Blood Diamond

The political war thriller film Blood Diamond came out in 2006 and starred Leonardo Dicaprio, Dijimon Hounsou and Jennifer Connelly. The movie title is a reference to actual blood diamonds, which are diamonds mined in war zones and sold to finance conflicts. These diamonds profit warlords and diamond companies all over the world. The film recieved positive reviews and the actors were praised for their performances….but the film certainly contained some bad messages about Africa and its people. The African population is used as the backdrop for the film’s love story between two white protagonists, a young reporter (Connelly) and a diamond smuggler (DiCaprio). DiCaprio’s character Danny Archer calls himself Rhodesian in defiance of the black majority that came with the end of the Apartheid-like system in Rhodesia (pre-independent Zimbabwe) in 1980. In one instance, Archer lashes out at Hounsou’s character Solomon Vandy by calling him a “kaffir” (African equivelant of the n-word). While Solomon is portrayed as semi-unaware of “what goes on” in the land of his birth, almost every single black character is either a murderer or pillager and whatnot. And also in the movie, black women are either portrayed as kidnapping victims or put in solicitous positions.

I loved this movie when I watched it years ago ( I was 11) and I still do, but I’ll admit that now, being older and therefore able to understand other aspects of the movie, I don’t appreciate this portrayal of Africa and I don’t think Chinua Achebe would have either. I think he would have liked if moviemakers had acknowledged the full humanity of black African people but at the same time, I get that the film’s story and its characters had a different agenda.