Movie Review: French comedy explores multicultural relationships

By Ines Kagubare

Qu’est ce qu’on a fait au bon dieu? (What Have We Done Good, God?) deals with the inevitable fact that the world is becoming a melting pot where mixed marriages are not uncommon. The film brings humor to complex issues like racial and religious stereotypes that are generally taboo in the movie industry.

The cast of Qu’est ce qu’on a fait au bon dieu? Courtesy of Wikipedia.

In director Philippe de Chauveron‘s 2014 film, The Verneuils are a white conservative Catholic French family who have four beautiful and lovely daughters. Three of them are married to non-white, non-Catholic men. Isabelle is married to Rachid Ben Assem, a Muslim lawyer of Algerian descent. Odile is married to David Benichou, a Jewish entrepreneur. The third daughter, Ségolène, is married to Chao Ling, a successful Chinese banker.

Frederic Chau, the actor who plays Chao Ling. Courtesy of Wikimedia.

Mr. and Mrs. Verneuil are obviously not delighted to have sons-in-law who aren’t Catholic and white, but they try to hide their disapproval. On one occasion, Ségolène invites the family over for dinner, hoping to ease tensions between her parents and the sons-in-law, but the reunion does not go as the daughters expect. Instead of getting to know each other better, both the parents and sons-in-law unleash their prejudices and stereotypes on one another, leading to a dispute that leaves the family in turmoil.

For a couple months after the disastrous family reunion, the Verneuils do not speak to their daughters, which limits their relationship with their grandchildren. The Verneuils, especially the dad, Claude, hope that their fourth daughter, Laure, will honor the family values and traditions by marrying a Frenchman who’s also white and Catholic. They even try to set up a date for Laure (without her knowledge) with a guy she barely knows. The date does not go as planned.

Laure makes an unexpected announcement that she’s been dating a guy who’s Catholic. This makes her parents very excited and relieved to know that one of their daughters will finally carry the family tradition. She intentionally omits a small detail. Laure and her family decide to meet at a restaurant where she introduces them to her boyfriend. While waiting for Laure and her mystery date to arrive, Claude makes a funny but snarky comment to his wife Marie, saying “they’re 10 minutes late, at least we know he’s not Chinese.”

To their surprise, Laure’s boyfriend Charles, is indeed a Catholic, but he is also black. Feeling disappointed and defeated, the Verneuils retreat to their estate in the French countryside. Claude withdraws himself and tries to stay away from his wife.

Noom Diawara who plays Charles. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Laure and Charles plan to get married in France. However, Charles’ parents back in the Ivory Coast are just as disappointed about the marriage as the Verneuils. Charles’s dad, André, is especially not fond of the idea because he’s not a fan of the French or white people. He blames the French for ruining African culture with their colonialism. Despite both families disapproving of the marriage at first, the wedding still goes on with minor hiccups along the way. The Verneuils learn how to be more tolerant of other cultures and find similarities with their new family members that bring them all closer together.

 

Charlie Hebdo panel raises the question: Just because you can say it, should you?

Nous Sommes Tous Charlie Symposium

By Amanda Nero

The Charlie Hebdo attack was the topic of discussion at the Nous Sommes Tous Charlie symposium at MU on Jan. 3.

MU Professor Sandra Davidson talks about free speech at the Nous Sommes Charlie symposium on Jan. 3. Photo cred: Olivia Paggiarino.

The symposium opened up talks about freedom of speech, hateful speech, and speech permitted by the law. The discussion was led by a panel of MU Professor Sandra Davidson, political cartoonist and author Khalil Bendib, and director of the Ethical Journalism Network Aidan White.

Political cartoonist and author Khalil Bendib speaks at the Nous Sommes Tous Charlie symposium on Jan. 3. Photo cred: Olivia Paggiarino.

Gunmen Cherif and Said Kouachi walked into the Charlie Hebdo office and proceeded to shoot resulting in the death of 12 people on Jan. 7. The attack was in retaliation for the  cartoons about Islam that the satirical magazine previously ran.

A political cartoon from Khalil Bendib’s website displayed at the Nous Sommes Tous Charlie symposium on Jan. 3. Photo cred: Olivia Paggiarino

The track record of Charlie Hebdo publishing culturally offensive content was discussed. Both White and Bendib debated if and where the publication should have drawn the red line.

It was unanimous that acts of terror like this are always unjustifiable, but agreement on when it becomes a hate crime to publish belligerent commentaries about other groups remained gray.

By the end of the discussion all the panelists related the Charlie Hebdo story to numerous freedom of expression examples from around the world.

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Related articles: Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

By Co-Editor-in-Chief Niki Kottmann

Today is a bittersweet day for me.

I’m excited to write my first “Letter from the Editor (Abroad)” editorial, but it isn’t going to be the I’m-About-to-Leave-for-France-and-This-Is-Gonna-Be-Wicked-Awesome post that I was initially anticipating.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Paris and the surrounding region was the location of multiple acts of violence this week. 12 people were shot and killed in the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo Wednesday and a police officer in the southern Montrouge area of Paris was killed Thursday.

This morning, American media outlets reported on two hostage situations related to the Wednesday shooting. One situation was just outside of Paris in Dammartin-en-Goele where the two Charlie Hebdo shooting suspects, Said and Cherif Kouachi, were holding a printing press owner hostage in his factory. The other involved the suspect of the Thursday police officer killing, Amedy Coulibaly, who held multiple people hostage in a kosher grocery store on the eastern side of Paris.

It was confirmed late this morning that all three of the aforementioned suspects were killed by French authorities. The hostage at the printing press was freed as well as those at the grocery store, but French president Francois Hollande just announced that four people were killed in the store siege.

French authorities are now searching for Coulibaly’s alleged accomplice, Hayat Boumeddiene, who is the only remaining suspect. Police union spokesman Pascal Disant believes that she may have escaped the scene of the supermarket siege.

Now, back to my main point: On Wednesday, I’m moving to Reims, France to study abroad for the semester. Needless to say, this is a news story that I’ve been following very closely.

“Are you worried about how safe France is now?”

This is one of the many questions I’ve been asked in regards to how I’m feeling about the situation in France, and frankly, I’m not really scared. A natural first reaction to a situation like this is fear, so of course it was incredibly unsettling at first. However, especially after all they’ve done today, I have faith in the French authorities and their ability to control the situation. And honestly, I’m even more excited to get over there now than I was before these attacks happened.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly saddened by the devastation that these events have brought upon the lives of innocent people. The family and friends of these victims will never get the closure they’re probably craving because, as Jon Stewart said in his opening monologue Wednesday night, “there is no sense to be made of this.” The reason why my fear has been replaced with increased excitement is that I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud to be a journalism student, and now is such a fascinating time to be a journalism student in France.

This graphic is now the most recognizable symbol of support for the magazine post-attack.

 

Before I go on a passionate rant, I want to make one thing clear: I struggle with voicing my opinion on this topic because my feelings about Charlie Hebdo as a publication are mixed. No, I’m not a fan of the cartoons that they published with satirical renditions of the Prophet Mohammed. As a journalism student, I’m taught to treat all subjects fairly and tastefully, and many of their cartoons go against the values I’ve developed in school, both related to and not related to journalism.

However, my opinion about the content of the magazine doesn’t really matter because I believe in freedom of speech, even speech that I don’t agree with. I was born and raised on this concept, the idea that as I writer, I can record and share my opinions without living in fear of repercussion. I don’t particularly enjoy reading editorials or other pieces of writing that I would consider prejudiced or offensive, but I have to respect them because I believe that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and refusing to hear another’s viewpoint is elitist and ignorant.

When I saw pictures of the swarms of French demonstrators standing proud in the streets of Paris (and across the world, for that matter), pens and pencils in the air, I felt more inspired than I ever have throughout my two and a half years in journalism school. I don’t know if I would consider the staff of Charlie Hebdo journalists, but there is no doubt in my mind that they were writers, cartoonists, satirists and just plain human beings whose actions didn’t warrant murder.

What matters right now is that there’s a serious problem with not only terrorist attacks against freedom of speech, but French law that criminalizes certain kinds of speech. As Jonathan Turley wrote in the Washington Post, the French government is more of a threat than terrorists in this regard.

“…if the French want to memorialize those killed at Charlie Hebdo, they could start by rescinding their laws criminalizing speech that insults, defames or incites hatred, discrimination or violence on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, sex or sexual orientation,” Turley wrote.

Charlie Hebdo was threatened many times under these laws, and their refusal to give up is what helps me believe that freedom of speech is something worth fighting for. As France continues to impose restrictions on journalists, I’m excited to live and learn in a country that’s going through such a historical period. These attacks were horrific, but the one light at the end of the tunnel is that these events sparked a conversation that is incredibly necessary in France right now.

Just as the protestors’ sign in central Paris read, I’m not afraid. Even though I’ll be 89 miles from the site of these attacks, in the hometown of one of the suspected shooters, I’m excited to be a journalism exchange student living in a culture at a huge turning point in the history of journalism and free speech.