The French storytelling on slavery
“It’s impossible to achieve perfect historical accuracy. It’s a difficult subject to tackle, but we’re going to do it because people need to know what happened. But we have to make people laugh, because otherwise they won’t be able to handle it…”
I think this is surely the basis for discussions among Afro-French filmmakers who decide to create works on the theme of slavery. I find it fascinating that they want to “restore the truth” and “talk about the history we aren't taught in school,” but continue to offer dehumanizing, stereotypical, and therefore useless narratives.
Since I started Karukerament, I've noticed that fall is the ideal season for clickbait. “Antilleans” and everything related to “the Antilles” are a hot topic for creating buzz. This week, I saw a video shared by several pages I follow on Instagram. Co-published by French filmmaker Jean-Pascal Zadi and Studio Bagel, it’s titled “The old-fashioned French administration”... Alongside comedian Fary Lopes, he plays a “freed slave” asking a judge for compensation the day after the abolition of slavery in 1848. The judge explains that only the masters will receive compensation. Although the Instagram comments are complimentary, no one questions the intention behind publishing this clip with the caption “even at the CAF [French Family Allowance Fund] they are nicer”...
Capture de la page IG de Jean-Pascal Zadi - le 11 octobre 2025
Indeed, this clip, viewed through the Karukerament lens, perpetuates the vagueness surrounding the history of slavery, as French cinema encourages us to do, whereas the real originality lies in the long version titled “Le Jour d'après” (The Day After), available since July 2023 on Studio Bagel's YouTube channel. As most of the skit is conventional, I decided not to mention it at the time. However, when I see that this excerpt has accumulated more than 39,000 likes in 24 hours, with congratulations and thanks for highlighting an “unknown” fact, I think it’s important to keep track of how the narrative on slavery can be manipulated under the guise of conveying a story that is supposedly kept in the shadows. With the Karukerament lens, I offer a brief comparative analysis between the short Instagram version and the long YouTube version.
The Instagram version through the Karukerament lens
Temporal contextualization: which abolition are we talking about? The abolition of 1848 is not the abolition of 1794. The political context is not the same. We are in the dark.
Geographical contextualization: where does the scene take place? In a courtroom (?) in Paris, in the colonies? Or in a city like Nantes, Bordeaux, or La Rochelle? We are in the dark.
The humanization of Black people: what did it mean to be freed before 1848? What did it mean to be freed after 1848? Were they from Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, or Réunion island? In any case, Jean-Pascal Zadi and Fary Lopes play anonymous characters with no families and no distinguishing features, thus perpetuating the concept of a monolithic Black people. We are left in the dark. On the other hand, as in French film “Case Départ”, the duo plays on the stereotype of the dark-skinned Black man who is a little rough, driven by his (legitimate) anger, and the light-skinned Black man who is calmer and more civilized.
The humanization of White people: no White masters are shown. No White mistresses are shown. Justice (?) is embodied by a White woman who reminds us of her humanity in relation to her difficulty in managing the rivalry between Lyon city and Saint-Etienne city. We are left in the dark.
Power dynamics: physical violence is suggested. The judge is always seated in a position of dominance over the two freedmen, even though they are standing. There is no mention of slave resistance or revolt.
So, in practical terms, I can completely understand why some viewers find it funny. And I even understand the contradiction that this audience is the same one that criticizes “Case Départ” negatively. On the other hand, I don't understand why this video receives compliments for its subtle writing, for being almost a documentary... Sorry, can we have some standards?
The YouTube version with Karukerament's perspective
Temporal contextualization: the scene takes place on April 28th, 1848, the day after the official publication of the second abolition of slavery. This is an original representation.
Geographical contextualization: each colony has a different date of abolition. The opening caption announces that the scene takes place in France. The date allows us to assume that it takes place in mainland France. This is an original representation.
The humanization of Black people: they are freedmen from the second abolition, without us understanding what this status represents with or without financial compensation, without us understanding what this status represents for a Black person in the colonies or in mainland France. Given the way they speak, they are freedmen from mainland France who were servants and not soldiers. They speak directly to plead their case without going through a spokesperson. This is an original representation.
The humanization of White people: the sequence opens with a dialogue between a White master receiving his compensation. He laments having to pay his former slaves a salary but is delighted to be able to charge them rent... If the aim was to use comedy to denounce how unfair the system was towards Black people, the first thirty seconds of the skit were more than enough. The humor should have come from directly challenging the cruelty of such remarks, delivered in a lighthearted tone, rather than delaying the protest so that the white master could quietly leave the stage. The last twenty seconds, in which the judge's assistant utters a sentence in “Creole” to ask them to leave, demonstrates the traditional devaluation of our regional languages, which we are accustomed to denouncing. This is an original representation.
Power dynamics: they are the only Black people in the room and are placed at the center. All the other characters are White, but the two Black characters aren’t physically relegated to the background. Their clothing makes it clear that they aren’t part of the bourgeoisie. Although they don’t lead the discussion, they’re filmed without being placed in a position of inferiority. This remains an original representation... which is negated by the fact that the judge and her assistant have the last word and are the last image in the video.
a French framework to know
To date, the YouTube video has over 900,000 views. Some people are surprised that such a skit is available on Canal+ channel when it’s a conventional narrative that neither nuances nor questions the French system of representation. I'm not saying that this skit should have had an educational purpose. I'm saying that we shouldn't project this intention when the result objectively has no basis for doing so. And if someone argues that my analysis is too deep, that exactly supports my point that this skit is really not the hot take that people want it to be.
It’s possible to inject humor into the portrayal of slavery, but this only works if the system is ridiculed and not simply described as it is... I don't believe that French audience need to laugh in order to discuss the subject, but it’s clear that a certain degree of educating is required to ensure that the narrative is not boring. It’s difficult to find the balance between conveying a realistic perspective of the slavery era without traumatizing the Black audience and the White audience, and still entertaining them. This is perhaps what is missing from Christian Lara's “Sucre Amer” (Bitter Sugar), which, in my opinion, is too often analyzed (and criticized) from an entertainment perspective and not sufficiently valued for its representation of the history and evolution of French Guadeloupean society between the 18th and 20th centuries.
This filmmaker established a framework for representing resistance with the characters of Delgrès (Luc Saint-Eloy) and Ignace (Jean-Michel Martial). In “Tropiques Amers” (“Bitter Tropics”), Jean-Claude Barny established a framework for representing the daily life of enslaved people in Martinique with the character of Adèle (Fatou N'Diaye) in 2007. Similarly, in “Les Mariés de l'Isle Bourbon” (“The Newlyweds of Bourbon Island”), Euzhan Palcy established a framework for representing French mixed-race nobility with the character of Jean (William Nadylam). In the animated film “Battledream” (2015), Alain Bidard established a framework for representing the dangers of globalized slavery with the character of Syanna. In the short film “Here Ends The Word We’ve Known” (2022), Anne-Sophie Nanki created a framework to represent the establishment of the slave system from the perspective of the Kalinagos and deported Africans... As I discussed with Dr. Dexter Gabriel, the global filmography on the subject represents a very limited view of all the stories that could be told without trauma porn. Representing slavery is so much more than aestheticizing physical suffering. The challenge is also to highlight the mechanism of rehumanization. This is the démounaj/remounaj concept developed by Guadeloupean artist Lukuber Séjor, which is being explored by millennial artists such as Célia Wa.
Yet the media, critics, and social media continue to use the portrayal of suffering as the sole criterion for the quality of a narrative about slavery... My generation of millennials persists in the idea that schools are solely responsible for the lack of knowledge about the history of slavery, when in fact... the school system isn’t responsible? We’re the first generation to have had easy access to historians' works. We’re the first generation to have a few French audiovisual works to analyze. One may not be psychologically ready to deepen their knowledge on the subject... But why do they feel this sense of shame or even contempt for the people of that era who fought to survive? I think it’s important to question our current view of this period when this skit or feature films such as “Ni Chaîne Ni Maître” (2024) and “Furcy né libre” (2026)* are presented as original representations when in fact they just recycle the expected vision with varying degrees of sensationalism.
Like Misié Sadik's latest music video, with its flawless cinematography, and the recent Guadeloupean novels I have read on this theme, I still find it disturbing that we’re unable to imagine the establishment of the lineages that explain the existence of the current Guadeloupean people. Yes, millions of women, children, and men died during that period, but others survived. Do you really know their stories?
As I pointed out in the documentary “Aux origines, l'esclavage”, it’s up to each of us to question our view of this historical period. Why are the productions made by those concerned neglected at best and despised at worst? Why don't Afro-French people who are indirectly affected by the subject question their colonial filter? As long as we’re unable to see those affected as human beings in all their complexity, as long as we only want to see them as suffering bodies, as long as we find it difficult to conceive that these human beings retained their autonomy of thought despite their status as slaves, what’s the point of having encyclopedic knowledge?
Yes, there are stories to be told about free people of color, about those who were freed before 1848, and about post-1848 societies that are financially well off, without necessarily portraying them as traitors “to the cause.” There are also the waves of Asian immigration to recount... “Antillean” is not synonymous with Black. In 2025, it"‘s time that everyone accepts this reality.
Following the work of historian Jean-Pierre Sainton in the 1990s, the work of historian Myriam Cottias and historian Frédéric Régent in the 2000s, the work of political philosopher Silyane Larcher, historians Jessica Pierre-Louis and Julie Duprat has also been enriching the French narrative on slavery since the 2010s, helping us to understand the society of the time and our contemporary society. Perhaps ten years from now, it will no longer be just a question of representing torture in plantations, but of how to build cultural communities within the (post)slavery system.
**I haven't seen “Furcy, born a free man” yet, but the interviews with Abd El Malik and the stills available to date don't give me the impression that it will be an original representation. That doesn't mean it can't be a beautiful story.
N.B.: There are many other historians working on this subject. I have given you the names of those who I consider essential reading if you don't know where to start and prefer digital content because paper content can be intimidating.