‘Tatta’ is the slang name for white Dutch people, potato eaters so to speak,derived from the Surinamese word for potato ‘ptatta’. The new multiculturalfilm comedy The Tattas is therefore mainly about native Dutch people whohave to find their way in the multicultural neighborhood ‘Hollandwijk’.
This is a new development within ‘Dutch multicultural film’, from comedies topopular crime series such as Macro Mafia. Until now, such films as Moroccanwedding (2022), mainly focuses on Dutch people with a migration backgroundwho are trying to find their way in society.
“Look Macro Mafia? Yes? It’s not like that here with us,” says the Moroccan-Dutch Appie with a reassuring smile to Daan. That is a native Dutch boy whohas just come to live in ‘Hollandwijk’. He’s like a cat in a strange warehousein that diverse neighborhood. Appie takes his white peer under his wing andcalls him a ‘tatta in training’.
It’s a good joke, Appie’s comment about the Macro Mafia not to say a keyscene The Tattas. Also because the 18-year-old Moroccan-Dutch actor MarouaneMeftah, who plays Appie, plays an important role in the series _Macro Mafia_fulfills. He plays with verve the young Zakaria, street name Komgoed, who getsincreasingly entangled in crime. In that mini-series, a white Dutchman is notcalled ‘tatta’ but ‘cancer cheese’. Last year there was even a spin-offminiseries ‘Komtgoed’ dedicated to him (which can be seen on the Videolandstreaming service).
Growing self-confidence
Do more Macro Mafia actors in The Tattas ; the Dutch film industry hasvisibly become more diverse since the first wave of multicultural films. Itstarted in 2004 with a series of feel-good films starring, for the first time,young Dutch actors with a migration background. Like Mimoun Oaïssa, star inthe witty Moroccan comedy Shouf Shouf Habibi (Look, look, honey), which hehimself initiated.
The multicultural genre was emancipated in 2011 when the road movie _Rebate_won a Golden Calf, the most important Dutch film prize, about young Dutchpeople with a North African background who travel to Morocco in an old taxi –on their way to adulthood.
After that, the fear of making multicultural crime dramas also disappeared;they were no longer seen as stigmatizing – as in ‘all Moroccans arecriminals’. hence Rebate -protagonist Nasrdin Dchar now in Macro Mafia_participate; he said about that _NRC : “I would like to play a crook, but acrook with a story.”
This emancipation shows the growing self-confidence of Dutch filmmakers withdiverse cultural backgrounds. This is in line with the Netherlands becomingmore diverse. Despite persistent anti-migrant and anti-Islam voices fromright-wing politicians, about two-thirds (71 percent) of the Dutch without amigration background – so ‘tattas’ – have a ‘predominantly positive’ attitudetowards the multicultural society, according to a recent survey by the Socialand Cultural Planning Office (‘Established but not at home’, SCP survey ofOctober 2022). And 90 percent of all Dutch people with a migration background– together a quarter of the population – consider the diverse society “a goodthing”. Although the ‘tatta’s’ could be more inclusive, according to thatgroup.
Cheerful look
This positive vision of the Netherlands as a multicultural society is in linewith the views of the director of The Tattas , the Algerian-Dutch JamelAattache (1974). “I grew up in Delfshaven,” he says, “and had friends withTurkish, Moroccan and Surinamese backgrounds – such as Appie in The Tattas.We got along well, and it was no problem that a Turkish friend spoke Turkishto his brother, for example. For me, the multicultural society was a positiveexperience.”
He did notice, for example, that his ‘tatta’ sister-in-law was a bit anxiousabout it when she first came to their multicultural neighbourhood: it wasunknown. “But she soon understood that it is a neighborhood in which helpingeach other and supporting family are important. I also recognized myself verymuch in films in which the multicultural society in the Netherlands is viewedin a cheerful, positive context, such as Shouf Shouf Habibi and Schnitzelparadise. When I wanted to make films as an autodidact, I always wanted tomake films like that.”
When he got the script for The Tattas he was hooked by (also self-taught)screenwriter Donny Singh, who grew up with an Indian background in a similarneighborhood in The Hague. “The idea for the script is based on the reversalof the usual drama in multicultural comedies: what if the native Dutch weretaken like a ‘fish out of water’ and ended up in a different culture, adiverse neighbourhood?”
Prejudices
After Aattaches success with romkoms like Heavily In Love and Casanovas(with Tygo Gernandt as dating guru) could The Tattas made. We follow awealthy, white family, father, mother, daughter and son, who have to leavetheir expensive villa as a father (Leo Alkemade – who lives in Shouf ShoufHabibi debuted as a film actor) has lost all his money due to a badinvestment.
They can go to a flat in the multicultural neighborhood of Hollandwijk (afictional neighborhood was chosen when residents of the Bijlmer, where thefilm was originally supposed to take place, feared negative images). Theyinitially find it horrible and frightening. There are mutual prejudices oftattas and other local residents, but after misunderstandings and comicalentanglements, they become established with the help of the local residents.
For example, father, without a job, gets a job in garage Ali Baba from afriendly Turkish-Dutch entrepreneur whom he meets in a Turkish coffee house.His daughter (Sterre Koning) finds love (Oussama Ahammoud – he also plays in_Macro Mafia_ ). When father says in the garage that he feels like a strangerin the neighborhood, all his colleagues with migration background say: “But weare also Dutch. We were born here.”
In the comical final chord, father ‘tatta’ serenades his flat to make amendswith his wife (Leonie ter Braak), who is tired of marriage due to all thecircumstances. He sings a touching, sentimental Turkish song he learned fromhis colleagues: ‘Sensiz olmaz’, or ‘I can’t live without you’, by Turkishsinger Hüseyin Yalin (the original music video for that Hazes-esque song wasreleased in 2018 recorded in Amsterdam).
Although the film story is sometimes somewhat schematic, and you would like tosee more in-depth characters, the stimulating idea of integrating ‘tattas’ abit more in the diverse Netherlands makes The Tattas to a successful comedy.