Lupin and The Bureau toy with the fantasy of the master-hero
What happens when a genre series is detached from its White colonialist context?
In the second episode of the French heist thriller Lupin (created by George Kay and François Uzan, streaming on Netflix), our hero Assane Diop (Omar Sy) enters prison. For a moment, I felt the setup: a Black immigrant behind bars should be in for a terrifying experience. But as the prison door slammed behind Assane, I felt a palpable joy. Just as you know that James Bond won’t be killed in the villain’s lair, I knew Assane was in perfect control of the situation. The thrill was watching him execute his plan.
Lupin is an addictive addition to what we might call the “master-hero” genre: heroes such as spies, detectives, and high-class thieves rise to prominence through the sheer force of their intelligence, wit, and mastery of all circumstances. The pleasure of the genre is getting to see behind the sleight of hand. We realize nothing has escaped the control of our hero. Assane is a stellar exemplar, but as one of the genre’s few Black protagonists, he also helps us think about how the genre is constructed.
Assane models his life on Arsène Lupin, “the Gentleman Thief”—a literary invention of real-life French author Maurice Leblanc at the turn of the 20th century. Shortly after Assane immigrates to Paris from Senegal with his father, his father gives him a copy of Leblanc’s stories. When his father is sent to prison for the theft of a priceless necklace, the young, shy Assane assimilates into wealthy French society—using Lupin as his guide—in order to gain the skills and wealth to unravel the mystery of his father’s arrest.
