There is nothing more famous in natural history than the "Hottentot apron."
The opening lines of the film are historically accurate words spoken by a real-life historical figure. Cuvier was one of the world’s leading figures in the study of anatomy in the period covering the transition from the 18th to the 19th century. This assertion, delivered with great solemnity, is an example of a literary technique known as hyperbole. In reality, it goes without saying that any number of aspects of natural history must by definition be more famous than the “Hottentot apron” since a query of the average individual since the moment these words were spoken would likely have been greeted with a blank expression and a shrug. And so, it becomes quite necessary to describe what this most famous aspect of natural history is in reference to: female genitalia.”
“She’s incredible. She’s phenomenal. She’s not a fish. She’s not an elephant. She’s not an acrobat. She doesn’t breathe fire. She’s a human being. And yet she’s astonishingly different. She is a phenomenon of the Africa continent. She is the Hottentot Venus!”
The story is about a woman from African put on display as a sideshow freak. That would explain the overly melodramatic and absolutely bizarre language being used here to whip up a crowd hard-put for entertainment into an absolute frenzy. The carnival sideshow of olden days is roughly akin to the average “reality TV show” of the 21st century: it was a mostly scripted performance of freaks for the entertainment of freaks. The freak show did not just describe the object being viewed, you see, as it also applied equally well to the viewers themselves.
“It is currently admitted that in the arts and most particularly in the theater there is a state of mind that leads us to attribute a certain reality to what we know is not real. Thus, the spectator takes pleasure in being moved. He allows himself to laugh and cry whereas a part of him is fully conscious of the unreality of the performance he's watching. It is in this state of complicity with the players that enjoyment of the show is possible.”
Contextually speaking, this defense by the attorney representing the white man accused of holding the “Hottentot Venus” in bondage as a slave and forcing her to perform against her will is simply a legal strategy designed to get him off the hook. It speaks to a concern going all the way back to Plato that people are gullible to the point of being too easily hoodwinked into thinking that what they see being represented as reality in performance is actually realty in occurrence.
The argument being forward is that all the complaints being made are being made in connection to a false presentation: it’s all just a show. The speaker of these lines, however, is filmed straight-on with only his face filling the frame and thus seems to be speaking directly to the audience. Subtextually, then, these words may—possibly—be in defense not just against the character in the film, but the filmmaker himself who is, after all, displaying the Hottentot Venue in a questionably exploitative way himself.
