Yemi Toure
Just when you thought it was safe to go into the jungles of Hollywood, along come the folks at Disney, swinging from the rafters with their film Tarzan.
Disney’s official website describes how the studio came up with the image, the “look,” of the 1999 Tarzan. The studio wanted the character to be unique, distinct from earlier Tarzans.
So artist Glen Keane was put to work, Disney says, and the result was “a Tarzan that moved with the swiftness of a jungle animal and possessed the strength of Michael Jordan – the ultimate athlete. And taking a cue from Dennis Rodman, Keane knew he couldn’t give his superstar just an ordinary set of locks, so he endowed Tarzan with Rastafarian dreadlocks to go with his jungle appearance.”
Excuse me? Did I just hear someone make a connection between “jungle animal” and Michael Jordan?
And what’s this about Dennis Rodman? He doesn’t wear dreadlocks. And worst of all, what’s this about dreadlocks going with a “jungle appearance”?
Dreadlocks do not originate in jungles, have nothing to do with jungles and are not a manifestation of jungles – except in the white-oriented mind!
The HYPE website, which monitors the black image in the media, believes the portrayal of black hair is part of its concern.
They judge films on whether the black culture they project is rich, varied and valuable, or whether it is cheapened, abused or stereotypical.
HYPE believes that connecting dreadlocks to jungles is a sin.
“So you better watch out for the 1999 Tarzan – the jungles of Western culture are vastly more widespread and dangerous than anything on the whole African continent,”is one of HYPE’s comments on the film.
n Duncan Campbell reports that Jar Jar Binks, one of the creatures in Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace, has now been criticised by a number of commentators as being stereotypical West Indian.
The week the film opened, critics said Jar Jar Binks stereotyped black people in an offensive way. Watto, the slaveholder in the film, has been criticised for being a caricature of an Arab or Jew.
Later this month a coalition of actors will form in Hollywood to protest against the exclusion of minorities from film roles.
Its formation has been prompted by an alleged lack of ethnic minority performers in major television dramas and series.