Letter: Give Jamaicans their due
Published:Saturday | November 13, 2010 | 12:00 AM
THE EDITOR, Sir:
Re: Top-five Jamaican movies (The Gleaner, November 6, 2010).
Your reporter obviously does not understand that 'parentage' or 'nationality' of a film is directly linked to the nationality of the director.
With these criteria, how could Rockers and Life and Debt be considered 'Jamaican' films? Yes, they are films about Jamaica, made in Jamaica, just like Cool Runnings, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Club Paradise, Belly, Lunatic, Popcorn, Going to Extremes. However, they are not not Jamaican films.
Let me draw a parallel: when Herbie Mann, Paul Simon, Rolling Stones or Wyclef Jean, Machel Montano come here to record reggae songs, does that make their records Jamaican? No way.
Give Jamaicans their due. How could you omit the seminal film, Children of Babylon, where Rasta meets uptown at the time of social change in Jamaica in the '70s. And what about Chris Browne's Third World Cop. Nor can we forget that poignant film about a strong black Jamaican woman in Glory to Gloriana.
Why do we diss our own creative people, only to celebrate them when they get 'big-ups' from foreigners in faraway lands.