116 african appropriations
THE UNSINKABLE SHIPMy exploration of the four copies of the Titanic suggests that the pro-
ducers’ motivations for appropriating the myth and Cameron’s version
of it must be understood on at least two different levels: content and
marketing. In terms of content, two of the four examples—the Nigerian
video remake and the Tanzanian comic book—are particularly close to
Cameron’s film. The Nigerian remake shows a keen interest in the social
relations of Cameron’s plot, especially the love story, and adapts these for
Hausa audiences. It is less interested in the catastrophe of the sinking ship.
The Tanzanian comic book, though surely not indifferent to the roman-
tic plot elements, is particularly interested in the historical tragedy and
takes Cameron’s movie as an authentic account of the catastrophe. The
artist aims to educate his readers about the historical event. Therefore,
he stays as faithful as possible to his template, tracing images directly
from the screen and creating sketches for nearly each of his panels. In
doing so, he mimics Cameron’s attempt at re-creating images of the Ti-
tanic as authentically as possible. The remediation as a comic book turns
the Titanic tragedy—mediated by Cameron’s film—into a didactic tale.
Giving his characters an African appearance has to be understood as a
visual translation on the part of the artist. The comic book ’s significance
for local audiences is the trope of “speed and greed,” which connects the
historical demise of the R .M.S. Titanic in the North Atlantic to the more
recent shipwreck of the M.V. Bukoba on Lake Victoria.
The two other copies draw more on the allegorical potential of the
Titanic myth than on Cameron’s particular version of it. The Tanzanian
song and the Congolese music video lack any reference to Cameron’s
romantic couple. Instead, the emphasis is on the ship’s journey and its
ultimate fate. However, pirated images of Cameron’s Titanic are present
in each. By drawing on the Titanic’s allegorical potential, the Tanzanian
choir and the Congolese band connect to a well-established tradition in
American and European interpretations of the disaster throughout the
twentieth century. The Adventist parable is especially close to religious in-
terpretations of the tragedy as a divine message, which were propagated in
the United States. Writing in 1912, A lma W hite, founder of the Pentecostal