ABSTRACT
Whiteface is a staged embodiment of whiteness; it is the act of ‘dressing up’ as whiteness/a white person. For the Senegalese artist Samba Sine, this means painting himself white and putting on a French accent. This article examines one of Sine’s whiteface performances, Tajabóon Tubaab (A White/Foreign Tajaboon) (2011), and argues that whiteface, as a form of mimicry, has the power to circumscribe self-censorship and to critique postcolonial whiteness. In doing so, I draw upon Bernard Noël’s concept of sensure, which can be described as a form of self-censorship in which speech/texts are allowed to exist but remain void of meaning. The interview I conducted with Sine, representative of such self-censorship, appears as a clear antithesis to Tajabóon Tubaab and its critique of postcolonial whiteness. Mimicry, as theorized by Homi K. Bhabha, is therefore extended into a reflection on Senegalese whiteface as a means to overcome self-censorship. Whiteface, as performative mimicry, circumvents sensure, therefore replacing meaning into the text. Mimicry can legitimize imperial whiteness, but when performative, can also ensure the voicing of marginalized ideas. It is especially through temporary embodiment of power figures, through the donning of the white mask, that an artist can present a disturbing, displacing gaze.
What possibilities exist for socio-political critique in an environment of censorship?
In Senegal, censorship is not unusual, especially when it comes to television and film productions. Most often, this censorship is connected to the politico-religious context of the country. Even though Senegal is a secular state, the election of a president strongly depends on the endorsement of ‘marabouts’ (religious guides) who influence the votes of their followers (Dia Citation2016, 148). Anything that could fragilise the relationship between a politician and a well-known religious figure thus endangers political success. That religious endorsement is necessary to win an election in Senegal is problematic, for it fragilises the democratic process. Consequently, the complexity of political critique becomes inextricable from influential religious personas, often resulting in censorship. Sometimes, however, imaginative artistic texts can have the power to counter such acts of silencing.
Samba Sine has ‘disturbed’ the Senegalese government. Originally from one of Dakar’s working-class suburbs, Sine is a self-taught comedian. The start of his career can be traced back to taking the stage in local street events in the 1990s and then appearing on television for the first time at the age of 18. Thereafter, he began working for television channel Walfadjri, which he left in 2011 to join the newly founded TFM (Télé Futurs Médias), part of the bigger media group GFM (Groupe Futurs Médias) and owned by the internationally famous singer and former minister of tourism, Youssou Ndour. Helping to publicize this new channel, Sine acquired popularity through his Kouthia Show, and has become one of the most well-known comedians in the country and its diaspora. The Kouthia Show is a type of news-based comedy, which the artist describes as being 80% improvised. Every weekday, Sine translates local and international news through comedy sketches, which he creates together with his team of comedians. Their acts usually consist of socio-political parodies in which Sine impersonates individuals in positions of power, such as the politicians Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Emmanuel Macron, or African personalities like Yahya Jammeh (former dictator of Gambia) and Mohammed Salah (an Egyptian soccer player). Accentuating the satirical form of the show, characters are often played in whiteface and speak in Wolof. On rare occasions, the artist creates an unknown whiteface persona, as can be seen in his comedy skit Tajabóon Tubaab (A White/Foreign Tajaboon) (2011).
This article reflects on an interview with Sine and compares it to Tajabóon Tubaab. Drawing on Bernard Noël’s concept of sensure, I read the interview as a performance of self-censorship and, in dialogue with Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of mimicry, I conduct a textual analysis of Tajabóon Tubaab. In doing so, I argue that whiteface can become a means to circumvent sensure (self-censorship), therefore extending discussions of postcolonial whiteness. Studying such performances is important because it reveals innovative artistic responses to our colonial pasts, countless manners of interacting with whiteness, and portrays the ways in which postcolonial whiteness exists, permeates and is confronted in globally and/or domestically marginalized communities.
Mimicry as circumvention of self-censorship
Both feared and desired by the colonial system, mimicry is the colonized individual’s partial impersonation of the colonial figure. It can be understood as a restriction, a means of colonial control, for imitation forces the individual into a mould and results in the suppression of the self. However, as shown by Bhabha (Citation1994), mimicry can also turn into a defiance of such control. In being both imitation and menace, mimicry exposes the ambivalence of colonial discourse. Colonial mimicry is not a mirror image, but rather a streaked, blurred embodiment, it is ‘the desire for a reformed, recognizable Other, as a subject of a difference that is almost the same, but not quite [white]’ (Bhabha Citation1994, 122; 125). In the context of Senegal, mimicry alludes to the remnants of colonialism in the country. The imposition of the French language in governmental institutions, themselves inherited from France, is a postcolonial mimicry perpetrated by the state and enjoyed by the former colonial nation. Maintaining Senegal’s only official language as French has economic, political and cultural advantages for France, as much as is maintaining a differentiation between the French and Senegalese peoples (Yoka Citation2008, 534–536). Mimicry, as a form of unattainable assimilation, can also transform into menace in that it exposes the ambivalence of postcolonial discourse. Such ambivalence, however, enables mimicry to circumvent sensure (self-censorship). Firstly, imitation confirms existing power figures. Ironically, this acts as a protective cloak from censorship, allowing space for political critique. Secondly, gazing questioningly upon postcolonial whiteness is made possible through the act of masking as an enhancement of the performative. Mimicry, when temporal, performative, enables agency (to mock, critique) on the part of the post/colonized. In that sense, certain forms of mimicry (for example, a deliberate, temporary, performative enactment of whiteness) are more critical than others.
In its fragmentary legitimation of power (represented by both colonial objects and authority figures), mimicry can therefore become a barrier against sensure. Even in its most satirical form, whiteface (a temporary racial impersonation), affirms whiteness, thus legitimizing the actual hegemony that it criticizes. However, speaking from a ‘partial’ position of power, one that is imitative, performative, but closer to the ‘centre’ than that of the completely marginalized, also ends up facilitating the resurfacing of meaning in critique. Whiteface, as partial mimicry, is an intrusion into the centre, a gnawing at the ideas of postcolonial whiteness, which results in what Bhabha calls ‘part-objects of presence’ (Citation1994, 131). Once the ‘founding objects’ of imperialism are only partly duplicated, they come to sacrifice some of their power, resisting sensure (self-censorship), but also creating space for new meanings:
In the ambivalent world of the ‘not quite/not white’, on the margins of metropolitan desire, the founding objects [the Bible, the white body] of the Western world become the erratic, eccentric, accidental objets trouvés of the colonial discourse – the part-objects of presence. It is then that the body and the book lose their part-objects of presence. It is then that the body and the book lose their representational authority. Black skin splits under the racist gaze, displaced into signs of bestiality, genitalia, grotesquerie, which reveal the phobic myth of the undifferentiated whole white body.
In Lacanian terms, Bhabha explains how the partial replication of Christianity during India’s colonization culminated in copies of the Bible being used as wastepaper. Here, the founding object of the Bible loses its sacred connotation and consequently the civilizational and missionary project of imperialism is transformed into a caricature of itself. Similarly, the racialization and decoupage of the Black body reveals the fantasy of the ‘undifferentiated whole white body’, thus questioning the hegemony and universalization of whiteness (Bhabha Citation1994, 131). Both the white body and the Bible lose their representational authority. This loss of the part-object of (colonial) presence is the loss in colonial signification, with the Bible turning from sacred book to wrapping paper and the white body exposed as a false facsimile image of humanity. That derision, mockery, plays such an important part in the retransformation of meaning is not to be overlooked. It is precisely because a founding object is partially embodied that it results in a parody of itself, which then in turn renders the decredibilisation of postcolonial authority so evocative. In Senegal, the statue of former colonial governor of West Africa, Louis Faidherbe, is another example of a part-object of colonial presence. Erected in NdarFootnote1 by the French in 1886 to ‘honour his contribution to the colony’, it also disregarded the looting, massacre and conflagration of surrounding villages which occurred under his administration (De Jong Citation2022, 4–5; Obenga Citation2008, 395). This is further reinforced by the statue’s epigraph which reads ‘A son Gouverneur, L. Faidherbe, le Sénégal reconnaissant’ (To governor L. Faidherbe, its grateful Senegal) (De Jong Citation2022, 5). As a part-object of colonial presence, the statue represents/ed postcolonial power, which was reflected in public debates about its possible dismantlement. For instance, when in 2017 the statue was toppled by a thunderstorm, the municipality decided to place it back upon its pedestal (De Jong Citation2022, 4). Finally, in 2019, Faidherbe was taken down and brought to a museum storage, thus literally and figuratively losing his colonial presence (De Jong Citation2022, 12). The statue’s signification, as imperial decorative symbol on Ndar’s main square, was transformed into that of a rejected and obsolete object, its representational power thus reduced, if not annihilated.
The hybrid ambivalence represented in the statue’s story (it is toppled, then placed back onto its pedestal by the municipality) is an example of mimicry as part-object of colonial presence. Mimicry is itself a part-object which ‘radically revalues the normative knowledges of the priority of race, writing, history [for it] mimes the forms of authority to the point at which it deauthorizes them’ (Bhabha Citation1994, 130). The text (colonial discourse) is performed by the postcolonial body and loses its original author. As a result, the parody of imperial whiteness is effective precisely because the text is transferred from the colonizer/figure of domination to the colonized/marginalized. This deauthorisation occurs through the displacing gaze of the disciplined (mimic). As stated by Bhabha, ‘the look of surveillance returns as the displacing gaze of the disciplined, where the observer becomes the observed and “partial” representation rearticulates the whole notion of identity and alienates it from essence’ (127). Nonetheless, the dislocation engendered by the gaze is only made possible, that is, it evades self-censorship, because it occurs through a mask representative of the Other (colonizer/figure of domination). Imitation reaffirms the postcolonial desire for both assimilation and differentiation, but as a performativeFootnote2 partial embodiment, it also looks back at imperial whiteness, critiquing the rigidity of racial concepts.
The interview as performance of sensure
During my field research in Senegal, I was hoping to talk to Samba Sine about his comedy skit, Tajabóon Tubaab.Footnote3 The performance is a reference to taajabóon, a Wolof term which designates the festivities enjoyed, especially by children, during the tamxarit (Muslim New Year). On the night of tamxarit, Senegalese children whiten their faces with ash or flour and sometimes dress as the opposite gender. They fabricate their own drums and walk around the neighbourhood dancing and performing for the adults who give them money and/or rice. Although Sine does not embody a female character, he does incorporate a whiteface masquerade. His taajabóon is a festive façade, but also an enactment of whiteness. Throughout the performance, the cultural references to taajabóon parody the white protagonist, reinforcing Sine’s postcolonial critique.Footnote4
A first viewing of the skit reveals it as a hilarious impersonation of a white person. The more I watched, the more I understood the underlying decolonial radicality of the performance. During our interview, however, Sine diverged from conversing about his skit and instead presented his show as beneficial to Senegalese politicians. His discourse turned out to be in contradiction with his performance. Nonetheless, to interpret an interview under censorship involves a part of speculation and imagination. My reading of Sine’s interview and his performance does not necessarily reflect the interviewee’s political opinions. It is, therefore, with imagination, that I read our interview as a testimony of the difficulties to publicly critique the governmentFootnote5 and French neocolonialism in Senegal. In contrast to the interview, I interpret Tajabóon Tubaab as a critique of postcolonial whiteness maintained by the Senegalese government. In the context of Senegal, I think of postcolonial critique not only as a response to the vestiges of colonialism (e.g. the prevalence of the French language, the economic power of French institutions), but also as a confrontation with the current local government and figures of the Senegalese elite.Footnote6 Postcolonial critique is a condemnation of the power structures inherited from colonialism as well as the institutions/people/social behaviour that upholds such structures.
The interview I conducted with Samba Sine is a performance of self-censorship, for it is an enactment in which speech is deprived of meaning. In the interview, the ‘actor’ plays what is expected of him, thus staging censorship. Bernard Noël’s concept of ‘sensure’ seems particularly useful to my discussion of Sine’s interview. Prior to our conversation, Sine had suffered from political pressure and economic instability, resulting in the sensure of his own interview. Whilst working at the TFM, Sine was twice forced to resign. The last time this occurred was in April 2022, during the month of Ramadan. On the Kouthia Show, Sine criticized religious leaders who appeared on Senegalese television, accusing them of advancing a political, rather than a religious agenda (NTV Citation2022). He was critical of Oustaz Modou Fall in particular, a religious ‘celebrity’ who had displayed his relationship with Senegal’s president, Macky Sall, on social media and who was praising the latter on television. Ironically, Fall also works for the TFM, which meant that Sine was denouncing his own employer as much as he was religious leaders and the Senegalese government. In May 2022, the artist was thus obliged to leave his job and it was only in September of that same year, two months before my interview with him, that Sine was able to continue the Kouthia Show at the TFM.
A play on words between the French terms ‘sens’ (meaning) and ‘censure’ (censorship), sensure is censorship disguised in speech, that is, language stripped off meaning (Elbadawi Citation2016, 19). According to Bernard Noël, sensure occurs when language is distorted, misrepresented, thus invisibilising the very act of censorship; the speaker is not deprived of speech, but is, rather, dispossessed of meaning (‘privation de sens’) (qtd. in Elbadawi Citation2016, 17; 19). Censorship silences, stifles the individual but does not violate language (Noël Citation2011, 30). Sensure, on the other hand, assaults language through euphemization and malapropism (‘abus de langage’) (30). In the interview, Sine’s self-censorship can be understood as a form of sensure. The contradictions placed side by side and the blurred relations between the artist and his audience results in a loss of meaning; a world in which the comedian is friends with the politicians he imitates and in which his show has the power to ensure social peace, leaving everything and nothing said. Sine’s interview acts as a silencing of the mind (‘faire taire les esprits’); it opposes any possibility for political and social critique, thus sedating its interlocutor (Elbadawi Citation2016, 17).
An example of sensure occurs when Sine imagines the staging of a political protest, which, at first, might seem quite radical. It becomes clear, however, that such a comment is carefully phrased such as to avoid direct criticism of the Senegalese government:
Yes, we do political critique. If a politician takes a decision and people are unhappy with that, well then, the next day we will show this here [in the studio]. You know, we Senegalese want it to work out, we will play it so that it will work out in this way. Perhaps Macky Sall increases [the price of] rice. We take for example, the Serer,Footnote7 you know they like rice. Or we take another ethnic group which loves rice. Then we show their [political] demands. Why did Macky Sall increase [the price of] rice? Why did he do this, why did he do that? But our imitations and all our humour do not include religious men.Footnote8 We do not imitate religious men. Religion, we do not touch that. We only do that once a year, during the month of Ramadan. It’s only to educate people during Ramadan, how you can fast, to be able to… We do not dabble in [issues concerning] religious men, neither do we imitate religious figures, this is not part of our programme. (S. Sine, pers. comm, November 25, Citation2022)Footnote9
Protests can be interpreted as artistic performances even though they might not be defined as such by activists themselves (Desai Citation2018, 425). Protest can also be reimagined theatrically, as is the case in the above excerpt. The staging of dissent, in a country where public protest is often met with police violence and death, is, however, accompanied by authorial censorship. Sine describes his show as representative of the general Senegalese population. In an imaginary, but plausible situation in which rice prices escalate, he explains how his comedy could, using humour, reflect political civilian demands. According to Diagne, the comedian ‘uses very sophisticated corporeal techniques to raise awareness about the necessity to discuss everything without taboos nor censorship’Footnote10 (Citation2018, 296). This is further emphasized when Diagne describes Sine’s body as escaping social imprisonment, becoming ‘a means of fulfilment, an instrument of expression and social advancement’ (Citation2018, 296). Diagne of course, writes in 2018, prior to Sine’s employment termination. The artist’s ability to debate about everything crumbles when it comes to religious figures, which he cannot, fearing for his career, represent and criticize anymore. Sine does not discuss direct criticism, through embodiment for example, of Senegal’s current president Macky Sall. Instead, political critique is enacted as coming from a specific social group, such as the Serer.
Whilst the artist may have criticized the government in previous performances, notably the one for which he was fired, he is also working for a media group directly connected to the people in power.Footnote11 The TFM, as mentioned above, belongs to the musician Youssou Ndour, who was the minister for Tourism under Macky Sall’s first mandate. Currently, the only television channel which does not seem to be pro-government, is Walfadjri. In the interview, Sine is thus careful to portray his show as an asset to the state:
I have never had any politicians contacting me, saying ‘Kouthia did this to my honour, dishonoured me’ or ‘I accuse Kouthia of defamation’, they all laugh. [Even Macky Sall?] Myself, I… And there are no problems, they [the politicians] are happy because they know that what we say is just to appease a circumstance. No matter how heated a situation can be, if for example SonkoFootnote12 said that tomorrow everybody should go out and wreak havoc, well then, the night before we will [stage] it. We will say, ‘You can break things, but only break the things that can be repaired’. In that way, people will laugh, they will appreciate [the show] and take it lightly. So, it’s always in that way, we come in when [the situation] is dire and we resolve it. It’s just that.
In the above excerpt the image of happy politicians is contrasted to my unanswered question, ‘Even Macky Sall?’. Sine paints his show as having the power to appease political issues, especially to the benefit of the current president. This is portrayed through his allusion to Ousmane Sonko, the government’s primary opponent, whom he describes as inciting violence. In the interview, Sine’s speech is allowed to exist, but is deprived of meaning. In contrast to his performances, he omits political critique and represents his show as an asset to the state. The interview as sensure, becomes a spectacle of a governmentally sanctioned discourse.
Disturbing postcolonial whiteness in Taajabóon Tubaab
That Sine was, as I speculate, unable to utter his intentions for Taajabóon Tubaab in our interview does not diminish the significance of his skit. In fact, the two performances (the interview and the comedy skit) demonstrate the complexity of political critique in the Senegalese postcolonial context.
In Taajabóon Tubaab, the founding object of the white body, as symbolic of colonial discourse, loses its part-object of presence (it loses its colonial signification). It is in that instance, through the artist’s commentary on language, culture, race and identity, that sensure is circumvented, thus uprooting existing significations of whiteness. The performance starts with Sine’s body covered in white paint, standing rigidly on stage, his legs straight, his arms and hands framing his naked upper torso and thighs. Strong lighting on a barren stage focuses the audience’s attention on the performer’s body. He wears black shorts, glasses, black shoes, and a dark belt. The contrast is stark, the glare of his whiteness expands onto the scene. The man delivers a rapid introduction in French and Wolof, then stiffly moves his body and begins to wiggle his hips, moving faster and faster while singing his song:
[In Wolof] We are doing the taajabóon.Footnote13 [In French] Last time it was the taajabóon mbërFootnote14 and today it is taajabóon tubaab.Footnote15 Alright. To all the Senegalese, my name is Jean-Jacques, I present myself to you and ask of you the taajabóon.Footnote16 [In Wolof with a French accent] Taajabóon! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Yes taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Abdu the brave, two angels came from above and descended on your porch. One of them asked, ‘Mother, did you pray?’. She said, ‘No’. The other asked, ‘Father, did you pray?’. He said, ‘No, no’Footnote17. Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! TAAJABÓON! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Taajabóon! Taajabóon tubaab! Abdu the brave, two angels came from above and descended on my street. TAAJABÓON! Taajabóon tubaab! Music! Please, music! [Carmen starts playing and Sine dances to the opera]. Taajabóon! … Taajabóon!
The above translation demonstrates how the French language, as part-object of postcolonial presence, is wielded by Sine to displace and overturn the representational power of the white body. The artist’s whiteface questions the status of French within the Senegalese context, which remains the country’s only official idiom and is used in the justice, education and administration system as well as in the written media, even though only about 25% of people ‘have any real competence in the language’ (Akissi, Béatrice, and Guèye Citation2012, 46–47). Wolof, on the other hand, is only recognized as a national vernacular,Footnote18 even though it is spoken by nearly 85% of the population (Warner Citation2019, 29). In some Senegalese primary schools, students are forced to wear an animal bone around their neck as punishment for speaking in a local language instead of French. Sine plays a postcolonial white character, not only using paint, but also by speaking French and mimicking the French accent in Wolof. Taajabóon is pronounced ‘tajabon’, as in the French ‘bon’ (good) and when speaking in Wolof, Sine interrupts his local speech with French vocabulary such as ‘perron’ (porch), ‘deux’ (two), ‘prier’ (pray), ‘non, non’ (no, no) and ‘route’ (street). He also ‘whitens’ himself by adopting a French name: ‘Jean-Jacques’. The imitative is at play but is transformed into critique through the positioning and representation of language. Sine ‘refuses to accept the white world’s definitions’, providing little space for French on stage (Baldwin Citation1963, 78). In opposition to the country’s institutions, Wolof, even if pronounced with a French accent, is prevalent throughout the text, reaffirming its importance and value to Senegalese society. Furthermore, the ‘sacred’ French tongue is damaged, sabotaged through the artist’s linguistic errors, mocking its presumed postcolonial power. The linguistic faults, such as the mispronunciation of prierFootnote19 (pray) and the mistake in conjugation of the verb demanderFootnote20 (ask), transform the symbolic meaning of the language, questioning its representational authority. In Sine’s performance the white body thus loses its part-object of presence, because of the truncation and disfiguration of the French language (as signifier for postcolonial imperialism). Speaking something other than standard French also endangers the very idea of assimilation. Instead of forcing the protagonist to speak perfect French, the artist makes the white body converse in Wolof, layering the foundational object with multiple other significations.
Table 1. Different translated versions of the taajabóon song.
The substance of the original taajabóon folk song is also stretched and overturned by Sine, disturbing audience expectations and challenging racial categorizations. As seen in , which depicts two different taajabóon song versions, Sine defamiliarises common cultural references. The two angels addressing Muslims on the Islamic New Year’s Eve do not descend upon a soul, but on a (colonial) porch, French words are interjected into the Wolof composition (in bold in ), and the normally mute characters of the older couple impertinently respond to the questions posed to them. Creating a Brechtian Verfremdungseffekt,Footnote22 Sine’s modulations are brought to the forefront precisely because they are incorporated into a popular song (Brecht and Unseld Citation1957, 63–64). These estrangements from the original text serve to blur the boundaries between Black and white. Who is Jean-Jacques, speaking in Wolof with a French accent? Who are the elderly couple that he sings about? Their representation is ambiguous, both epitomizing respect (they are elderly and addressed as ‘Father’ and ‘Mother’) and farce (they answer in a childish manner). References to a colonial house (Senegalese homes do not have porches) and the infusion of French words alludes to a possible non-Senegalese identity, which is then contrasted to the cultural context of the song. Moreover, the title of the performance demonstrates the permeability of ‘the Manichean meanings Western societies give to color’ and thus undermines race as a category (Gubar Citation1997, 25). This is seen with the word tubaab, used in Senegal to describe a foreign, primarily white, person, which is placed alongside that of taajabóon, which connotates specific Senegalese culture (Quashie Citation2015, 763). Throughout the show these two significations are both estranged from their original meanings and interweave into a complex new set of understandings.
Sine’s whiteface is a method of decolonization, for it decentres Western canonical texts whilst simultaneously reaffirming the value of Senegalese mbalax dance. Fanon’s (Citation1952) white mask and the alienation it provokesFootnote23 is cast off by ‘marginaliz[ing] the monumentality of history, [mocking] its power to be a model, that power which supposedly makes it imitable’ (Bhabha Citation1994, 125). Sine’s adaptation of Georges Bizet’s French opera, Carmen (1875) interrogates the supposed power of the text, foregrounding the ways in which classics have been connected to imperial whiteness. The opera music which appears in Taajabóon Tubaab is commonly named the ‘Toreador song’ and marks the entrance of the heroic bullfighter Escamillo in Act 2 of Carmen. Generally, the Toreador song emphasizes the bravery and virility of Escamillo and, opposed to the exoticized and orientalized Carmen, can be interpreted as a performance of white masculinity. Sine, however, deconstructs both the image of the orientalized Other, as well as that of authoritative whiteness. The artist superposes the canonical text by performing mbalax dance movementsFootnote24 and sometimes interrupting the classical music with ‘Taajabóon!’ in a mocking French accent. His singing and dancing thus mute the operatic persona (Escamillo) and questions the unequal recognition between Wolof and French productions, whether this be in his own country or, more generally in the Western world. Sine, instead of trying to attain the universal through assimilation, emphasizes the importance of local Senegalese comedy, theatre, dance and music, as equally valuable, and perhaps more insightful, than the canonical French opera, Carmen.
As a form of performative whiteface, mimicry evokes ‘the displacing gaze of the [un]disciplined’ (Bhabha Citation1994, 127). The artist does not conform, is not forced, disciplined into embodiment, but rather chooses to do so artistically. It is because Sine is ‘undisciplined’ that he can parody whiteness to such an extent. One of the ways in which the displacing gaze is enacted in Taajabóon Tubaab, is through the character of Jean-Jacques, whose semi-nudityFootnote25 and demand for money (‘I […] ask of you the taajabóon’) infantilises and decredibilises imperial whiteness. The disturbing gaze is further extended through the artist’s interaction with the spectators. During the performance, Sine points his finger towards the audience and moves it, like a teacher or parent telling their child to behave. He is Jean-Jacques, the authoritative postcolonial figure, who lectures the Senegalese. The figure of the admonishing white person interconnects with the multiple negative experiences with white tourists/residents, which Senegalese people have recounted to me. As stated by Quashie, the white individual is perceived as condescending, constantly feeling the need to educate and change the ‘Other’ without any regard for the latter’s cultural and socio-economical context (Quashie Citation2009, 532). Sine criticizes this paternalism by placing his finger in front of his pants, becoming, paradoxically a (white) phallus without power. The final displacing gaze occurs towards the very end of the performance, with the artist directly looking into the camera, moving backwards, then coming towards us and standing still, his head bowed into his shoulders. Once again, the signification of whiteness is uncertain. Jean-Jacques seems both authoritative, with his hands on his hips, and damaged, with his shoulders inwards. Most noticeable however, is the artist’s piercing gaze, which, breaking the fourth wall, challenges the audience to look back at whiteness, questioning the future of postcolonial Senegal.
In this article I read Sine’s Taajabóon Tubaab as a decolonial work. His performance not only circumvents self-censorship, but also questions linguistic hierarchies in Senegal, destabilizes racial categorizations and illustrates the value of Senegalese culture (language, theatre and dance) over Western canonical texts. Studying such performances illustrates how whiteface can be used by marginalized communities to overcome sensure and critique the power structures of postcolonial whiteness. One can argue that such forms of mimicry reaffirm power figures (in a certain manner, they legitimize whiteness), but this then, can also be used as a form of protection from censorship. Nonetheless, whiteface can achieve a critique of postcolonial whiteness when masking is undisciplined (chosen) and provisional, for this is what allows the marginalized artist to project their questioning gaze onto the stage. This gaze creates space for new meanings, which reinforces the ways in which we can engage with our postcolonial worlds.
Acknowledgments
This article is based on a chapter from my doctoral thesis, tentatively titled ‘Confronting postcolonialism through whiteface: Performances of whiteness in contemporary Australia and Senegal’, which is supported by the Royston George Booker Scholarship and the Lady Galleghan Postgraduate Research Scholarship in Australian Literature at the University of Sydney. Some of the insights from this article were presented at the 2023 Cultural Studies Association of Australasia Conference, where I won the Postgraduate Abstract Prize.
I would like to thank Associate Professor Katrina Jaworski for her generous and detailed feedback on my writing, as well as Dr. Benjamin Miller and Dr. Isabelle Hesse for their thoughtful and rich comments on my first readings of Taajabóon Tubaab. Thank you to the two anonymous reviewers, who have also oriented me towards the finalized version of this article.
The ethical aspects of this study have been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) of The University of Sydney [2022/662] according to the National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007).
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Notes
1. This city is also known under its colonial name, Saint-Louis. Writing from a decolonial perspective, I have preferred the name Ndar, used by most Senegalese when they communicate in local languages.
2. In the Butlerian sense, whiteface as performance produces that which it names (whiteness) (Butler Citation2011, 190). But performativity can also be subversive (Butler Citation2011, xxiv; 200). My understanding of racial performativity as a temporary transitioning of race boundaries is influenced by Susan Gubar’s concept of ‘racechange’, which she defines as a ‘racial imitation or impersonation, cross-racial mimicry or mutability, white posing as black or black passing as white, pan-racial mutuality’ (Gubar Citation1997, 5). If we follow Gubar’s definition, whiteface can be understood as a type of performance which is strongly connected to racialist ideology. Whiteface thus becomes an imitation of an imagined construct, that of whiteness, and of the social, economic and political effects that it exercises upon people. It cannot be presumed as a mimesis of white people, but rather as a parody, a mimicry of a malleable, slippery and abstract idea (race), which is enacted by material bodies.
3. In my analysis, I am using the videos of the performance published online, as well as those provided to me by the artist. A full version of the skit was published in 2011, by Dakaractu, a Senegalese online newspaper: https://youtu.be/myQN4Hd9o8c.
4. Whilst I interpret this performance as particularly critical of imperial whiteness, some of Sine’s other enactments which involve cross-dressing or yellowface, clearly reaffirm existing homophobic and racist stereotypes.
5. This is complicated by the existence of article 248 in the Senegalese penal code, which considers insulting the head of state (and this is widely interpreted) as a punishable crime, therefore infringing on the population’s rights to freedom of expression.
6. This paper was written prior to the 2024 Senegalese presidential elections.
7. The Serer are one of many ethnic groups in Senegal.
8. Continuing the sexist use of the French language, Sine uses the word ‘men’ to signify ‘people’ in general.
9. All interview and performance citations have been translated by the researcher from Wolof and French.
10. The citations by Diagne have been translated by the researcher from French.
11. Sine does not work for the TFM anymore and is now employed by the 2STV.
12. Ousmane Sonko is Macky Sall’s primary opponent. Sonko has always advocated for peaceful protest, however some demonstrations organized by his followers have ended in violence.
13. According to Jean-Léopold Diouf’s Wolof-French/French-Wolof dictionary, taajabóon can have three different meanings: 1. The money children collect in their neighbourhood on the night of tamxarit. 2. The songs sung for this same occasion. 3. The beginning of the phrase which children repeat when collecting this money (Diouf Citation2003, 325).
14. Mbër means wrestler in Wolof. Here, Sine refers to his last show, in which it seems he performed as a Senegalese wrestler celebrating taajabóon.
15. A tubaab is a white person but can also stand for a (non-white) foreigner or a Senegalese with Western behaviour.
16. When Sine says, ‘[I] ask of you the taajabóon’, he is implying that his white protagonist is asking the Senegalese for money, just like children do on the night of tamxarit.
17. These last few sentences are a reference to the popular Senegalese song sung by children during the Muslim New Year.
18. This is the case for 18 other languages.
19. Kouthia pronounces prier as ‘prer’.
20. Sine’s French sentence ‘je me présente devant vous et vous demander le taajabóon’ (I present myself to you and ask of you the taajabóon) should have conjugated the verb according to the first person (‘je’). In standard French this would be written as following: ‘je me présente devant vous et [je] vous demand[e] le taajabóon’. The pronoun ‘je’ can be omitted in the second half of the sentence, but the verb must be conjugated accordingly.
21. ‘Wooley’ does not have a specific signification, but is an interjection, a group response to the lead singer.
22. To attain the Verfremdungseffekt and to possibly think critically about a social and political issue, spectators must be confronted with something that is normally mundane but rendered bizarre through the performance (Brecht and Unseld Citation1957).
23. In Black Skin, White Masks, Fanon describes how colonialism has enforced an existential distortion (‘déviation existentielle’) upon Black peoples (11). This distortion is evident in the desire to be white, which provokes a sentiment of alienation (from one’s own being and culture) (Fanon 8–9).
24. Simultaneous circular movements of the arms and legs.
25. In the Senegalese public space, excepting beaches, wrestling matches and nightclubs, short pants are only worn by children and tourists.
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