The black body and racism in George Kay and François Uzan’s Lupin (2021)

Abstract

As countries in the West keep evolving into societies that embrace diversity today, we often encounter happenstances that counter the narrative of multiracialism and multi-ethnicity. Thus, racism and stereotyping – which formed the basis for colonialism and slavery, are recurring phenomena. In France, for example, racism and stereotyping remain motifs in popular culture, signalling existence of the phenomena in contemporary society. One interesting production in which such themes recur is George Kay and François Uzan’s 2021 series Lupin. In this article, the author analyses the representation of the black body vis-à-vis race and stereotyping in contemporary French society in the series. Moving from scholarly works that tackle the question of racism and the representation of Black bodies in French cinema from different angles, the author narrows his focus to racism and stereotyping, before engaging with the bigger picture: a Black body that is in revolt through the exploits of Assane Diop, the protagonist. In the analysis, the author draws from Pap Ndiaye’s La condition noire (2008) in which he contends that being Black is consistently associated with specific positions in social hierarchies. This connection is perpetuated through racist discourse, and individuals are ascribed certain characteristics based on this premise.