This paper examines Malik Bendjelloul’s documentary Searching for Sugar Man, which won modest critical acclaim for its account of obscure Detroit-based folk/rock musician Sixto Rodriguez, whose music was passionately enjoyed by a certain generation of white South Africans who were in favor of ending apartheid. The film has also received some critical attention for its limited historical perspective on South African politics in the old regime’s final decades, and also for its contrived story line. My focus will be on the film’s construction of Rodriguez as a figure of myth and mystery – mystery because his records sold very poorly in their initial appearance in the States and he soon disappeared from the music scene, and myth because that disappearance from public view led to the South Africans circulating various tales about his fate. Most critically, I will examine the way that the film represents Rodriguez in terms of his status as a working-class hero, reinscribing myths about that class that are really projections of the “well-meaning liberal” fans (and presumably, the well-meaning liberal Swedish filmmaker). The film’s narrative approach, its imagined post-industrial Detroit, and its central subject all work to reinforce the individualist rhetoric that ignores the complex issues of the American underclass in collapsing industrial cities – to say nothing of the complex issues of race in both the U.S. and South Africa. The film’s predictable, sentimental ending casts aside the challenging work of political transformation in favor of the “simple” values of the working-class hero, who is merely a projection of the white middle-class fans who “discovered” him.
About the presenterThomas Grochowski
Tom Grochowski has published on topics ranging from Woody Allen, Sex and the City, the Marx Brothers, and web sites devoted to the O.J. Simpson murder trial. He currently teaches American Literature, film, and media studies at St. Joseph’s College, where he Associate Chair of the Department of English. He is currently on the MAPACA advisory board. He earned his PhD from New York University’s Department of Cinema Studies; he also holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Brooklyn College, where he studied with Allen Ginsberg. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife two daughters, and dog.