“The Feast of All Saints” (2001) was a Showtime television miniseries based on the 1979 Anne Rice novel of the same name. It is set in French Creole New Orleans of the 1840s. Most of the main characters are neither White nor Black but the middle-class, mixed-race free people of colour who lived in between those two worlds.
Features: quadroon balls, voodoo, big dresses, top hats, a duel and the Haitian Revolution.
Cast: James Earl Jones, Eartha Kitt, Ben Vereen, Jennifer Beals, Gloria Reuben, Pam Grier, Jasmine Guy, Victoria Rowell, Forest Whitaker, Bianca Lawson, Ruby Dee, and Ossie Davis. Among others.
Jennifer Beals was wonderful, with her eyes that had seen too much. Ben Vereen was so good I did not even know it was him. Jasmine Guy and Eartha Kitt seemed like they belonged to that world more than ours. Forest Whitaker, though, was goofily out of place.
The free people of colour considered themselves neither Black nor White, not even those who could pass for White (Jennifer Beals) or who were as dark as any slave (Ossie Davis). They looked down on Blacks and were thankful for their freedom. But that freedom was limited by Whites: while they could get an education, own property – some even had slaves – they could not vote or marry White.
The film turns on that last bit: it led to plaçage (rhymes with massage) where White men often had a house and a family with free women of colour but could never marry them. Cecile Ste. Marie (Gloria Reuben) is such a woman. We follow her and the fate of her two children, who come of age in a world of fool’s gold.
Accuracy: The film fits what I know about that time and place – though, some of what I think I know probably comes second-hand from this very story. The one thing that seemed off was when a White man defended the honour of a woman of colour. Also, I have little faith that the voodoo parts were accurate.
Race: The film is an excellent example of a story written by a White author about people of colour that is done right.
It easily passes the Bechdel Test for Race since only one of the main viewpoint characters is White. Instead of White Saviours and Helpless Darkies, so beloved by Hollywood, Scene One is the Haitian Revolution.
The main characters of colour are fleshed out, have moral complexity, love lives, all of it. They are not walking-talking stereotypes. Hollywood mostly shows Black middle class characters as Noble But Boring or as side characters. Here they take centre stage and are recognizably human, in all its beauty and sadness.
Unlike “12 Years a Slave” (2013) – also set in Louisiana in the 1840s – it does not seem to be cleaned up for White audiences. It shows how racism, sexism and capitalism deform lives and corrupt morals. And not in a dismissive, Bad Old Days kind of way, but where you can see that US society is still like that, just less extreme.
– Abagond, 2014.
See also:
- French Creoles
- Race in the Dominican Republic – has a three-race set-up like French New Orleans
- Jennifer Beals
- Gloria Reuben
- The Bechdel Test and race
- How to tell if a character is a stereotype
- White Saviour / darkies
- 12 Years a Slave – also set in Louisiana in the 1840s
- The Wire, Season 5
This is one of the Anne Rice novels from back in the day. I was realy into Anne Rice and the vampire novels. This was a detour from that but i could appreciate it because i was fascinated with the Octroon and Quadroon balls.
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I saw Anne Rice’s house in New Orleans.
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I loved watching this movie when it debuted (having previously read the book), and was not disappointed overall with the brilliant casting either-side note: I am sure you enjoyed being able to see the talented Anne Rice’s house, yes Mary!? 🙂
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I will have to check out this film. It seems very interesting.
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“The film is an excellent example of a story written by a White author about people of colour that is done right.” Did it depict them as people so enthralled to white supremacy that they took themselves out of the only place where it was being eradicated? Did it show their complicity with the enslavement of blacks? Probably not. Hatred of anything black and the desire to be accepted by whites was at the heart of this creole society so I don’t see what could be so great about its depiction. I’ll see if I can find this on the internet.
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Is Beyonce in it?
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@ gro jo
It does show them owning slaves – some of them did – and being cold-hearted about it. It shows them having White ideas of beauty. It also presented the idea of placage as whoring yourself out to White men. Rice did not seem to either idealize or demonize them.
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@ thwack
No Beyonce.
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Placage: “White men had a house and a family with free women of color but could not marry them.”
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@Abagond: The Henriette DeLille story was made into a made for television movie. I remember some years ago. It starred Vanessa Williams. “The Courage To Love.” She established the Catholic order of Sisters of The Holy Family In New Orleans. The topics of Creoles is quite fascinating to me. The early history of New Orleans is fascinating to me.
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Abagond: The word is plaçage not placage, lest you want to be “guilty” of mock French. The tail at the bottom of c changes its sound from “c” to “s”. That tradition survived the Haitian Revolution and was ‘democratized’ to describe any informal marriage regardless of race or color.
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When foreign loanwords enter English, they are usually stripped of diacritics (hotel is one example)
I would also reccomend writing a post about Brooklyn Nine Nine, the TV show.
It has 2 black leads and 2 hispanic leads, both of whom are fully fleshed out, and talk to each other about things other than white characters.
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Sorry Bobby M, plaçage is not a loanword. If it is please show me where it is used because I’ve not run into its usage.
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@ gro jo
Thank you for the correction.
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@ Mary
Thanks for the recommendation.
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Beyonce would fit right in with those people; Houston/east Texas is full of them.
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“It easily passes the Bechdel Test for Race since only one of the main viewpoint characters is White. Instead of White Saviours and Helpless Darkies, so beloved by Hollywood, Scene One is the Haitian Revolution.” After a half hour of this insipid melodrama I stopped watching it. I always find the depiction of non-English speakers, presumably speaking their language, rendered as heavily accented English silly. This kind of stuff works in a comedy but nowhere else. If this movie passes the Bechdel test than that test is useless. I found the depiction of the Haitian Revolution stupid. The scene of the little girl crying over the dead body of her father was especially offensive, because the massacre of mulattoes was the work of the French army under general Rochambeau. Once again whites are depicted as the victims of unreasonable black violence when, in fact, they were the ones who started it. The free people of St-Domingue took up arms to not succumb to the fate of the people of Guadeloupe. Apparently the Bechdel test has no problem with the depiction of blacks as blood thirsty savages even when they were defending the freedom they purchased with their blood.
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Thanks for this review. I found a download for this and look forward to watching.
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Thanks also to gro jo for the contrasting perspective. Obviously, it is helpful to have a number of opinions before watching.
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@gro jo
Do you think the Haitian genocide of the whites was a good idea?
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“Bobby M
@gro jo
Do you think the Haitian genocide of the whites was a good idea?”
Let me guess where you’re going with this question. You imagine that the absence of whites led to the demise of the economy, right? Exports from Britain 7 years after the elimination of whites was 1.2 million English pounds. To match that amount in 2011 Haiti would have had to import $6 billion from Britain. Let’s begin with the fact that only those whites deemed dangerous were eliminated only after they were determined to have no value to the nation and might constitute a possible fifth column. How come people like you never say a word about the decimation of the free people of Guadeloupe and the re-enslavement of the rest by the French under general Richepanse? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antoine_Richepanse. I guess it’s a massacre only when whites are at the receiving end of the sword.
Dessalines not only massacred 5,000 whites he also sheltered hundreds of Poles and other whites who were sent to fight him under the misconception that Napoleon was going to free their nation. Crimes must be paid so I endorse the following words by the great Dessalines:
“Yes, we have rendered to these true cannibals war for war, crime for crime, outrage for outrage; yes, I have saved my country; I have avenged America. The avowal I make of it in the face of earth and heaven, constitutes my pride and my glory. Of what consequence to me is the opinion which contemporary and future generations will pronounce upon my conduct? I have performed my duty; I enjoy my own approbation; for me that is sufficient…But why calculate on the assistance of the climate and of the elements? Have I forgot that I command a people of no common cast, brought up in adversity, whose audacious daring frowns at the obstacles and increases by dangers? Let them come, then, these homicidal Cohorts! I wait for them with firmness and with a steady eye. I abandon to them freely the sea-shore, and the places where cities have existed; but woe to those who may approach too near the mountains! It were better for them that the sea received them into its profound abyss, than to be devoured by the anger of the children of Hayti.
“War and Death to Tyrants!” this is my motto;
“Liberty! Independence!” this is our rallying cry
Generals, officers, soldiers, a little unlike him who has preceded me, he ex-general TOUSSAINT LOUVERTURE, I have been faithful to the promise which I made to you when I took up arms against tyranny, and whilst the last spark of life remains in me I shall keep my oath. Never again shall a colonist or an European set his foot upon this territory with the title of master or proprietor. This resolution shall henceforward form the fundamental basis of our constitution.
Should other chiefs, after me, by pursuing a conduct diametrically opposite to mine, dig their own graves and those of their species, you will have to accuse only the law of destiny which shall have taken me away from the happiness and welfare of my fellow-citizens. May my successors follow the path I shall have traced out for them! It is the system best adapted for consolidating their power; it is the highest homage they can render to my memory.” Let all those who value the good opinions of whites over justice whine about the ‘massacre’ If these whites had the wisdom to back Louverture over Napoleon they would have kept their heads and property. They chose war and lost.
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@ gro jo
1. The Bechdel Test for Race is just meant as a rule of thumb, food for thought, not some foolproof test. A film or show can pass it and still be racist (“Precious”, “The Wire”) or fail it and not be particularly racist (“12 Years a Slave”). More:
The mistake that most Hollywood films make is to sideline characters of colour or make them into stereotypes. “The Feast of All Saints” seems to have avoided both mistakes, at least for the main characters. And in that regard, it was important to show that Gloria Reuben’s father was White and that he was killed during the Haitian Revolution.
2. I did not think the Haitian Revolution scene demonized Blacks. When I saw all those dead White people in their pretty clothes (see the picture of it in the post) I did not think, “What terrible brutes Black people are!” To think that I would have to see those Whites as innocents. I did not. Those pretty clothes did not come out of thin air. Instead I thought, “Good, those rich White people got what they deserved.” I know that is morally questionable (defenceless civilians should be spared), but emotionally that is how I processed it.
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“Those pretty clothes did not come out of thin air. Instead I thought, “Good, those rich White people got what they deserved.”” That reaction is a minority one, the standard one is reflected in the comments of Bobby M and Kiwi who think it was a terrible idea to kill these whites. My view is that this was the outcome of an attempt to put people back in chains that backfired on the authors of that attempted crime. I don’t say they got what they deserved because these things always cut down some innocents as well as the guilty. My view is that once Napoleon made the choice to re-enslave blacks they had the right to do all in their powers to defeat and punish the transgressors, if they struck down the innocent as well as the guilty so be it. What I found objectionable in the presentation of the event is the lack of context. Someone knowing nothing of the events will, rightly, conclude that these mean old blacks just turned on the good white folks and deprived that poor little girl of her darling papa. In my view that’s racist propaganda. I object to the fact that general Richepanse killed as many people if not more, relative to population size, in restoring slavery on Guadeloupe and not one word about that. Dessalines knew first hand of the plans to massacre the black population drawn by general Leclerc because the latter thought he had him under his control and could make him the butcher of black freedom. This is funny because it shows the depth of white delusion when it comes to dealing with blacks. Leclerc forgot that the same Dessalines was the man who led the heroic resistance of the free people of St-Domingue at Crête-à-Pierrot. The same man who uttered these words:”The gates have been opened,” he said, “for those who do not feel themselves courageous enough to die; while there is yet time, let the friends of the French depart; they have nothing but death to look for here.” After having sent away all whom sickness or fear made desirous of going, he spread a train of gunpowder as far as the first gate, and, seizing a torch, exclaimed, “Now for the first fire; I will blow up the fort; if you do not defend it.” http://thelouvertureproject.org/index.php?title=Cr%C3%AAte-%C3%A0-Pierrot.
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A little off topic but Anne Rice sees nothing wrong with saying the N word. She supported Paula Deen and compared the situation to a “crucifixion”.
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Not at all off the topic, her ahistorical mangling of Haiti’s history meshes with that attitude.
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@ Zena
That is not off topic at all since we are talking about whether the film is racist.
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Abagond, do you like the show Blackish?
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“12 YEARS A SLAVE” was cleaned up for white audiences?
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