals as a mode to incite an upheaval after all. This act of rebellion manifested itself most prom- inently in 1791. That summer, Vodou not only functioned as communicative vehicle within a secret network across the ethnically diverse slave population but also spiritually empowered the rebels to successfully fight their tormentors. Over the course of the next nine years, the slave upheaval morphed into a large-scale revolution, which gave birth to Haiti, the first independent black republic in the Western hemisphere. Yet, instead of celebrating Vodou for its central con- tribution to freedom, Haiti’s ruling elite perpetuated its demonization, as it “knew all too well the danger and power of slave discontent as well as the potent force of Vodou ritual” (Murrell 63). This biased sentiment changed, however, throughout the first half of the twentieth century. At this time, occupying U.S. marines sought to subjugate Haiti’s masses to their exploitative 2 system. Nationalist intellectuals of the ethnological and literary movement came to realize this foreign threat. Reminiscing the revolutionary legacy of Haitian Vodou during the struggle for independence, they rehabilitated it in order to revive the Haitians’ African identity against white foreign oppression. Yet, when Duvalier, as one of the founding members of the nationalist movement, took over the reign as autocrat under the false pretense as president, he changed his approach and used Vodou as a tool of intimidation with the objective to bend the masses’ will in favor of his dictatorship. In response, cultural middle-class critics such as Haitian

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