Destabilisering van hegemoniese Afrikanermanlikheid deur middel van die randfiguur in drie onlangse Afrikaanse films

Abstract

In her influential book, Masculinities, R.W. Connell (2005) formalised the term hegemonic masculinity. She explains that the term, which was coined in the 1980s in sociology, refers to the type of masculinity that dominates other forms of masculinity and whereby society defines masculinity as social construct. Hegemonic masculinity gave way to a plethora of research on masculinity. In the South African context, the work of Morrell (2001), Swart (2001) and Du Pisani (2001, 2004) focussed on masculinity and Afrikaner masculinity in particular. This dissertation investigates the way in which the outsider in three recent Afrikaans films, namely Faan se trein (2014), Roepman (2011) and Triomf (2008), destabilises hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity. In order to explain this destabilisation, this dissertation provides an overview of masculinity, hegemonic masculinity and hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity. In doing so, the nature of Afrikaner masculinity during the Apartheid period in South Africa, and it’s incontrovertible association with Apartheid, is established. This dissertation draws on Yacavone’s (2015) newest ideas of film worlds to explain how hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity is constructed in each film’s reality. Because each film includes an outsider, this dissertation also examines the concept of the outsider and the presence of outsiders in written and filmic texts. The analyses of the three films in this study demonstrate that the film world is used by the different directors to construct a convincing and credible (re-)creation of a specific period in South African history. The ideologies of hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity and Apartheid are at the centre of the relevant settings. All three films include a variety of male characters, who each have a different relationship with the hegemony. In each film, the outsider (Faan in Faan se trein, Joon in Roepman, and Lambert in Triomf), unlike the other male characters, is marginalised due to mental or physical disability and is cast out of society. The outsider destabilises the hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity in different ways. Faan exposes male sexuality and desire that is protected by the hegemony, as well as exposing the injustices of racism. Joon acts as a saviour for people in the railway community where other characters (that represent hegemonic Afrikaner masculinity) fail to do so. Lastly, Lambert is intrinsic to the destabilisation of the norms and ideas of the hegemony: he is the incestuous product of a relationship between his mother and her two brothers. The analyses also demonstrated how each of these outsiders comments on the Apartheid political system, which was characterised by discrimination, racism and power relations.