african as comic relief in french film
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Writing SampleTRANSCRIPT
Tristin Tracy
Oct. 28, 2014
ENGL 3363, Films and Context
Dr. Keresztesi
Midterm Essay
The African as Comic Relief in French Film
Throughout our class so far, we’ve seen the impact that the French have had on African
development, both in film and outside of it. Whether it’s the idea of neo-slavery in “Black Girl”
or the IMF’s role in shaping African Cinema behind the camera. French influence has always
been a strong theme in the class. The Intouchables is the first actual French film we’ve watched
in the class, as well as the most modern. In the film we can see the perpetuation of African
stereotypes, the role of Africans in Europe, the lasting impressions of colonialism in France, and
the isolation of the modern African from modern society discussed by Manthia Diawara in his
book, “We Won’t Budge.”
The Intouchables is, on the surface, a charming story of two unlikely friends who learn to
appreciate each other’s vastly differing cultures. Driss and Philippe are polar opposites. Driss is
from the projects, originally from Senegal. He’s poor and uneducated, but clever and funny.
Driss is a walking stereotype. He’s served time in jail, he’s lazy and apathetic, he’s on welfare,
he doesn’t want a job, and he’s uncultured. Contrarily, Philippe is an aristocratic millionaire,
interested in art and classical music. It’s a low-brow/high-brow relationship and they play it in a
silly and charming way. However, the film relies heavily on African stereotypes and Driss’s
informality and inappropriateness to create comedy, like when Driss crashes Philippe’s birthday
with a dance party because he can’t get into classical music. Driss’s part in the duo is to provide
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comic relief, and to provide the audience a character to laugh at because he can’t appreciate
culture. Diawara brings this up in “We Won’t Budge”, saying “It is not that French people are
color blind; it is just that they believe in a philosophy of assimilation into their culture, which
they call universal, and they do not think Africans as capable of such integration” (Diawara 155).
Driss is comic relief, he’s not the character the audience is supposed to empathize and identify
with, Philippe is.
Philippe’s character is also far more developed than Driss’s. Driss’s character
development is severely lacking. Where you get a little bit of background on Driss, his jail time,
his estranged family, his troubled cousin, the audience doesn’t get much more beyond that. His
history is kind of there as exposition for his character. It isn’t a driving force for change in his
life or really of any significance. And in the movie, Driss doesn’t change that much. He goes
from making fun of modern art to creating it, but even then, the fact that Philippe was able to sell
the art is a joke for the audience, not a serious character development. We as the audience are
supposed to laugh at his attempts at painting, not consider them as a serious turning point in the
movie for Driss. This attitude in France towards Africans puts them in a difficult position. The
French want them to appreciate their culture and cultivate an air of acceptance, but when
Africans try, as Driss did, it’s a joke. It isn’t taken seriously. Diawara talks about the “Paris they
too had loved for its cosmopolitanism and tolerance of difference”, saying "I am sadder than I
have ever been before because the more they say the world is globalized, the more they
marginalize Africans."
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Contrary to Philippe’s character, Driss’s character doesn’t really go anywhere. He starts
in the projects, he ends in the projects. There are nice resolutions to Philippe’s story, whereas
Driss’s just ends when the movie does. His life doesn’t visibly improve by the end of the movie.
He just walks away, having served Philippe and his needs the entire movie and he doesn’t seem
to gain anything from the relationship like Philippe has. Driss’s entire role in the movie is to
drive Philippe from point A to B and make the audience laugh. Jay Weissberg of Variety put it
well in his review saying, “In fact, Driss is treated as nothing but a performing monkey… It’s
painful to see Sy [Driss], a joyfully charismatic performer, in a role barely removed from the
jolly house slave of yore, entertaining the master while embodying all the usual stereotypes
about class and race.”
The message the movie ends up sending is very pro-colonialism. The black man wants to
refuse the white guy’s help, but is eventually worn down because the white man is insistent,
generous, and patient. The black man serves him endlessly and even comes back after he leaves
because the white man was so good to him. The black guy doesn’t get much from the
relationship. He gets paid a fair amount, he’s exposed to new ideas (but can’t really comprehend
them), but that’s all. There’s no big character change for the black man. He doesn’t get out of the
projects, he isn’t shown to improve his relationship with his family at all. They paint the black
man as a charity case: no job, no prospects, no education. A white man offers him a job and
makes him do things he is resistant to at first, then the audience assumes his life changed for the
better because of the charity of the wealthy tetraplegia. It’s a strong pro-colonialism message
underneath the film’s light-heartedness. If this was an unintentional message, it seems strange
that the role of Driss would be played by an African man, considering the man Driss is based on
in real life, Abdel Sellou, is actually French-Algerian.
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Works Cited
Diawara, Manthia. We Won’t Budge: An African Exile in the World. New York: Basic Civitas
Books, 2003. Print.
The Intouchables. Dir. Olivier Nakache, Eirc Toledano. Gaumont Film Company, 2011. Film.
Weissberg, Jay. “Film Review: ‘Untouchable’”. Variety, Sept. 29, 2011. Web.