Zahra Gordon

In something reminiscent of an accident, I ended up watching the film Black Butterflies the other day. (Not sure what rug I’ve been living under to have not heard about the film before) I did recognize that there was a  powerful story within the mini biopic of  the South African poet Ingrid Jonker which dealt with the limited expectations of womanhood and sexism and double standards and so on. I didn’t know where the movie was going exactly but I think even before it started I just felt like this would be the same thing all over again. Yes, this was essentially good cinema. Maybe even great. Yes, Ingrid Jonker had an interesting story.  But in the larger scheme of things, in the South African context, the fact of privilege and “whiteness” cancels out all of that. While watching I remembered something I’d read by Haile Gerima that really highlights the complexity of South African cinema (although the director and the lead actress are both Dutch but then again that’s a whole other conversation by itself about identity). He was speaking at a program in London on South African cinema soon after Mandela’s release: 

A most interesting concept thrown carelessly around at this panel was so-called “non-racial cinema.”  When it was my turn to speak, I organized my thoughts on the future of South Africa in the following manner. First, I stated there was no such thing as non-racial cinema, especially not in South Africa, a country founded on the notion of white supremacy. With independence, cinema would have to celebrate all races and specifically African people, whose image and story had been so brutally suppressed. I felt that in the new South Africa, film would have to dramatically dynamize culture. In fact, I went on to suggest, in order to correct the past abuse of color privilege, most of the white filmmakers would need to refrain from future film projects and take responsibility for producing and financing the filmmaking of African in South Africa. The whole auditorium exploded. Most of the whites lost their center of intellectual gravity. However, I went on to suggest that by virtue of heir credentials and professional experience, which they had attained in the old South Africa, white South African filmmakers would continue to be in prominent positions and still be able to make films about other South Africans strictly because of their very privileged backgrounds.