Yunus Vally is very charming man. He's quite a talker, and he has a lot to say. About growing up Muslim in small-town apartheid South Africa, about relationships between men and women, between black and white, brown and white -- about sexual politics in apartheid-era South Africa. He makes a great documentary subject, but he also happens to be the director of The Glow of White Women, and so he talks... and talks, and talks... unchallenged, for most of 78 minutes.
Here's how it goes: Vally sits in front of a green screen, and talks. He talks to an unseen interviewer, and not to the camera. We see various images behind him (though sometimes we see a plain black background), and we see lots of apartheid-era newsreels, magazine images, etc. And we hear from some other people: white women who slept with black men when it was illegal, the one-time star of a titillating photo-comic-book series, a former censor, etc. They are all participants in Vally's exercise: turning the sexual objectification and dehumanization of black men around... and focusing it on white women. He wants to look honestly at the relationship between the respectable white woman and her sweating, glistening gardener / manservant / driver. We see images of various (white) Miss South Africas, of waiter-races where white audiences watch black men in uniform run with trays of drinks. And lots of people talk about sex. The sex they had, the sex they dreamt about... anything as long as it has to do with sex.
Vally is engaging, the images are both shocking and entertaining, and he clearly had a great compositor who made liberal use of animation software. It's a great way to say a few things that I'm sure black men have wanted to say to white women (and men) for a long time. But it doesn't sustain. The Glow of White Women delivers a serious message in an entertaining package, but it runs out of things to say long before its 78 minutes are up. I lasted just under an hour. The last phrase I heard before I walked out was "I fucked for the struggle."
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2 comments:
I really liked this film - because it turned around the objectification of the black (read 'coloured') man and shone a light on white women and how they are not just objectified by himself and other black men but also by the media. Vally makes great use of images and music to bring home the all-pervading image of white women and their hitherto unquestioned place in the beauty hierarchy of the world. Yes the film does descend into a size and numbers game but the overall message is still something that sends you home with something to think about: How does a non-white person perceive of themselves in this world that has pervading white imagery and how do they navigate their sense of self in such a world?
It surprises me that there would be anything new to say about the sexual objectification and dehumanization of women, of any shade or hue.
That objectification and dehumanization is thousands, if not millions, of years old. It (along with racism and various other forms of oppressive prejudice) is a pillar of what we now call "civilization."
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