This past week we read an article that didn't really focus on Sara Baartman but the "scientist" who claimed her body after death for his "scientific" uses. Georges Cuvier along with others practiced classical comparative anatomy, which you will clearly see at the beginning of this video. This movie is about Saartjie Baartman, and from what I've seen it does a great job of telling her story and it also focuses on her scientific exploitation.
Before entering this class I must say I didn't know who Saartjie Baartman was. When I began researching I focused more on Georges Cuvier, but the deeper I looked the more I was drawn to the Bartman story, and then I stumbled into this movie. Venus Noire, which is a French movie, grabbed my attention before I even got the English sub-titles.
Now this is the whole movie and if your more interested like me, I definitely encourage you to go and watch it on youtube. Though I watched further I particulary want you ladies to focus on the first 6:19. These several minutes capitalize on our readings and class this week. This is only the first part of two available on youtube. Ladies please be encouraged to watch both parts its so endearing. Enjoy!
The first 6:19 of the video clearly reflect how Georges Cuvier and Europeans like him used science to justify and differentiate between races. In the film, Cuvier points out the “eternal inferiority” of races with a certain skull shape, displaying logic that relates to Darwin’s theory of evolution despite the theory never being intended to imply progress (Lassiter 11). Additionally, aside from the justification of the exploitation of Saartjie Bartmann’s body by equating her physical characteristics to those of animals, Cuvier repeatedly dehumanizes her. He never refers to Bartmann as an individual; to him she is merely a “Hottentot,” allowing her individuality to be absorbed under the greater umbrella that defines her. We still tend to dehumanize people today by using one’s culture or religion to define or understand individuals (Abu-lughod 784). While people have moved past the outright classification of races through science, the use of cultural framing still serves to strip individuals of their agency to act independently within their culture, not unlike the practices of colonial scientists like Georges Cuvier. While the blatant exploitation of Bartmann in the video is enough to make anyone’s stomach turn, people unfortunately too often still search for variations of any kind to identify differences between one another.
ReplyDeleteThis film is very interesting and actually made me feel like I was her because some of my bodily features are like Saartjie's, so just to think about how people harassed and disrespected her body just disgusts me. But the first couple of scenes perfectly exemplifies how science was used to justify the class system of race. Like in our readings, the classification system supported by Social Darwinism classifies blacks as savages and the closest species to monkeys and apes. In the film, Georges Cuvier presents graphs, pictures, diagrams,. and a wax body to prove that blacks, in this case black females, actually look close to apes and because of that they are to be classified as savage. Also Saartjie acted savage-like to over exaggerate what whites thought about blacks.
ReplyDeleteAs I reflect on the life of Saartjie, I think of how black women in todays world are seen. Black women are seen to be very sexual with having a large butt as being something that is glorified. I wonder what influence Saartjie and the science around Hottentot women have on what we see black women to be as. When I think of a modern day Saartjie, I think of Nicki Minaj and Buffy the Body who accentuate their back sides as the most important. Although times have changed and more women are embracing their sexuality, I wonder if people think the same or differently about the big butt and big breasted body.
I agree with Lili and Nia comments 100% . This movie was very interesting and moving but also very disturbing. I decided to watch more than just the first 6:19 minutes and the next scene seemed more disturbing to me because there was a European man introducing a black woman, labeling her as a "Hottentot" for a show and tell performance. He made the caged woman do various things as if she was not human but an animal as explained in the scene before using George Cuvier theory on Saartjie Bartmann."Cuvier's dissection of Bartmann was a natural extension of that shaping. (By "natural" I mean that it seemed unexceptional to the scientists of the era; it appeared to be not merely GOOD science, it was forward-looking)" (Fausto-Sterling, p. 204). This quote led me to believe that because European scientist were not properly educated on blacks, Europeans instantly found Bartmann human body to be problematic based on the color of her skin and body shape. Due to this false assumption some views remain the same, especially with gender, race and class. In today society, many still believe that because of skin color, you instantly know the next persons class. For example, Opera Winfrey has recently been denied service in a luxury store located Switzerland because the sales associate believed a handbag was "too expensive for her". Due to that comment she automatically connected her gender and race with her class. With that being said, never judge a book by it's cover and stereotyping using inaccurate scientific assumptions does not validate any human being.
ReplyDeleteI think it is save to say that this video explained everything we need to know about Saartje Bartman and how her body was used to define what a "true" race was. According to Ann Fausto Sterlings article "Gender, Race and Nation" scientist traced DNA, genes, behaviors, anatomy all in an attempt to understand what it is that makes people different from one another. I definitely found myself enthralled in the film and ended up watching the entire hour and twenty minutes. Her story moved me and I could not help but want to discover the ending to her story. The scientist in the first six minutes were analyzing what seemed to be every single inch of her categorizing her because of the color of her skin and her large body parts. It even appeared that they were categorizing her as that missing link between humans and apes when she was clearly a human being. Saartje Bartman was beautiful in my eyes! She danced with ease, sang beautifully, and I could only wish I had large buttocks. Society and science has come a long way since those times because it seems now in modern times women want that nice booty and seem to be hitting those squats in the gym. It goes to show one can not categorize a human just because of their skin color and maybe one day in the future race will not even be an issue.
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