The Limits of Liberalism in South African Film: Recycling Black Stereotypes in Sarafina and Tsotsi

Abstract

Twenty-two years into democracy, and South Africa is still producing white films for a black audience. In this film genre, black people participate as part of the cast but they are accorded questionable roles that distort important strides that the country has made to achieve racial reconciliation. Although black South Africans are participating in the production of films in South Africa, they have not been able to defeat the ghosts of liberalism that inform black films. The aim of this article is to draw attention to instances of stereotyping black children and young adults who are part of the casts of Sarafina! and Tsotsi. The article argues that, because people internalise the roles imposed on them, the cultural consequence of the creation of negative images is the production of a mentality among young black Africans that they are permanently disabled. Stereotyping is a pernicious mode of representing blacks because in the context of the post-1994 period, a numerical minority is a majority in terms of creating images and controlling the film industry, and a numerical majority is transformed into a numerical minority that assumes important role models and empowering images in films. This reality, which is informed by the ideology of white liberalism, has ensured that blacks remain marginalised in terms of the cultural creations offered through film in South Africa.