WHO by Wil Aime, permission to criticize the "Black man's art"
“The West Indian audience is the worst in the world”… I’m sick and tired of this remark, which reflects internalized anti-Blackness. It’s the local version of “the Black community doesn’t support” that Black creators have accepted from marketing experts who have built an entire global cultural system on the exploitation of Black people and Black art. “There’s no Black audience; the Black community doesn’t support…” That’s not true.
I don’t need statistics to prove that a portion of the world’s population is forced to use cosmetics to look professional, is forced to master a culture—literature, music, film, painting—from which they are excluded but which is the key to earning degrees and stacking the odds in their favor to afford a somewhat decent lifestyle. And this obligation begins at a very young age… While we’re busy learning to exist on the margins of a system shaped by a colonial filter, many of us forget to develop our own tastes and standards—and to stick to them even when others disagree or even criticize us.
Marketing to Black people in France has always been limited to “support me because I’m Black like you.” This naivety makes sense only if there’s no alternative offering a more enjoyable consumer experience. I’m not saying the product would be better elsewhere. I’m saying the consumer experience is more enjoyable elsewhere because marketing there doesn’t remind the Black audience every five seconds, “You Black people are mean; you don’t show solidarity, so prove that’s not true.” Other companies’ marketing may ignore them, but at least it doesn’t directly insult them. The consequence, from the Black audience’s perspective, is that they lack clear criteria for judging a product’s quality because marketing experts believe this audience isn’t worth the time it would take to show them how a particular cultural product would enhance their lives.
Instinctively, Wil Aime took a different approach. Perhaps it was due to the carefree nature of youth, or perhaps because he already had a certain grasp of mainstream culture. In any case, he took the natural approach of any artist. He created art that he wanted to make and that he could stand behind without belittling himself. In other words, he never resorted to self-deprecating rhetoric to gain acceptance. In return, he attracted an audience that grew with him and gradually expanded. By subtitling his videos in English, he took the initiative to make his art accessible to a wider audience at a time when AI translation wasn’t as advanced as it is today. In fact, the viewing experience is virtually identical because the French dialogue is written in a way that requires little adaptation into English… Which means he was intentional in his desire to build an international audience.
I’ve been following his career from afar since 2016. His Vine videos were still making rounds in French-speaking Black communities at the time. I was too old to be his target audience, but I had enough diverse experience in the audiovisual field to recognize his potential. Over the next three years, his videos became increasingly elaborate and reached a diaspora audience beyond France’s borders. The themes dealt with universal emotions, but by casting himself in the main roles, he gave them a Black visual. And that’s what Black audiences have always wanted: stories featuring Black people without them being solely “Black” stories. One could (and don’t act like it’s just me) criticize him for a “colorblind” perspective or take issue with his female characters, but each story made the audience feel like they mattered because he took the time to highlight universal moments of doubt and unease without ridiculing or trivializing them. He gave the audience space to reflect, to question, and to disagree. His videos allowed people to connect and engage. It wasn’t so much that every detail mattered; rather, it was that every thought mattered. And it was okay to change your mind along the way because changing your perspective on the dilemmas in his videos didn’t mean you were wrong.
For “WHO”, the context is different. These days, people are afraid of looking dumb and prefer to parrot the opinions of the few content creators who speak eloquently without ever questioning their own statements. In other words, there’s a pressure to agree all the time because people don’t feel capable of venturing into a substantive debate. As soon as the first negative reviews of the film “WHO” appeared, the “Yo Bruh” team sprang into action. Videos in support of the film began to appear, defending filmmaker Wil Aime rather than the film itself. With their only arguments being that it’s his first feature film, that he made it entirely independently, and that the film deserves to exist, these videos of support revealed an inability to engage in critical discourse about the things we love. Fortunately, this call for blind support from Black people was not heeded. Instead, an informed form of support took hold. Content creators continued to discuss the film in detail, explaining what worked and what didn’t from their perspective, and sharing their theories with specific arguments. All these reviews reveal two things:
“WHO” is analyzed in comparison to Wil Aime’s previous videos and to non-Caribbean films;
the majority wants Wil Aime to continue pursuing his passion and creating stories that will spark hours of debate…
Two conclusions. The Afro-French audience needs a framework for evaluating works that, at first glance, fall outside the French industry’s expectations. The Afro-French audience wants to be a fan; it wants to be inspired to become a fan. How can we inspire that desire? Through the synergy between a (quality) product and M-A-R-K-E-T-I-N-G.
You weren’t ready for “Les Rascals”, but you’ll come back to it one day and see that this lòtbòdlo* film is worth studying to understand the balance between what the French film industry wants and what audiences in Guadeloupe and Martinique should want. With their usual representation, “Zion”, “Fanon”, and especially “Bandi” sparked an enthusiasm that, I think, rivaled the impact of Euzhan Palcy’s “Rue Cases-Nègres” in the 1980s. However, in ten years of observing the creative and cultural industries of Guadeloupe and Martinique, this is the first time I’ve seen such engagement from the audience with a critical approach. It’s the first time I’ve heard people explain what they don’t like without invoking the filmmaker’s niceness. Yes, some people judged the film (and Wil Aime) on some details that might make sense in a Western perspective but not necessarily in a Caribbean perspective. It’s interesting to see what an (Afro) French audience is sensitive to and what a Caribbean audience is sensitive to. That wasn’t the intention, but “WHO” served as a large-scale marketing campaign. It showed that Black communities do exist, but that they can rally around a cultural product without needing to think exactly the same thing about it or appreciate it for the same reasons.
From Vine to the big screen, Wil Aime took his time to create work that resonated with who he was at that stage of his life. He built his audience on his own terms. He demonstrated that it was possible to remain respectful while criticizing a work created by a Black artist. Nevertheless, now in his early thirties, he has reached a new crossroads in his career: how can he advance his art while earning enough money to continue creating it? The Karukerament answer is to deconstruct his perception of his “West Indian” identity in order to develop a perspective capable of navigating the colonial filter. This is the mandatory step to creating with conviction. This phase of introspection can occur during adolescence, when a young Euzhan Palcy read Joseph Zobel’s “La Rue Cases-Nègres” [Sugar Cane Alley] and grasped the importance of bringing this story to the screen by making contemporary changes without betraying the essence of the text. This introspection can occur after entering the workforce, as Alain Bidard experienced, which led him to envision Martinique as a country leading the fight for freedom in the near future in “Battledream Chronicle” or Martinique as a space to heal our mental wounds in “Opal”. This self-reflection can take place throughout one’s life, as in the case of Christian Lara, who was clear about his definition of “West Indian cinema” and ultimately came to champion a distinctively Guadeloupean cinema. It is the only way to sustain one’s passion, despite the mistakes, setbacks, and disappointments that punctuate a career.
Every filmmaker has their own journey, experiences, and choices. It’s too early to say what “WHO” will mean for Wil Aime’s career, but no one can deny that he has shed light on the potential of fan culture from an AfroFrench perspective. Here's hoping that other filmmakers will understand the importance of connecting with the audience and accepting constructive criticism…
*A classification system devised by Dr. Guillaume Robillard to describe films made in mainland France by “French West Indian” filmmakers.