F.R. Levis, a key cultural theorist, was, at times, an incredibly cynical man who would, together with his wife, Queenie, rip cultural texts apart and attempt to discredit the creative minds behind them. In this post, I do the same for a media text which I consider to be amongst the lowest of the low in cultural terms. The media text I have chosen is the film Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon.
The object of this film appeared to be to portray the cultural differences between the black people and the white people living in South Africa and how the great Nelson Mandela overcame these issues and created his rainbow nation. I believe this to be a great premise for a film with optimistic views on a difficult political situation. I do not, however, as the film appears to suggest, believe that the cure for the conflicts between the races was the rugby world cup.
A film made by Americans, starring American actors, albeit those with relatively convincing South African accents, maintains the arrogance we now associate with America. Rewriting another country's history and retelling the tale of another culture's hero is just the sort of thing we have come to expect from them, particularly after the absolute shambles that was Valkyrie.
This film neatly ties up the story of the culture clashes by suggesting that South Africa's world cup victory in 1995 solved all the problems faced by the country and glazed over the fact that it is still a country facing widespread discrimination and poverty. This 'happy ending' approach seems a cheap way to satisfy a westernised audience and offers no further insight into the facts, the history or the future of a troubled country placed in an even more turbulent continent.
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