Associate Professor of French George MacLeod has recently published an article entitled, “Race and Terrorism in French Cinema: Discourses of Whiteness and ‘Brown Threat’ in Nicolas Boukhrief’s Made in France” in the United Kingdom-based, peer-reviewed Bulletin of Francophone Postcolonial Studies.
In this article, MacLeod argues for the importance of analyzing Islamophobia as a form of racism that cannot be isolated from other forms of appearance-based discrimination in France. He also makes the case for considering how the socially constructed racial categories of “White,” “Brown” and “Black” intersect with depictions of characters of Muslim faith in contemporary French cinema. Overall, MacLeod argues that French cinema, and French media more broadly, cannot adequately address anti-Muslim discrimination if they do not overcome France’s reluctance to talking openly about how racial and religious discrimination are inevitably intertwined. An expanded analysis of how Islamist terrorism and terrorists are depicted in French and Francophone film will also form a part of MacLeod’s forthcoming book, "Mediating Violence from Africa: Francophone Literature, Film, and Testimony after the Cold War" (University of Nebraska Press).
