Caribbean Popular Culture 1. Sugar Cane Alley 2. Language, 3. Dub poetry 4. Music: Bob Marley &...
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Transcript of Caribbean Popular Culture 1. Sugar Cane Alley 2. Language, 3. Dub poetry 4. Music: Bob Marley &...
Caribbean Popular Culture
1. Sugar Cane Alley
2. Language, 3. Dub poetry
4. Music: Bob Marley & Fugees as Examples
Popular Culture & Racial Consciousness Voodoo or other African folk beliefs Pre-Emancipation: riot, petit marronage
( 小走私 ) in francophone islands-leaving home to meet girl friends, or for a forbidden church meeting. * Maroons ( 孤立的黑奴遺族 )– Music: Work Song, Abeng
Post-Emancipation: Violent riot 20th Century:
– dub poetry and its Conscious Use of Creole
– Carnival,
– Music: Calypso, Reggae
The Caribbean Islands and their migrants
Canada The U.S.
““Children of the Sea”; FugeesChildren of the Sea”; Fugees
Annie John M. Cliff, B. Marley
Wide Sargasso Sea Sugar Cane Alley
England France
• Setting: Martinique in the 1930s; Black Shack Alley, Port-de-France
1. Slums of the Empire
2. Emancipation as the false door to freedom;
Toils on the sugar cane plantations:
Su
gar Can
e Alley: b
ackgrou
nd
(1)
Toils on the sugar cane plantations:
Season: right after X’mas to August.1. Working hours: 10-11 hrs a day, six
days a week.2. The traditional planting method: hoe
(instead of plough); dung basket (instead of cart)
3. Cutting: in a dry season, sent to the factory right away. Bend down to cut at the bottom, and then stand up to strip trash or dry leaves.
e.g. “[Cutting cane] has given me a house and helped me raise six children, . . . but [cutting cane] can take everything out of you.
Su
gar Can
e Alley: b
ackgrou
nd
(1)
Sugar Cane Alley: background (2) film production: (1985, Euzhan Palcy); from the novel
Joseph Zobel, Black Shack Alley worried about the white creole elites’
responses– use French, but not Creole French– first shown in Martinique but not in
France; several awards in Venice film fest and French Cesar
Sugar Cane Alley: Major Themes Exploitation of the black laborers and their ways
of resistance (examples of Caribbean folk culture)
Cultural identities -- different senses of black/creole/white identities.– What contrasts or oppositions are portrayed in the film?
Education --Who gets educated and by whom?
Sugar Cane Alley: Major Themes Exploitation of the black laborers and their
ways resistance (examples of Caribbean folk culture)
-- the laborers: Ti Coco, Twelve-Toe, Medouze
-- the colonizers and overseers: Mr. de Thoral, Mr. Whitley, Carmen’s mistress.
-- in-group exploitation: Mme. Leonce
Sugar Cane Alley: Exploitation
Exploitation of Labourers before and after Emancipation – the workers -- their songs; their ways of
rebellion; Ti CoCo's wage; – Medouze – the overseers -- e.g. Whitley
Seen from the children’s perspective– the broken bowl episode – the rum-drinking episode child
laborers
Sugar Cane Alley: Cultural/Gender IdentityWho else (besides Jose) gets education or
“liberated”?Self-Hatred (or Black Skin, White Mask): M. FloraCross-Cultural Gender relations:
a. Black women’s position: Leopold’s mother
b. Carmen Jose’s friends,
Sugar Cane Alley: Education Education of Jose the grandmother’s role; Medouze’s influence: respect for nature, “Africa” the two teachers Major turning points in the film:
– Rum– Medouze’s death– Mme. Leonce moving to the town– Being chosen to Port-de-France– Being suspected of cheating.
Getting full scholarship
Sugar Cane Alley: Education
How do you read the line at the end--"Take my Black Shack Alley with me"?
Does Jose's "success" suggest that things are changing? That there will be justice? Or is he simply an exception?
Sugar Cane Alley: Filmic Techniques
1. Structure: the post card views at the opening
2. Colors: the use of different color tones for different
settings (Black Shack Alley—dark and sepia, Leopold’s house & Port-de-France--bright)
3. Shots: no scenery shots Many close-ups
The people’s resistance to colonialism: some examples of Caribbean Popular Culture Ways of rebelllion:
– with music, dance, religion (voodon), or simply their different way of living;
– pretend sickness, steal, or even poison their masters.
– Dub poetry: forerunner of hip-hop– Calypso: originated in the songs of
African slaves who worked in the plantation fields of Trinidad. Forbidden to talk to each other, they used calypso to communicate feelings and information.
Bob Marley(1944-1981) & Jamaica: his efforts in promoting peace
Formed the Wailing Wailers in 1963. Attempted assassination: before the PNP-
sponsored "Smile Jamaica" concert in 1976. the One Love Peace Concert in 1978. Received the Third World Peace Medal by
all the African delegations at the United Nations.
Rastafarianism Cf. Bob Marley site
Origin in Africa: the Nile Valley (including both Egypt and Ethiopia) ; Ethiopian Orthodox Church, a pure form of Christianity that kept its connection with its Judaic and Egyptian pasts, all elements within Rastafarianism.
Major Belief: the blending of the purest forms of both Judaism and Christianity; rejects the Babylonian hypocrisy of the modern church. (Babylon can also refer to the Western colonial culture in general.)
Rastafarianism (2) practice: the herb "ganja" (marijuana) was
regarded as "wisdomweed for a religious rite; a life of asceticism and artistry; the difference between rastas and hippies.
Jah: Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia, arrived in Jamaica in 1966
the 1930s in Jamaica: were years of social upheaval and labor strikes --perfect timing for the rise of Rastafarianism, a religion of the dispossessed. (Different from hippie culture)
Bob Marley’s major messages:
Peace, love & Anti-colonialism & self-liberation
e.g. Redemption Song (first part, about slavery)
“ Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
All I ever had, is songs of freedom
Won't you help to sing, these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had, redemption songs
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds ...
Bob Marley’s song: another example “Buffalo Soldier” from Legend-A gritty
ballad that tells the cruelly ironic story of black men being conscripted into the ranks of the Union Army to kill indians.
Fugees: The Score “No Woman, No Cry”I remember when we used to sit in the
government yard in Brooklyn. Observing the crookedness as it mingled with
the good people we meet. Good friends we had,Good friends we've lost along the way.In this great future you can't forget your past,
So dry your tearsI say And to my peers who passed away,No woman, no cry, no woman no cry, say say
say.
Fugees: a “Hopeful” Image about the refugee A Hip-Hop band from Haiti Hip-Hop style: re-assemble a lot of music
and styles by the Black singers in the past; the themes: refugees; colonialism/sexism;
their escape and tendencies to commit crimes in the host city
these themes are treated with sympathy for the refugees and/or uplifting messages.
Killing Me SoftlyStrumming dub plates
with our fingers,Eliminate sounds with
our song,Killing a sound boy with
this sound,Killing a sound boy with
this sound,Taking sound boys' lives
with this dub, Killing him softly with
this sound.
Strumming my pain with his fingers,
Singing my life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song,
killing me softly with his song,
Telling my whole life with his words,
Killing me softly with his song.
Carnival by Wyclef Jean
Carnival: the setting is a court trial, in which Wyclef tries hard to excuse himself. e.g. Guantanamera: disclose the beauty myth about the
Caribbean woman,
who is actually a prostitute.
Carnival by Wyclef Jean Closing Arguments
In closing, ladies and gentlemen of the jury
I'm not gonna sit here and bore you with a long, drawn out story or excuse, of why I think Wyclef is guilty I'm gonna stand by the exhibits as well as the tapes And songs such as Jeopardy, Til Novemeber, All the Girls, and Bubblegoose, which stand side by side with my allegations I rest my case
Carnival by Wyclef Jean. . . Your honor see, this, this is exactly
what I'm talkin about
I mean I've been meaning to ask this the whole time Who the hell is Bishop?
Eh?
And and why the hell hasn't he been brought on the stand?
Bishop, bishop, not true, false, bishop
Ohh, bullshit!
Map: traveling of people & cultures
Canada The U.S.
““Children of the Sea”; FugeesChildren of the Sea”; Fugees
Annie John M. Cliff, B. Marley
Wide Sargasso Sea Sugar Cane Alley
Derek Walcott Austin Clarke
Neil Bissoondath
England France India
American Imperialism in the Caribbean Area (Cf. Bob Marley site http://www.bobmarley.com/)
Economic – the area becomes the tourists’ heaven and a
cheap labor factory (capital, technology and management shipped to the area to use the labor power without leaving the profits there.)
military:– take over the military bases of several islands, – "Caribbean Basin Initiative “a bribe to induce
Jamaica and the rest of the Caribbean to accredit the armed confrontation in Grenada.”