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4 A multi-ethnic metropolis: representations of Marseille If proof were needed of Marseille’s historical significance and importance within France, one need only recall the French national anthem. It was the presence of so many Revolutionaries from the southern city among those marching from the Rhine to Paris in 1792 that led to their ‘Chant de guerre de l‘armée du Rhin’ being renamed ‘La Marseillaise’, immortalised in Jean Renoir’s 1938 film of the same name. The oldest city in France – in 1999 it celebrated its 2600th year of existence – Marseille is also
in’ (2007: 20). This notion that comedy can be a Janus-like process, a barrier as well as an entrance, both a ‘sword and a shield’, is important when we attempt to understand the relationship between comedy, race and ethnicity. Comic material in broadcasting and film can, as we have seen, have different meanings for different audiences at different times, but it invariably relies a great deal on
3 •• Nation, empire and ethnicity The Great Exhibition, as is often the case with events of national significance, offered Britain an opportunity to reflect on her position in a global context. For Auerbach and Hoffenberg it ‘put the nation on display and served as a forum for discussions of Britishness’ (2008: p. x); it also afforded a chance to rethink shared cultural and moral values and the national character, relationships with other nations, the future of the empire and the colonies, and ‘The images that the English constructed of themselves’ (Daly, 2011
The issue of ethnicity in France, and how ethnicities are represented there visually, remains one of the most important and polemical aspects of French post-colonial politics and society. This is the first book to analyse how a range of different ethnicities have been represented across contemporary French visual culture. Via a wide series of case studies – from the worldwide hit film Amélie to France’s popular TV series Plus belle la vie – it probes how ethnicities have been represented across different media, including film, photography, television and the visual arts. Four chapters examine distinct areas of particular importance: national identity, people of Algerian heritage, Jewishness and France’s second city Marseille.
1 Changing notions of national identity: engaging with ethnicity As the Introduction made clear, since the early 1980s France has experienced an important period of significant political and social change. Many prevailing notions of national identity were redefined as the descendants of post-World War Two migrants to France (and especially those of Maghrebi heritage) came of age. Laws on nationality and citizenship were repeatedly revised, and controversy raged over measures that purportedly challenged the primacy of French republican universalism as well as
Representing people of Algerian heritage 2 Shaping spaces: representing people of Algerian heritage French colonial and postcolonial relations with the countries of the Maghreb have been long and troubled. Post-1945, significant numbers of Moroccans, Tunisians and Algerians migrated to France and eventually settled there definitively: they and their families now constitute a significant proportion of France’s ethnic minority population. Aside from being numerically the greatest, arguably the symbolically most important and prominent component of this
organise: mast- and rope-climbing races, timed obstacle courses and other feats of skill (see figure 3.5 ). In the evenings an aircraft hangar served as the festival hall where men took their meals and watched performances, including a komedi bangsawan (Malay opera). 1 De Hoog's camera also recorded the performance of various dances associated with particular ethnic groups that were increasingly appropriated for koninginnedag celebrations: for instance, the kuda kepang , or ‘bamboo horse’ dance, the hallmark of
how stained glass was used to articulate national identity, mark territory, and affirm the political presence of ruling oligarchies. The second part considers the use of stained glass as imperial propaganda within international exhibitions, focusing on the two largest and most dominant empires of the era, Britain and France.4 The final section speculatively explores the role of stained glass in the formation of racial and ethnic stereotypes to both emphasise human variety and reinforce social hierarchies. Since stained glass was an art form principally associated
postwar literature. Another interviewee, an academic art historian, whose parents also had middle-class jobs, recounts her experience of undertaking a class survey run by the BBC which situates her as ‘firmly working class’: ‘I’m just wondering what middle class really means. Does it really work for Black people?’ 3 And yet, whatever your racial and ethnic identity, class, as an economic and cultural position is unavoidable. The feeling of class, though, doesn’t always fit with an experience of living in a society
people to the centre of this collection, Turok breaks with a long tradition of visual marginalisation of these communities, which had been concomitant with their political repression. This chapter examines the way the book informs us about the everyday life of the ethnic communities in Mexico and, most importantly, considers the ways in which the book enhances our understanding of the Zapatista struggle. This chapter compares the photobook with stereotypical photographic representations of Mexican twentieth-century photography and seeks to evaluate the contribution of