Who Tells the Story? Power, Consent, and Representation in Film: The Double-Edged Sword of Empathy in Cinema
by Zhena Faith Omojola
Zhena Omojola is a senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Film & Media with a minor in Human Rights. She is passionate about the intersections of storytelling and law, particularly human rights and intellectual property. Currently, she interns with the Criminal Law and Justice Center at Berkeley Law and serves as a Millennium Fellow with the United Nations Academic Impact program.
The Double-Edged Sword of Empathy in Cinema
Storytelling has the ability to unite people through shared experiences, but cinema, particularly in the West, often exploits empathy to uphold dominant ideologies. Films that seem politically conscious may use familiar tropes (redemption arcs, white savior narratives, sentimentalism) that evoke emotion without provoking structural change. In doing so, cinema becomes a mirror of privilege, not a tool of transformation.
These films may feel politically conscious at first, but can center dominant perspectives such as stories of racial injustice told through the eyes of white protagonists in films like The Help (2011) and The Green Book (2018).
These narratives are comforting for many viewers precisely because they allow engagement with injustice without destabilizing the viewer’s worldview. They reassure rather than challenge, positioning empathy as an emotional transaction rather than a catalyst for action. As audiences, we are not passive in this process. Our preferences, expectations, and silences shape the stories that are told.
American writer Susan Sontag argues in her essay Regarding the Pain of Others, first published in 2003, that photographers—and thereby viewers—are always in a privileged position regarding the suffering of others whom they capture through their lens. Teju Cole, the Nigerian-American writer and photographer, expands on this critique through his condemnation of what he terms the “White Savior Industrial Complex.” In an article for The Atlantic, he included screenshots of his own tweets from Twitter (now X), writing: “The white savior supports brutal policies in the morning, funds charities in the afternoon, and receives awards in the evening… The White Savior Industrial Complex is not about justice. It is about having a big emotional experience that validates privilege.”
Can empathy induced through moving images translate into lasting social change? Too often, it does not. Instead, cinema risks becoming a passive experience, where suffering is consumed rather than understood. Through radical African cinema, storytelling can be used as a tool of liberation rather than oppression when those who have long been objectified take charge of their own depictions.
The Politics of the Gaze
The documentary Human Flow (2017) by Ai Weiwei presents a poignant example. The film captures the lives of refugees across global camps. Although the intention is clearly empathetic, questions arise about representation and consent. There is a scene in the film showing a young refugee boy standing alone as the wind whips across his body. While evocative, it recalls a long history of Western filmmakers capturing “exotic” suffering for Western audiences.
A mutual friend’s Instagram post from a mission trip to Haiti, featuring orphaned children posted without consent in 2022, echoed the same voyeuristic impulse seen in many films. Why is it that children’s right to privacy is respected in the West, yet in the Global South people can arrive on mission trips and freely photograph children without proper consent? This normalization of distant suffering reveals how easily empathy can slide into consumption.
In the book, Film and Ideology in Africa, film scholar Teshome Gabriel critiques French ethnographic filmmaker Jean Rouch for treating Africans as “scientific specimens” in his early work, lacking the cultural and historical connection necessary to portray them authentically. When outsiders control narratives of suffering, the result is often detachment rather than understanding.
Cinema as Resistance: The Rise of African Filmmaking
There is power in reclaiming representation. Ousmane Sembene, often called the Father of African Cinema, used film as a tool of resistance. In Black Girl (1966), he explores the racism faced by a Senegalese maid in France. His later film, Xala (1975), critiques post-independence Senegalese elites for perpetuating colonial power structures. Sembene’s work, banned in his own country, highlights the subversive potential of cinema when wielded by those it seeks to represent.
Sembene is a powerful figure in the realm of African cinema because he made films by his people for his people. Much of his work critiques the postcolonial systems that took root in Senegal after independence. In a 2004 interview, Ousmane Sembène remarked, “All of our heads of state talk about Pan-Africanism, but they all want to preserve their thrones as in monarchies. No one wants to share political power. As far as the Francophone countries go, those leaders spend more time with the French President than they do among themselves” (Rapfogel & Porton, 2004, p. 25). His political consciousness shaped the stories he chose to tell. Stories meant to awaken, empower and challenge the structures that continue to oppress his people.
Other African filmmakers like Safi Faye, Souleymane Cissé, and Sarah Maldoror have similarly used cinema to document colonial violence and advocate for change. Many of their films faced censorship or backlash, showing the risks of confronting dominant narratives.
History Reclaimed on Screen
Ousmane Sembène and Thierno Faty Sow’s 1988 film Camp de Thiaroye stands as a powerful example of what cinema can achieve when the oppressed are given the chance to tell their own stories. Shown at the BAMPFA African Film Festival in Spring 2025, it is based on the real-life massacre of African soldiers by French forces in Senegal after World War II, the film offers a deeply humanizing portrayal of the men involved. What drew me to this film is its historical relevance, which continues to resonate in 2025. As I watched, a sense of familiarity set in. I recalled an article about French president Emmanuel Macron finally acknowledging the massacre of Senegalese soldiers committed by the French army. By the film’s conclusion, I realized it was based on that very event. I chose this film as an example because it demonstrates what true reclamation can look like: empathizing with the soldiers and bringing to light a truth that has been overlooked and dismissed for decades.
Throughout the narrative, viewers are introduced to the distinct personalities and struggles of these soldiers. Men who are treated as nothing more than expendable tools in a war that was never truly theirs. The French officers stationed at the camp dehumanize them, serving tasteless, protein-deficient food and addressing them with open contempt, as if they were less than human. When they rightfully demanded the compensation owed to them at the end of their service, the French military responded not with fairness, but with violence as they bombed and massacred the very soldiers who had once fought on their behalf. The film concludes with French tanks launching a surprise attack on their camp in the dead of night, slaughtering the very soldiers they had just promised to pay. This film doesn’t merely evoke sadness–it ignites anger by challenging dominant narratives and forcing the audience to critically analyze and transform their realities. Through mise-en-scene, the ending shows the slain bodies of the same people you have grown to love and admire throughout the story. That is what cinema has the potential to do. It can serve as a vessel for awakening, a tool for truth, and a spark for real action.
The languages spoken in this film were Wolof, French and a bit of English. Language is a central aspect of this film as most of the infantrymen only spoke Wolof and had trouble communicating with French officers. The main character, Sergeant Diatta is the only one who is able to communicate to both his fellow soldiers and the French officers as he previously studied in Paris. Sembene uses language to display the clear division between the white french officers and the African soldiers. French is seen as a language of high esteem while Wolof is belittled down to a “primitive” language.
Language in cinema is never neutral. By privileging French over Wolof, the film reveals how colonial languages can become tools of dominance even in post-independence contexts. Sembene’s deliberate choice to include Wolof resists this dynamic, asserting linguistic dignity and accessibility for African audiences.
The film Camp de Thiaroye was the product of a collaborative effort between three African nations. Senegal, Tunisia, and Algeria brought together a Pan-African team of technical and artistic professionals. It was the first Pan-African film produced without European technical assistance or co-financing, with post-production completed at SATPEC studios in Tunisia. The film was banned in France for more than a decade after its release. Although the completed film was rejected by the Cannes Film Festival in 1988, it was later selected for official screening at the Venice Film Festival that same September, where it received the Special Jury Prize.
A landmark work of Pan-African cinema, Camp de Thiaroye powerfully underscores the importance of historical memory. It honors the Senegalese tirailleurs, most of whom were forcibly conscripted into the French army to fight against the Nazis. Despite their immense sacrifices and the thousands of lives lost in defense of France, the surviving tirailleurs were met not with gratitude, but with disdain and abuse.
Conclusion: The Ethics of Looking
Cinema is never just entertainment—it is an exercise of power. Every frame reveals not just a story, but a perspective: who is looking, who is seen, and who is silenced. When marginalized communities are denied authorship over their own narratives, film becomes an instrument of distortion, reducing lives to tropes, trauma, or spectacle.
But when the camera is reclaimed by those who have historically been excluded, cinema transforms. It becomes an archive of resistance, a space for healing, and a tool for imagining new futures.
Yet responsibility does not lie with creators alone. We must take a step further. Viewers must also interrogate their gaze and think about how our engagement with media affects people. What are we consuming and at what cost? Are we merely watching suffering, or are we bearing witness? Are we passively absorbing stories, or actively questioning who benefits from their telling? When we engage with the media without examining who created the story, whose voice is prioritized, and who profits from its circulation, we risk reinforcing the very power imbalances the narrative may seek to critique.
In an age saturated with images, the ethics of representation matter more than ever. If we want cinema to challenge systems of oppression rather than replicate them, we must move beyond representation and lean toward accountability. Only then can film fulfill its radical potential to not just reflect the world, but to remake it.
Works Cited
Gabriel, Teshome. Film and Ideology in Africa. [Publisher], [Year], p. 77.
Camp de Thiaroye. BAMPFA, University of California, Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive, https://bampfa.org/object/camp-de-thiaroye.
Rapfogel, Jared, and Richard Porton. “The Power of Female Solidarity: An Interview with Ousmane Sembène.” Cinéaste, vol. 30, no. 1, Winter 2004, pp. 20–25. Accessed via Academia.edu, https://www.jstor.org/stable/41689802?mag=ousmane-sembene-feminism-in-african-francophone-cinema&seq=1.
Camp de Thiaroye. Il Cinema Ritrovato Festival, https://festival.ilcinemaritrovato.it/en/proiezione/camp-de-thiaroye/.
Sontag, Susan. Regarding the Pain of Others. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003.