The Tower of Babel is Falling Down

That is why it is called Babel - 

because there the Lord confused 

the language of the whole world. 

From there the Lord scattered them 

over the face of the whole earth.

Genesis 11:1-9

In their article called, Colonialism, Racism and RepresentationStam and Spence discuss filmic colonialism and racism and focus on certain dimensions of the film to decode the racist /colonialist approach. They intend to look at the stylistic touch - like sound, lighting etc.- of the films as well as their conceptual approach, social portrayal, plot and character (p. 752). I would like to analyse Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Babel” in terms of arguments of Stam and Spence. 

Babel is a 2006 psychological drama film directed by Iñárritu which focuses on concepts like neo-colonialism, globalization and race. Stam and Spence define colonialism as “a process by which the European powers (including US) reached a position of economic, military, political and cultural domination in much of Asia, Africa and Latin America”. (p. 753). The film has multiple protagonists who represent four different cultural identities (African, Asian, Latin American and American) and who are completely strangers to one another. Some critics describe the genre of this film as “network cinema” which represents different cultural identities and multiculturalism via different narratives (Silvey, 2013, p.582). 

Babel criticizes the demonizing, marginalizing and stereotyping approach of Hollywood toward cultural others and portraying four different stories taking place in Morocco, Japan, Mexico and the US. Although the characters in the film do not know each other, they are somehow connected. This is an effort to unite the countries that are conveyed as distinct and separate. The film aims to show through these four different stories that the discrimination and racisim in today’s society is unfounded and how prejudices can change our lives. The harsh attitude of Western people to Non-Western people showed incredibly via different relationships like tourist/guide, employer/employee, and government(officer)/citizen.  The use of countries’ own languages and music draw attention while narrating these four stories. (p.764) Even though the movie makes the audience sympathize with each main character, I don’t think it managed to escape the imperialist nature of Hollywood movies.  I think the American characters Richard (Brad Pitt) and Susan (Cate Blanchett) take the spotlight. These two Hollywood stars are seen more often on camera, although all characters are attempted to be included in the film to a similar extent. I think the reason behind this is that well-known American actors attract more audiences compared to unknown foreign actors and help the distribution of the film. 

Additionally, I think cross cultured relationships in the film exhibit problematic and racialized power relationships. The film portrays the relationship between Richard and Anwar as lord and servant. Anwar leaves everything he was doing and helps Richard and even when Richard had a nervous breakdown and cursed at him, he was calm and never expressed anger. I found the scene where Richard offers Anwar some money interesting. Even though Iñárritu aimed to show how American people belittle Non-Western people with money unconsciously (or consciously), the scene also underpins that Anwar was a humble servant. 

Another problematic approach was about Amelia. Richard told Amelia that he could not arrange another babysitter, and this scene critiques that American employers place unfair demands on foreign employees. On the other hand, the scene where the police officer told Amelia that she should have considered the consequences of taking American kids to Mexican weddings. I thought the film represents that Amelia was guilty of her actions and her fate was framed as something she deserved. 

Amelia’s nephew Santiago is portrayed as a dangerous and irresponsible Mexican. He decapitates a chicken’s head, drinks and drives, and runs away from police even though he is innocent. All the actions he did throughout the film actualize the joke he made earlier; “Mexica is full of dangerous Mexicans”. His foolish actions that we do not understand why he is doing is causing Amelia to be deported and the kids to face hunger and thirst in the desert.  The old white tourists, one the other hand, put the audience into a contradiction and I think this dead-end reinforces the film’s message. These people do not want to wait for an ambulance to arrive for Susan and fear that local people will attack them as it gets dark. The audience may adopt these white tourists as “evils” of the film because of this reckless and racist behavior. However, assuming most of the audience of this film are white, I think audiences might have a similar reaction in a similar situation. What I am most impressed with this film is that it does not only offer either evil or good characters; presents very relatable characters and each character makes the audience ask themselves questions. 

Bibliography Silvey, V. (2013). Pluralism and cultural imperialism in the network films Babel and Lantana. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 49(5), P. 582-595 Stam and Spence. Colonialism, Racism and Representation.Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen eds. Film Theory and Criticism 7th edition, New York: Oxford University Press, 2009. (p.751-766)