Before you read the article, go have a look at the series trailer here.
Simmering violence, burning passion, incest and long-stewing revenge are the main contours of the BBC series Taboo, released on January 7th, 2017. Played by the British actor Tom Hardy, James Keziah Delaney, who was thought to be dead for a decade, returned unexpectedly from Africa, following his father’s mysterious death. Cloaked in mystery, the “renegade” Delaney strips all the forms of abidance and conformity, making of himself an outstanding other. Taboo, this shockingly appealing title, makes us wonder which taboo the cast wants to talk about.
Steven Knight, the director of the series, tells the Guide that Taboo is “an idea that Tom [Hardy] had had for a while, and it was as simple as someone who returns from Africa with rumors about him.” This idea, however, is extensively developed, for this so-called “mad” character becomes the very perpetuator of these rumors.
Steven Knight, the director of the series, tells the Guide that Taboo is “an idea that Tom [Hardy] had had for a while, and it was as simple as someone who returns from Africa with rumors about him.” This idea, however, is extensively developed, for this so-called “mad” character becomes the very perpetuator of these rumors.
"Here walks a dead man!"
It is the early 19th century, in particular 1814, where England’s muddy streets shape the grubby mise-en-scène of this somber and violent historical drama, full of doom and gloom. It depicts Regency England as a place stuffed to the brim with darkness and corruption, a place in which schemers, like the East India Company, plot to seize the Delaney’s Nootka Sound. This land he inherited from his father, located in the West Coast of Vancouver Island, pertains to an indigenous Native American tribe to which Delaney’s mother belongs, when his father Horace Delaney happened to have a treaty over it. In the series, due to its highly considered geographical zone, this small, but precious, piece of land constitutes a gamut of problems to Delaney. For instance, the powerful East India wants to hold this land under its grip, for it can be an important gateway to trade in China. So, by his disruptive and ghostly reappearance, his half-sister Zilpha and her husband Thorne Geary were disappointed, as they were plotting to sell this land to the Company.
A villain by nature or just a product of his society?
You might ask yourself what makes an Englishman, who supposedly is a refined and civilized subject, instead become a monster-like figure. First, what is monstrosity? Here is a new definition of it through the analysis of James Kesiah Delaney’s persona. 19th century English society, though, would consider that nature and monstrosity as fluid terms, which can be used interchangeably. Indeed, the most interesting thing about James Delaney is his origins. Even though he is the son of an English patriarch and a successful businessman, he is likened to his mother in terms of madness. After his father’s funeral, some people started to gossip about him, as an old lady went further to confirm that “madness comes through the umbilical cord”. This statement entails a debasing undertone, for this old lady, who voices the discourse of her age, relates his madness to that of his mother, as if she were the source of all evil. This factor actually reduces him to a bestial position, even a devilish one. Ironically enough, Delaney himself seemingly adopts this demonizing view to the extent of confessing his madness. Not only has Delaney been indicted with madness, but his father also was considered to be a mad person. As a matter of fact, his lawyer Robert Thoyt tells James that “in all of London, only [his] father believed that [he is] still alive, and it was a symptom of his madness, but he would talk to [him], stand on the north bank of the river, and call at [him]”. Most surprisingly, James Delaney nods yes, as he states that he “heard him calling”.
"We are Americans Now!"
Being an anti-pathetic person, Delaney’s detached self becomes a crossroad for a multitude of ethnicities such as the English, the Native American and the African. It is also represented as the locus of different rites and ideologies. Delaney is a meeting point of juxtaposed worlds: the old and new one. For instance, at the end of Season 1, when preparing for his journey to America, his “Ship of the Damned” is crowded with “others”, mainly the lower-class pariah. His ship functions as a reminder of Noah and his ark full of animals. Indeed, Delaney, in the last episode, emerges as a superhero, a “Savior” to these low-ranked and miserable people. Furthermore, by casting his English identity away and donning the American one, we feel his resentment and grudge vis-à-vis British imperialism. Delaney is an expatriate who is on constant search for his “missing” identity which would complement his existence. This identity construct also is suggestive of a reuniting space with a mother so estranged and uprooted from her Native American tribe as to fall into the abyss of madness. By admitting that he is “an American now”, Delaney can be depicted as someone, who is "now partly of the West-sometimes... stradd[ling] two cultures”, precisely the African and the American, in the words of Salman Rushdie. Actually, what is mostly fascinating about him is that he chose to be an outsider, like his mother, denying his “Englishness”. This rebellious protagonist masters a double role: that of the persecutor and that of the victim. As he was tormented by the past, which played a detrimental role in making him an “other”, he fully embraces his mother’s identity, a more liberated and “natural” identity.
“They said you were dead!”
In this regard, the concept of the “other”, coined by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, is but a manifestation of what is “not,” what is hidden and unspoken, especially. That is, what the supreme powers allegedly claim to possess must only be exclusive to them. Indeed, all the fallacies and wrongs are cast upon these ostracized groups, lest the civilized, pertaining to a matrix culture, become defined and known. Being an outcast and admitting his seething Byronic urges, James does not fear to be defined, for he has already been defined by them as “an animal from Africa” and a “devil”. Not only does he pride upon his sense of otherness as a distinctive identity, but he also confirms to his already-constructed definition in a way to defy them with their own assumption. Thus, can this Byronic hero be a contemporary hero who “writes back” to the old empire, dazzling it with his ever-existent trace and invisible presence? Can Taboo be a historical documentation, recounting what is kept unsaid? From me at least, it definitely does. So what about you?
Ines Mokdadi
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