The cinematic township: cinematic representations of the ‘township space’ and who can claim the rights to representation in post-apartheid South African cinema

Abstract

This article seeks to analyse the cinematic representations of the ‘township space’ in post-apartheid South African cinema and television where the ‘township space’ is utilised as a central location to represent the narratives of authentic black South African stories. Cinematic representations (‘place-images’) of the ‘township space’ in post-apartheid South Africa subscribe to ‘place-myths’ that informed the space of the township during apartheid. Initially constructed through a process of ‘othering’ to suit a political ideology, the township was represented as the manageable part of modernity for ‘black identity’. In post-apartheid South African filmmaking there appears to be a ‘fixing’ or ‘freezing’ of an authentic black experience within the ‘township space’ which serves to essentialise black identity and the black experience. Filmmakers have embarked on a project to redefine the township in post-apartheid society, but there appears to be the reiteration of ‘place-images’ and ‘place-myths’ that are historically and politically outdated. The ‘cinematic township’ has become ‘fixed’ in its visual aesthetics and fetishised in the memory and representations of South African filmmakers. I argue that the township is a space of hybridity, an in-between space reflected through the intermediate position the township occupies in relation to the urban and rural spaces. In this paper I suggest that the township space has become a fetishised cinematic trope, and that the ‘cinematic township’ has similarities with ‘Township Art’ from the 1950's and 1960's. This article also speaks to issues of representation and who can claim the rights to representation in post-apartheid South Africa (Ngũgĩ 2000 and Axel 1999). The South African filmmaking landscape is unique because of the mix of ‘white’ and ‘black’ filmmakers. This raises questions about ‘racialised Africanness’ and the implications for ‘African whiteness’.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 54 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.