#inxeba

by Gibson Ncube, Associate Professor at the University of Zimbabwe

Social media and internet forums function as an important space of contestation for issues relating to queer identities. This is evident in reactions to two fairly recent queer-themed African films, one from South Africa – Inxeba/The Wound – and the other from Kenya – Rafiki.

The films were met with diverse responses, from government bannings and cultural backlash to enthusiastic viewers and international awards. On social media and internet forums, reactions differ from those of state institutions.

These various responses should be understood against the background that in many African countries, with the exception of South Africa in this case, queer sexualities are criminalised and deemed ‘unAfrican’. Many argue that homophobia itself is unAfrican and a relic of colonial laws and mores.

In my research, I have explored the fact that African queer lives are complex and don’t tell a single story. By viewing these films as popular social texts it became clear that government censorship has been unable to stop support for them or the kinds of discussions they generate, especially online.

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Visual media texts such as television are one of the most widely consumed forms of media around the world. Film making has become a study across different parts of the world because a number of people consume films and other forms of visual media such as television shows or series’. 

South Africa is one of the countries where film has become a popular interest. Like other film industries around the world, the film industry in South Africa has been widely dominated by those who have the access to the tools needed to produce. Because of this, the ideologies that are distributed to the consumers can be very exclusionary and may only represent the dominant ideology instead of minorities.

Minorities in South Africa do not only apply to the population size but also to who has the access to control the narrative in film production. For example, during the apartheid government, the white population was a minority in size, but they were in control of all economic resources. Controlling the economy meant that they also controlled the means of production in every area including the film industry. 

The first film that was produced with a black South African audience in mind was African Jim and it was released in 1949 (Dovey & Impey, 2010:58). The importance of the contextualization of a film according to the audience that consumes it is important when critically analysing the film because different audiences relate differently to the same media text. A particular audience can come across what Scott refers to as “hidden transcripts” (1990). These are subtexts that can only be recognized or understood by a specific group of people. The South African film Inxeba: The Wound can be read as having hidden transcripts.

The film was directed by John Trengove and released in 2017. It follows the gay Xhosa protagonist, Xolani, who decides to help initiate the boys of his village according to the isiXhosa custom referred to as ulwaluko where boys go to the mountains for a month, get circumcised and are taught the customary ways of what it means to be a man in the Xhosa tribe. Xolani’s job title is called ikhankatha which means that he mentors the boys on “how to become men”. Even before the film was released, it garnered a lot of negative publicity from black men, specifically Xhosa men. A number of them called the movie an offense to the Xhosa man and to his culture. They claimed that the movie showed “sacred traditional customs” of the cultural initiation process. 

However, it soon became clear that this notion was unfounded as no one had seen the film, yet they had concluded that these sacred customs were being shown to the world without their permission. However, it soon became clear that the outcry was for a different reason altogether.

The film’s gay storyline was a very brave direction to move towards, even in 2017. Homophobia is very prevalent in South Africa with public figures being openly homophobic and citing it as upholding “tradition and values of African men” (Msibi 2009). 

A highly patriarchal society, South Africans are as intolerant as they come. Lesbian women are raped and murdered simply for their sexual orientation every single day due to men feeling that they threaten the ideology of masculinity that says that all women desire men (Gqola 2007). Therefore, a film showing gay black men in a setting that is the epitome of Xhosa masculinity and a place where boys go to become men caused such an outrage amongst Xhosa men that the law had to intervene. 

The outrage was not directed at supposed sacred customs being “exposed” however, it was directed at the threat that gay men imposed on the hyper masculinity of the tradition, it was a foreign concept that incited rage and violence (Posel 2005). It did not matter that the film was fiction because the media has reinforced the idea of a masculinity that does not include gay black men for a long time and this film was not conforming to that rhetoric but instead, introducing new masculinities (Sanger 2010).

The people who were against this film took to the digital space to voice out their concerns about how their culture was being disrespected. Xhosa men went to cinemas that were showing the film to protest and to try to shut the cinemas down. The cinemas shut down. The men threatened violence against the actors in the film, the protagonist, Nakhane Toure had his social media sites violated with threats of violence to the extent of murder. Xhosa men called him a sell out because as a Xhosa man, he should have known better. The fact that he is gay in real life only made the outrage even more violent. According to them, this was not something a gay man had any right to despite the fact that Nakhane had gone through initiation in real life too, just as they had. This is an acute example of men going as far as policing other men to conform to normative displays of masculinity in order to maintain their privilege as a collective (Msibi 2009).

Due to the overwhelming social media traffic that people against the movie caused that got Xhosa traditional leaders to pay attention to the film, the High Court ruled the film Inxeba: The Wound as hardcore porn due to a sex scene that would be overlooked had it been between people of the opposite sex. The producers of the film contested this until the decision was overruled and the film was allowed to go back to cinemas across the country.