U.S. Popular Culture and the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda

Cover of a Significant Work of Scholarship on the Media and the Genocide.

U.S. Popular Culture and the 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda

The 1994 Genocide of Tutsi in Rwanda has not received much—or sufficient—attention in Western and American popular culture. The wildly successful, film Hotel Rwanda—with all of its flaws—is the only knowledge many Americans have of the genocide. How could an event of this magnitude have been ignored by a culture raised on the motto, “Never Forget”? Looking at the world’s disinterest in Rwanda, at the time and afterward, one can see how powerful leaders dismissed the genocide as simply what they believed happens in Africa; part of a trend of ignoring the struggles and needs of post-colonial societies. Western inaction and disregard, moreover, seem to have complicated with guilt the ability of Americans and others to address the history of this genocide comfortably. The question of “where were we?” looms ever-present in all media depictions, if only implicitly. How can one even tell a story that Hollywood would eat up about “good” and “bad” in this conflict, when U.N. officials at the time said that the whole horrific affair was too complicated to understand or manage? By recognizing how the West can ignore such atrocities, we can begin to understand how America and much of the West has ignored horrors like the 1994 Genocide Against the Tutsi.

Quick Links

“The Rwandan Genocide: How it was Prepared” via Human Rights Watch

World Outside My Shoes

Bibliography

Dallaire, Roméo, and Kofi Annan. “The Media Dichotomy.” In The Media and the Rwanda Genocide, edited by Allan Thompson, 12–19. Pluto Press, 2007. 

Goodman, Walter. “Of Rwanda and Simpson, Serious and Sensational.” The New York Times,  July 26, 1994.

Mirzoeff, Nicholas. “Invisible Again: Rwanda and Representation after Genocide.” African Arts 38, no. 3 (2005): 36+.

Vaught, Seneca. “Why the Rwandan Genocide Felt like a Drive-By Shooting.” The Journal of Pan-African Studies, November 10, 2007.

Photo Source

Cover of Allan Thompson, ed, The Media and Rwanda Genocide (Pluto Press, 2007).