Yes, it’s brutal, but within the pirate world of the show it’s nothing out of the ordinary.
We’re told in this scene that if a white man insults another white man, the insulted white man might well direct his retort at the brown man present.
Stede - ‘I’d love to show you some saucier spoons, but there seems to be a distinct lack of those on this, supposedly, first class vessel.’
French Captain - ‘My apologies. I hadn’t imagined we’d be hosting your kind’.
This cannot be directed at Stede as ‘your kind’ is the same as the French Captain’s, unless he’s referencing something else entirely. It’s directed at Ed. The Captain didn’t realise he would be ‘hosting’ someone who needed tutoring in fine dining. Not all necessary silverware is present. At the very least this is a class put-down.
Ed seeks clarification, very calmly: ‘My kind. What’s that supposed to mean?’
French Captain - ‘It means a rich donkey is still a donkey’.
This is when it very clearly becomes about race. We have the dehumanisation of a man of colour, compared unfavourably to an animal. Ed is not recognised as human. Not innately so, and he cannot even earn the status of being human. Money, new skills, achievements, learned social graces…nothing will ever allow him an equal status in the white man’s world. It’s similar to insults said about Othello by Iago… black ram, Barbary horse. Othello, a celebrated war general, poetic story-teller, peacemaker…
Not White™
There’s possibly an argument that Ed has invaded the French ship and deserves the ire and insults of the French Captain. But what this scene does is try to explain why someone of Ed’s background feels the need to invade the French ship in the first place. Criminal subcultures are often (not always) born of inequality. Ed could almost never have garnered the reputation, riches and relative safety he has by honest means. He’d be his indigenous mother, defeated by the inequality in the world. Or his working-class father, drunk, and violent, and bitter at not being able to provide. What else is there for those who are never given a legitimate path to be anything other? Accept your lot, or fight back.
Ed fights back. He’s been fighting back his whole life.
Yes, the French Captain’s on the ropes. As an individual his days are done. But sociologically, the French Captain is punching down here, and he knows it. Even with his life at stake, he continues that punch down because he feels entitled from birth to do so. He’s going to die with it on his lips, that’s how entrenched it is. Whilst Ed’s punching up. Always punching up in a white man’s world. On a wider scale, this is not an equal fight.
Ed has been made painfully aware of his race and class. He subverts this to make sure the French Captain is painfully aware of his race (skin) and class (snail fork). It’s an anti-colonialist fightback.
‘Skin him first. And use the snail fork’.
It’s cruel, but it really is a genius line.
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