Calixthe Beyala: black face(s) on French TV

Hitchcott, Nicki

Abstract

As president and spokeswoman of the French black rights movement, Collectif Egalité, Cameroonian-born novelist Calixthe Beyala is committed to pushing for an improvement in the representation of black people on television in France. This article discusses the ways in which the Collectif has attempted to draw the French public's attention to the lack of 'visible minorities' on French TV. It takes as a test case the controversial figure of Beyala herself who has become something of a minor TV celebrity in her own right. What emerges as an apparent contradiction between Beyala's own media representation and the Collectif's campaign will serve to illustrate the ambivalent positioning of black citizens in contemporary France.

Citation

Hitchcott, N. (2004). Calixthe Beyala: black face(s) on French TV. Modern and Contemporary France, 12(4), https://doi.org/10.1080/0963948042000284731

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 2, 2004
• Online Publication Date: Aug 19, 2010
• Publication Date: Nov 1, 2004
• Deposit Date: Apr 11, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 11, 2016
• Journal: Modern & Contemporary France
• Print ISSN: 0963-9489
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9869
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 12
• Issue: 4
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0963948042000284731
• Keywords: Calixthe Beyala; Collectif Egalité; Television; France; Visible Minorities; Black French
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1020844
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0963948042000284731
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Modern and Contemporary France in November 2004, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0963948042000284731