Research Articles (English)

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Browsing Research Articles (English) by Author "Andrews, Grant"

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    The boundaries of desire and intimacy in post-apartheid South African queer film : Oliver Hermanus's Skoonheid
    (Department of Visual Arts, University of Pretoria, 2018) Andrews, Grant
    South African cinema is still dominated, both in terms of number and commercial success, by films featuring white Afrikaans-speaking characters. These films are mostly politically voiceless, ignoring the contentious racial and economic dynamics in the country, and they fail to represent queer realities. Skoonheid [Beauty] (2011), the powerful South African film directed by Oliver Hermanus, challenges this trend and offers a portrayal of sexualities and racial hostilities which are often silenced or ignored in mainstream cinema. The film depicts a white Afrikaans-speaking man named Francois, who becomes obsessed with his friend's son, Christian. Francois has secret sex with a group of other white Afrikaans-speaking men on a farm near Bloemfontein. The group has strict rules that "moffies" (queers) and "kleurlinge" ("coloureds" or people of colour) are not welcome to join their sexual gatherings. These regulations and the secrecy that enshrouds same-sex attraction in the film belie Francois's longing for intimacy, a longing which develops into an obsession with Christian that ends violently. In this paper, I locate the film within the broader trends of Afrikaans cinema and queer cinema in the country. I then perform a reading of the film to show how it offers an important voice to repressed sexualities, and exposes some of the hostilities which underlie relations in post-apartheid South African society. I focus on how intimacy, both cultural and personal, is impossible for Francois, and the film reflects how these intimacies are threatened by hostilities and marginalisation within South African society.
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    The emergence of black queer characters in three post-apartheid novels
    (Tydskrif vir Letterkunde Association, 2019) Andrews, Grant
    Before the end of apartheid, queer lives were almost entirely unrepresented in public literary works in South Africa. Only after the fall of institutionalised apartheid could literature begin to look back at the role of queer people in the history of South Africa, and begin to acknowledge that queer people are a part of the fabric of South African society. A number of celebrated authors emerged who were exploring queer themes; however, most of these authors and the stories they told were from a white perspective, and black queer voices were still largely absent in literature, especially novels. This paper explores the limited number of black queer literary representations following the influential work of K. Sello Duiker. I explore the social dynamics that might have influenced the fact that so few examples of black queer characters currently exist in South African literature. Through an analysis of novels by Fred Khumalo, Zukiswa Wanner, and Chwayita Ngamlana, I show how black, queer characters in post-apartheid novels confront ideas of culture, race, and sexuality as they wrestle with their identities and with questions of belonging and visibility.