Cultural Blackout

Liana and I decided that we want to introduce Peter to elements from many cultures as he grows up. Over the weekend, we were discussing how to celebrate African culture. We do have a CD of African music that Peter loves, but not much else.

I realized during this conversation that I know very little about historical African culture, even relative to what I know about Europe, Asia and the Americas. (A more accurate way to put that would be "any African culture", since I know there are significant differences in different areas, but I know little about any of them.) She asked me what people eat. My first thought was "not much, lately", and I'm still not sure, other than a vague idea that it's rice-based. She asked if there were any movies we could watch, and the best either of us could come up with was The Lion King. I could think of plenty more good and great films about the continent - Hotel Rwanda, Shake Hands With The Devil, The Constant Gardner, Lord of War, The Battle of Algiers, Blood Diamond - but none that I would consider a celebration of the culture (or appropriate for young children, for that matter).

Why is that? Certainly there are plenty of films that portray other cultures unfavorably, but there are also plenty that celebrate historical Europe, Asia and America. It seems that most of the stories about Africa are still focused on white people going in and destroying everything, rather than the positive things about the natives of the continent. Is it just that U.S. audiences don't want to be reminded of the cultural traits that have all but vanished due to European and American interference on the continent?

I do intend on reading more about Africa (and probably Oceana too, an area where it seems there's just not a lot either way in U.S. pop culture), but it still bothers me a little bit that there's not really an equivalent to, say, Braveheart or Dances With Wolves or Hero that doesn't feature lions as the main characters. I'm definitely open to suggestions; if I'm missing something, let me know!