Unlearning the Western Misconception of Vodou
Like many of my generation, one of my very first introductions to the idea of Voodoo (correctly written as Vodou) was Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (2009). While the film does seem to attempt to show both “good” and “bad” sides of Vodou with Dr. Facilier and Mama Odie, it kind of fell short of impressing on young audiences that Vodou was anything but a scary, occult-like magic system. While Mama Odie is described at one point as a “Voodoo Queen”, she is not portrayed with the symbolism or imagery commonly connected with Vodou, and so the audience tends to associate the religion more with Facilier. Dr. Facilier is a dark practitioner of “Voodoo, Hoodoo, and conjuring”, represented with all the cliche Hollywood symbols of “Voodoo”. He’s associated with glowing skulls, shrunken heads, tarot cards, and creepy, disconnected shadows. Most significantly, he works with greedy, vengeful spirits within intentionally creepy African-style masks, who are apparently supposed to be the Vodou deities called lwas. This representation clearly depicts the Vodou religion and its deities as generally negative, also associated with blood and death.
This representation of Vodou is not uncommon in Hollywood, and has been fairly consistent since the 1930s. However, when Disney marketed The Princess and the Frog as a progressive film, debuting their first black princess, this was a disappointing representation of a religion that millions of people around the world practice to this day. More significantly, this film introduced a whole generation of children to Vodou as a scary and dangerous concept. When Dr. Facilier is a generation’s first introduction to Vodou, we have quite a bit of unlearning to do. Vodou is a religion just like Christianity, Buddhism, etc. It is passed down through familial tradition, originating in West Africa and most common in Haiti. The idea that Vodou is evil, that Vodou is dark or dangerous, comes from the fact that Vodou is inherently black. When white people encountered this unfamiliar religion practiced by a race they thought of as ‘other’ and dangerous, they tried to fit it into the Western, Christian idea of good and evil, heaven and hell. White popular culture began to associate Vodou with devil worship and, since Hollywood has always been white-controlled, this depiction became the norm in films. This is such a racist and outdated portrayal of the religion, it’s shameful to think that it is still expected today. As a new generation, it’s our job to unlearn this conception of Vodou as evil and begin to create and support content that portrays Vodou in a new, positive light.
