‘Beyonce Baartman’ raises eyebrows

Despite a representative of American singer Beyoncé Knowles refuting reports that Knowles is planning to make a movie of the tragic life story of Khoisan woman Sarah Baartman, the reports have sparked a debate about whether Americans should be telling stories about Africa and its people’s painful past. Namibian actors and directors have joined their South African counterparts in condemning the reports. Sarah Baartman, who became a freak show in Europe two centuries ago because of her large buttocks and features that weren’t uncommon for Khoisan women, died thousands of kilometres from home in 1815. Her remains were reburied in South Africa last year. Since reports that Knowles was working on a film about Baartman did the rounds earlier this week, many, including Ghonaqua First Peoples chief Jean Burgess from South Africa, slammed the singer, saying it’s not her story to tell. “Why Sarah Baartman? Why not a story about an indigenous American woman? I can only see arrogance in her attempt to tell a story that is not hers to tell,” Burgess said. Theatre director Jacques Mushaandja believes that “people must tell their own stories”. Speaking to Namibian Sun this week, Mushaandja said he didn’t believe Beyonce should be playing Sarah, whose story is “painful and sacred” to her people. “As an artist, she has the right to play the part, but we shouldn’t just do things because we can. It’s about representation, and I just don’t think it’s her (Beyonce) story to tell.” One of Namibia’s most celebrated actresses, Hazel Hindawho, is known for her role on South African soapie ‘7de Laan’, shared Mushaandja’s sentiments, saying Sarah Baartman should be portrayed by any capable Southern African actress, of whom there are many to choose from. “No disrespect to Beyonce but Saartjie had too much pain in her life for her to continue being made a spectacle of,” she said. Hinda was appreciative of the fact that someone wants to tell Baartman’s story, but said any story about her should maintain the integrity and truth of Baartman’s life. “If reports are true that she intends on doing this story in order to get an acclaimed award, then that really isn’t fair,” she said. Hinda said what happened to Baartman was to some extent reflective of what happened to Africa. AfricAvenir’s Hans-Christian Mahnke said despite differences, historians and filmmakers approach the material of the past with one major similarity. “Both possess attitudes, assumptions, and beliefs and entire value systems that colour everything they express and underlie the interpretations by which they organise and give meaning to the traces of the past”. He said these processes of interpretation have to be taken into account when looking back on written history and film documents. Mhanke says Beyonce would not have been the first to make a movie about Baartman. “Most importantly I want to call into our memory the great achievements of the South African filmmaker Zola Maseko, who made the two critically acclaimed documentaries ‘The Life and Times of Sara Baartman’ (1998) and ‘The Return of Sara Baartman’ (2003),” he said. He said these two films not only shine the spotlight on the topical issue of the repatriation of human remains and artefacts forcibly removed by European explorers and colonists, but also the strident pseudo-scientific mythology of race which became the vital ingredient in European imperial theory. When asked whether a foreign film would not amount to further exploitation of Baartman, Manhke said there are no simple answers, as it’s a complex issue. “Should there be a general taboo for non-South Africans to pick up South African stories and interpret them via film? I believe not,” he said. He said questions of representation and perspective come to mind. “When telling ‘her’ story, keep in mind what happened to Sarah Baartman back in the days starting on the streets in Cape Town, when she became a victim to human trafficking. She was degraded, humiliated, exploited and suffered as a fellow human being,” he said. He said in telling Baartman’s story, artists must remember that she was a fellow human being. “Not an object, as she was presented and made to be in the freak shows where she performed and made money for her ‘owners’. Not only in her lifetime, but the suffering, humiliation, degradation and objectification continued long after her death. And ‘we’ haven’t forgotten that. ‘We’ from Southern Africa, yes, from Africa as a whole, haven’t forgotten that,” he said. GORDON JOSEPH