Venus Noire, The Hottentot Venus is a film on South Africa’s Saartjie (Sarah) Baartman. I knew of her, but never could have imagined how she was treated in the West, in the name of entertainment and science.
Yahima Torres played Saartjie, an extraordinarily difficult role to play for a black woman. The film presents the sordid desecration of a Black woman’s body. It cannot be recommended to black women, with a fragile body image or any sensitive souls.
Yahima Torres did an excellent job, showing that Saartjie Baartman, was intellectually aware of her dehumanization, despite the linguistic barriers of Afrikaans, English and French. Some of the most repulsive pseudo-scientific statements, on black women and the black race, are made. Initially, Sarah Baartman feels in charge, understanding that she is the one deceiving her civilized audience into believing that she is an African savage.
Unfortunately, Saartjie is standing on sinking sands and becomes a prisoner of the role, she willingly took on. This trap is all too common for black “actors”, seeking advancement in various professions. It is a dangerous game to participate in one’s degradation, with the intention to reclaim one’s dignity, when the audience has reached the point of no return. Animals are not considered human and can be prime candidates for inhuman experiments. How do you stop self-destruction, when you are a minority capitalizing on your exoticism, for short-term advancement?
The director was too graphic at the end of the film and almost undermined the condemnation of western savageries. Brewing on Saartjie’s descent to hell, for longer than necessary, was repugnant. I had serious misgivings, about this artistic decision.
Venus Noire explores one of many roots, behind the depraved image of black women’s body, in the subconscious of the West. President Nelson Mandela, requesting the restitution of Saartjie’s body parts, held at the Paris’ Musée de l’Homme, was an profound démarche for the re-humanization and re-beautification of the body of black women.
The Hottentot Venus is not for the sensitive minds, this film is strictly for adults. If you are a black woman, you will need fresh air, after viewing. Ultimately, it behooves Black women and other minorities not to titillate debased tastes, for short-term expediency. Landing mutilated in a laboratory jar, is too exorbitant a price, for the perverse adulation of the “civilized”.
Watch the video.
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche
Stars: Yahima Torres, Andre Jacobs, Olivier Gourmet, Jean-Christophe Bouvet
Nice posts – well said, I am appalled by these people who called themselves civilized – they are either devils or completely insane lucky bastards of technology.
I wouldn’t go as far as blame Saartjie – all the blame goes to those savages of Europe, who, some way somehow managed to have chanced upon Africa at time African was going through some real restructuring – after the fall of Ghana, Mali, Songhai – and they are some ‘lucky bastards,’ otherwise how else could a bunch of depraved humanoids from icy-cold Europe come to rule our civilized worlds in Africa?
With technology, even a goat will rule the world!
lol – that’s why they go about measuring Civilization by the kind of technology people have. That way they can say they are more civilized.
By that token, they must keep others from acquiring the knowledge to advancing technologically. Only when they came to Africa – Socrates, etc – our priests whole heartedly welcomed them to learn.
You also raise a important question about how actors/performers sell themselves to the media or to be dehumanized in film for money. This is such a problem in America where some African American actors and actresses take up such ‘insane’ roles that puts Black peoples character and dignity at gross disrepute.
Why are black actors/performers only interested in cashing out?
I don’t think black actors/performers in America or Europe would ever stop chasing the $$$. America and Europe were built on killing and exploiting other people and making the $$$. It has been maintained largely through those very exact means.
–One thing these people have proven to the world is that, they can’t achieve anything without brutally killing & exploiting others.