So they made a film in France about Alexandre Dumas, père, called L Autre Dumas, starring Gerard Depardieu. Look at the photo of Dumas and think about how Gerard Depardieu looks, and hopefully you will see the issue.
The thing that is very interesting is that Le CRAN has attacked the film for this in a post on their website that makes me quite happy (really, I am so glad these types of organizations exist now in France), is that Dumas himself, in ” Mes Mémoires (French Edition)“
My favorite part, because it is so true, is the following quote:
Trop peu de nos compatriotes savent qu’Alexandre Dumas, l’un des plus grands auteurs français, était un métis, qu’il était considéré à son époque comme Noir et qu’il se décrivait lui-même comme un « nègre » aux « cheveux crépus » - Le Cran
Too few of our countrymen know that Alexandre Dumas, one of the greatest French writers, was mixed, he was consider black in his time he described himself as a “negro” with ” frizzy hair” — translation, Jade
So why is this important? For me personally, learning that Alexandre Dumas was black like my family (in that most American black people are “métisse”), was life changing. I was familiar with his work, specifically the Three Musketeers (below) and the Count of Monte Cristo from a very young age, even if i was not familiar with him, the man.
The day I learned about his ethnic/racial heritage was life changing for me. I took it the same way I took Obama. Here is this name, this person who changed the face of the world, this person who is seen as one of the best and a (French) cultural icon, whose work has turned in to so many plays and films etc. and he looks like my cousin. He looks like my future children. He looks like me. That experience showed me that, despite the message I received from those around me, the only true limits of my ability to achieve and to reach would be from me. It meant so much more than people telling me to reach for the stars, because here was someone who had already done it, despite all the odds and circumstances that were not in his favor… and he did it without denying who he was or where he came from.
So, the film bothers me. People do not know about the heritage of Alexandre Dumas, and films like this mis-educate people (and that isn””t even with acknowledging the assistant issue that apparently exists in the film, making Dumas in the film a figurative “Nègre littéraire” the idiomatic French term for ghost writer, rather than the literal “Nègre littéraire” that he was).