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Contesting Cultural and Political Stereotypes in the Language Of CONTESTING CULTURAL AND POLITICAL STEREOTYPES IN THE LANGUAGE OF GENOCIDE IN SELECTED RWANDAN FILMS by URTHER RWAFA submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the subject AFRICAN LANGUAGES at the UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH AFRICA SUPERVISOR: DR T N. NTSHINGA CO-SUPERVISOR: PROF M T. VAMBE JANUARY 2010 i DECLARATION Student Number: 4590-497-9 I declare that Contesting Cultural and Political Stereotypes in the Language of Genocide in selected Rwandan films is my own work and that all the sources I have used or quoted have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references. ..................................... ........................................... Signature Date ii SUMMARY This study aimed to contest political and cultural stereotypes depicted through the verbal and audio-visual languages used to represent the Rwandan genocide in the films, A Good Man In Hell(2002), Hotel Rwanda(2004), Sometimes In April(2005) and Keepers of Memory(2004). A Good Man in Hell criticised the racism that influenced the international community not to help Rwandans stop the genocide. In Hotel Rwanda, mostly the Tutsis died during the genocide of 1994. Sometimes in April revealed that the Hutu middle class engineered the genocide. Keepers of Memory depicted the gendered nature of the language of genocide and showed that women were silenced at various levels. The films partially succeeded in depicting the Rwandan genocide because the films did not sufficiently foreground the socio-economic factors that created the conditions for genocide to happen. The study suggested that future research on film representations could compare and contrast cases of genocide in Africa. iii KEY TERMS 1. Rwanda—A tiny country in central Africa that experienced genocide in 1994 in which nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus were killed by Hutu extremists. 2. Genocide—The term refers to a coordinated plan aimed at destroying an ethnic group in whole or in part. 3. Ethnicity—A socially constructed identity in which people are divided into groups on the basis of language, physical appearance and place of origin. 4. Stereotype—A generalised, partial and selective way of identifying and classifying groups of people based on positive or negative traits. 5. Documentary Film—A film that creatively uses real characters and places to narrate stories or social experiences. 6. Feature Film—A film based on the creative imagination to represent human experiences. 7. UNAMIR—United Nations Assistance Mission In Rwanda. 8. RPF—Rwanda Patriotic Front is a Tutsi liberating force that stopped the genocide. It was trained in Uganda and led by Paul Kagame—now president of Rwanda. 9. Gender—The social construction of the roles that male and female perform in society and culture. 10. Language – A system of signs and codes that manifests through verbal, visual, sound, colour, silence and includes mis-en scene. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am greatly indebted to the following: -My two supervisors, DR. N. Ntshinga and Professor M.T. Vambe who moulded my critical approach to the analysis of Film representation of the Rwandan genocide. I speak with conviction that this study could not have seen the light of day if it was not for the untiring and constructive criticism I got from my two supervisors. -UNISA library and its work force for creating a conducive atmosphere for my studies. -UNISA Financial Aid Bureau (FAB) for generously making available the bursary that made me pursue my studies without facing financial constraints. -A huge thank you goes to my wife Rumbidzai and children—Karen, Mitchell and Arthur (Jnr) for creating an enabling social environment with their encouragements even when the going got tough. Thank you. May God bless you all! v TABLE OF CONTENTS Declaration………………………………………................................................. i Summary…………………………………………................................................ ii Key terms…………………………………………............................................... iii Acknowledgments……………………………..................................................... iv CHAPTER 1: Introduction…………………………………............................. 1 1.0 Background to the Study………………………….......................................... 1 1.1 Statement of Research Problem......................................................................... 1 1.2 Research Aims................................................................................................... 2 1.3 Research Objectives........................................................................................... 2 1.4 Justification of Research Study………………................................................. 2 1.5 Research Questions…………………………………………………………… 3 1.6 Literature Review…………………………………………………………….. 6 1.7 Theoretical Approaches used in this Study…………………………………… 9 1.8 The Research Method………………………………………………………… 12 1.9 Selection of Specific films and Interpretation of Data………………………. 14 10.0 Chapter Organisation………………………………………………………... 15 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review…From European Holocaust studies to African genocide studies …………………………………………………………………………………...18 2.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………… 19 2.1 Holocaust and Genocide trends outside Africa………………………………… 19 2.2 Problems of representing the holocaust in some European Films………………. 19 2.3 Re-defining Genocide …………………………………………………………… 21 2. 4 Genocide trends in Africa outside the Great lakes Region…………………… 23 vi 2.5 Genocide trends in the Great Lakes Region…………………………………… 25 2.6 Scholarly Criticism on the films about the Rwandan Genocide……………… 27 2.7 Contribution of the study to African scholarship on film and the Rwandan genocide.29 2.8 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………. 30 CHAPTER 3: Rethinking myths of Whiteman’s Burden in the documentary A Good Man in Hell (2002) 3.0 Introduction………………………………………………………………………….. 32 3.1 The plot of the story in A Good Man in Hell (2002)…………………………………. 32 3.2 Defining the Documentary film……………………………………………………… 33 3.3 Language theories and A Good Man in Hell (2002)………………………………….. 35 3.4 Understanding racial stereotypes in A Good Man in Hell (2002)……………………. 35 3.5 The Historical Context of the Myths of White Man’s burden……………………….. 35 3.6 A Good Man in Hell: paradox of failure of white civilization during the 1994 Rwanda genocide…………………………………………………………………………………….. 38 3. 7 Genre, Setting, Audience and the dynamics of interpretation ………………………… 45 3.8 Romeo Dallaire: A Brief Critique of His Moral exposition during Rwanda genocide.. 48 3.9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….. 50 CHAPTER 4……………………………………………………………………………… 52 Hotel Rwanda (2004) and the contradictions in the representations of the Rwanda Genocide 4.0 Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….. 52 4.1 Hotel Rwanda: Rethinking myths, Memory and Historical Perspectives of the genocide... 55 4.2 Contesting ‘Dominant’ Verbal and Audio-Visual Narratives in Hotel Rwanda............... 60 4.3 Hotel Rwanda and the Politics of the Language of silencing the RPF narrative……….. 65 4.4 Hotel Rwanda and the portrayal of Tutsis as children of Sisyphus……………………. 67 4.5 Hotel Rwanda and the suppression of a Third World political language of resistance… 71 4.6 Hotel Rwanda: Silencing of female discourses of human agency……………………… 73 4.7 Hotel Rwanda and ideology of narrativity……………………………………………... 75 4.8 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….. 78 vii CHAPTER 5... Contesting the ‘Spectacle of Excess’ in the portrayal of the Rwandan genocide in Sometimes in April (2005) ...................................................................................................................................................80 5.0 Introduction....................................................................................................................... 80 5.1. Defining the ‘spectacle of excess’ in film images……………………………………… 80 5.2 Film theories and genocide in Sometimes in April(2005)……………………………… 82 5.3 The plot of Sometimes in April (2005)............................................................................. 84 5.4 Interrogating the cultural and political narratives of genocide in Sometimes in April.... 85 5.5 Symbolical instabilities in the Spectacular African Corpse in Sometimes in April....... 94 5.6 Rwandan Genocide and the images of International Community in Sometimes in April... 102 5.7 ‘Gacaca’ System and the Pitfalls of Enforced Democracy ............................................... 105 5.8 Conclusion......................................................................................................................... 107 CHAPTER 6……………………………………………………………………………….. 109 Challenging the Gendered Silences in the stories of Rwandan women in Keepers of Memory (2004) 6.0 Introduction..................................................................................................................... 109 6.1 The Plot of Keepers of Memory (2004)............................................................................. 110 6.2 Defining ‘silences’ in the gender discourses of Keepers of Memory (2004).................... 110 6.3 Verbalizing and Audio-visualizing the gendered ‘Other’ in Keepers of Memory (2004)...112 6.4 Sexual violence on women in Keepers of Memory (2004)................................................. 124 6.5 Cultural Memory and the politics of dis/ remembering gender in Keepers of Memory.. 126 6.6 Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 128 CHAPTER7: Conclusion........................................................................................................129
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