Throughout history, is has often been seen that when a person or country holds power over another, the process of them dehumanizing whomever they are overpowering comes into play. When the French colonized an extremely large portion of Africa, it was of no exception to this dehumanizing process, which can be seen through many examples in both of the place’s histories. A number of these historical events are depicted in French and African films, including French-Algerian director Rachid Bouchareb’s depiction of the French Army during World War II with Days of Glory. Numerous films have also been produced to create fictional portrayals that represent the horrid acts and unjust treatments of African people, such as Ousmane Sembène’s Black Girl, …show more content…
The film talks about the withholding of the pensions of the surviving soldiers from the former colonies that were becoming independent from France after World War II. The French government tried to get out of paying the North African soldiers even though they were already being paid a considerable amount less than the French soldiers were being paid, despite their accomplishments in the war that they fought with them, usually in the front line. This shows the blatant disrespect that some of the French had for the African soldiers and how they looked down on them, thinking of them as so much lower than themselves, not to be put in the same regard. It was a long struggle for the African soldiers who fought in the war to be paid their pensions though they finally received them a considerable amount of time later. Many French films depict the dehumanization process of Africans through depictions of war, as the colonized soldiers would fight in the French army but would not be held to the same standard as the other French soldiers were. Black Girl, another film by Ousmane Sembène, however, portrays the dehumanization of a Senegalese woman by a French couple in their everyday lives. The film portrays the sickening dehumanization of Diouana, a woman from Dakar, who is hired by a French couple to be a nanny to their three children but is treated as more of a slave