What Are Jamaican Films Without Jamaican Culture And Language?

In 2017, an accomplished American Hollywood producer Joel Zwick told a group of Jamaican filmmakers that they should only use English in their movies as the use of Patois makes it a foreign film.

He said, “If the world can’t understand what you are saying and you then have to use subtitles, which most people don’t like to read, then it becomes a foreign movie. Jamaica should not be producing foreign-language films as an English-speaking country. There is no reason to tell your stories in anything other than English as the English-speaking world is vast.”

He further stated: “When we write in Patois, we are locking out a whole set of people who want to understand.”

Those comments proved to be short-sighted and deeply colonial. People are enjoying foreign films and people are reading subtitles. It enables greater comprehension.

The irony was; he was encouraging filmmakers to “think global” while reducing the prestigious art of filmmaking to the prejudices of English speakers. He also made the ill-informed assumption that all Jamaican stories may be told in the Queen’s language and keep their authenticity.

Since then, there have been about 5 films released with a Jamaican cast or by a Jamaican Filmmaker that either made it to Netflix or got an international theatrical release.

Filmmaking around the world happens in a range of economic, social, and cultural contexts. Jamaica’s own industry started just over 100 years ago and still lacks the economic confidence to attract investors.

Like any other product made for distribution, films are targeting a specific market, and the new crop of artists are making their films, songs, stories, and even the cultural fashion with unique Jamaican flavors. It is a fallacious assumption to project that indigenous language is useless in the creative process. It is part of their cultural capital.

Joel Swick’s statements are similar sentiments made by lawyers, politicians, and some producers that authentic Dancehall does not have a place in larger music markets. Beenie Man, in answering whether the music fails to sell because of Jamaica’s language barrier on the World Music Views podcast, said “Then why Sean Paul sells so much?”

Not sellable?

Black American filmmakers were told in the past by Hollywood executives that ‘black films’, i.e., films with black actors as the lead characters would not make any money because nobody wanted to watch a film with black people.

Many artists had to play the back burner known as the “chitlin circuit” with their films and other productions until Tyler Perry broke box-office numbers with his cash cow character Madea, which became an instant hit.

Mainstream movie houses, record labels and other streaming platforms may try to create imaginary ceilings that “content such as films and music, done in the Jamaican Patois language is not sellable” but they would be forgetting their own history. Some of the early filmmakers in Hollywood, the likes of Mayer, Cohen, Selznick, and Thalberg, headed west to form Hollywood at a time when the entertainment business was regarded as disreputable. They often went to extreme lengths in their quest for social respectability.

Jamaican creators have gone to the same extreme lengths since the 1960s to show their abilities beyond language, but have not received the same respect for the impact of our films, stories, culture, music and language.

Add to that a Jamaican creative must work twice as hard and invest twice as much to import equipment in order to compete with others who have the infrastructure, education, creative tools and other resources at their fingertips.

Creators are not beggars

Platform services like Netflix are doing a disservice to the global film industry by not looking to Jamaica for directors, actors, and producers of content. Caribbean people are said not to buy music but they stream movies because the region is one of Netflix’s fastest-growing since 2018. It is only right that more representation is included on their platform. Additionally, global audiences are judging films based on how they connect to the story. Narcos has been the greatest example of this with its Spanish subtitles and a story that connects two continents.

There are many untold stories in Dancehall culture, stories about Miss Lou and all the national heroes that are yet to be immortalized. They need a budget for production, marketing, and distribution.

INGENIOUS OPTION

If Jamaican films are proscribed from entering the real corridors of gentility in global music and film status, then the movies, fashion, music, and stories told in the Jamaican language offer an ingenious option. Jamaicans can simply create a new industry, one where we would not only be admitted but would also govern.

To shame the Jamaican language, stories, movies, and music and at the same time exploit it for commercial appeasement is the systematic downplaying of the island’s cultural relevance to the global markets. This is why Justin Bieber could boldly say that he credits “island music” and not the Jamaican influence for inspiring his hit reggae-dancehall song Sorry.

Replacing the Jamaican content justifies the exclusion of Jamaican talent on the global entertainment scene in films, music, fashion, and culture.

Solution

However, it makes no sense to look outside when the resources are already here. Jamaican investors can come together with the filmmakers, video directors, music makers, storytellers, and creative agencies to be less like Stephen Spielberg and more like Steve Jobs. We must be innovative and express ourselves in an authentic manner as we code-switch to break down imaginary walls. Code-switching doesn’t require creators to change their natural language, it is the use of nuances and codes in different languages to communicate more effectively to a wider audience. This is totally different from language exclusion in film making as suggested by Joel Zwick. This unique ability to move from one language’s nuance and cadence to another but showcasing authentic emotion has been used by several musicians in the past.

Cham explained in an interview with me that it’s the difference between saying “Tell em” and “Tell Dem”. The platinum-selling artist said this allowed him to meet new audiences halfway and they came halfway to meet him with the way he expressed himself.

The backbone of the music industry is great songwriting just as the backbone of the film industry is great scriptwriting. So we must start from a comfortable place of scriptwriting and develop the film industry outward.

All our energies should now be focused on developing our humanity through scripts and making films, music, fashion, and telling stories using our rich history and cultural values.

Email feedback to worldmusicviews@gmail.com