Review: Same-Sex Sexuality Issues in Some African Popular Media

Reviewed Work(s): Walking with Shadows by Jude Dibia; African Love Stories by Ata
Aidoo Ama
Review by: Unoma Azuah
Source: Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne des tudes Africaines,
Vol. 43, No. 1, New Perspectives on Sexualities in Africa / Les sexualits africaines dans
leurs nouvelles perspectives (2009), pp. 184-187
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of the Canadian Association of African
Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20743803
Accessed: 26-05-2017 14:09 UTC

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

Taylor & Francis, Ltd., Canadian Association of African Studies are collaborating with JSTOR
to digitize, preserve and extend access to Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue Canadienne
des tudes Africaines

This content downloaded from 62.204.192.192 on Fri, 26 May 2017 14:09:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Same-Sex Sexuality Issues in Some African
Popular Media

Unoma Azuah

Allusions to same-sex desire have, historically, been rare in African

literature and film. If the issue is acknowledged at all, such desire
is typically characterized as either a pathological condition that
deserves to be punished or eliminated, or an exotic influence
(Dunton 1989). Homophobic characterizations continue in much
popular culture, including in the Nigerian film industry known as
Nollywood. In movies like Last Wedding, Emotional Crack,
Beautiful Faces, and End Times, women who have sex with women
are first objectified, presumably for the enjoyment of the male audi
ence, then come to violent ends. Popular media, such as the daily
press, throughout Africa commonly treat the topic with mocking
humour or anger and contempt against "the West" (Human Rights
Watch 2003).
Several recent works by African writers and film-makers have
begun to challenge these tired and fundamentally misleading
constructs. Camara's Dakan (1998), Ramaka's Karmen Gei (2001),
Duiker's Quiet Violence of Dreams (2001), notably, represent fairly
bold departures from the old stereotypes by portraying same-sex
relationships in a more or less sympathetic light. Two further
important contributions to this emerging "restorative queer
aesthetic" (Boehmer 2005) are by Jude Dibia and Monica Arac de
Nyeko, both from countries renowned for politicized homophobia.

Jude Dibia. Walking with Shadows. Lagos, Nigeria: Sands Press, 2005.

Ata Aidoo Ama, ed. African Love Stories. London: Ayebia Clarke
Publishing, 2006.

A noted Nigerian poet, Unoma Azuah teaches Composition and Creative

Writing at Lane College in Jackson, Tennessee.

184

This content downloaded from 62.204.192.192 on Fri, 26 May 2017 14:09:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Azuah: Same-Sex Sexuality Issues in African Popular Media 185

Dibia's Walking with Shadows is the first novel published in

Nigeria to focus on a gay character. It follows the titanic clashes
facing Ebele (also known as Adrian), a closeted gay Nigerian man
whose sexuality is spitefully leaked by an office colleague to his
family and community. As soon as he is outed, Adrian runs into
every brick wall imaginable as he tries to explicate and accept
himself as a gay man. Devastated by the lie he has been living,
Adrian's wife, Ada, is unable to accept this aching revelation about
her husband. "Adrian [is] a Nigerian, an African man. Being gay [is]
certainly not in the African culture," she cries to herself.
Eventually, chance encounters with other women who are them
selves married to closeted gay men force her to acknowledge: "The
society had indeed evolved and she had missed it all." (160-62).
The initial path ahead for Adrian is filled with dismay and
stigmatization as his family members take strong measures to
correct his anomalous orientation. They invite into their home a
fundamentalist Christian pastor who savagely beats Adrian to rid
him of his homosexuality. In the name of deliverance, Adrian ends
up in the hospital ripped open and bleeding. There is a remarkable
correlation between the abuse at the hands of the pastor and
Adrian's childhood Baptismal experience. During the first trau
matic incident, Adrian felt that the pastor intended to drown him.
Unfortunately, Dibia seems to offer only one solution for
homosexuals in Nigeria - that they flee the country as his protago
nist Ebele / Adrian does. But poverty and oppressive patriarchy will
not make such an alternative possible for every homosexual that
may want to leave Nigeria, nor is it an avenue one could rely on
given the closing doors to immigrations for Africans of all persua
sion, let alone gays and lesbians.
There is, as well, a problem of simplistic, often didactic style
evident in the redundancy of sentence structure and the heavy
over-use of gerunds. Verisimilitude is also an issue. For example, it
does not seem realistic that a character who is barely aware of Ada's
marital problems would immediately suggest that Ada walk away
from the marriage.
Monica Arac de Nyeko's "Jambula Tree," by contrast, broaches
the same taboo in a masterfully-written manner. Indeed, it won the
Caine prize for the best short story published in Africa in 2006. It
certainly stands out among the other contributions to the book,

This content downloaded from 62.204.192.192 on Fri, 26 May 2017 14:09:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 86 CJAS / RCEA 43: I 2 9

African Love Stories. Most of the stories in the book are indeed
entertaining, and they present perspectives of romantic life (and
gender struggle) in some countries that are not well-represented in
African women's literature (like Sudan). Many, however, adhere to
rather tired traditions of narrative and dramatic conflict: African
woman loves white man and consequently has problems with her
family,- African woman is betrayed by African man; "uppity"
woman is subjected to sexual humiliation, and so on. In notable
distinction to literature about love in the Western tradition, there
is very little erotic allusion. "Jambula Tree" is a powerful depar
ture. It is the only story to consider female-female sexuality, and
probably the first ever to tackle the theme outside of South Africa,
with a frisson of sensuality.
"Jambula Tree" traces the lives of two lesbians, Anyango and
Sanyu, who are not just bound by love but also by the loyalty of
their friendship. Anyango addresses Sanyu in letter format,
recounting their days together as growing girls at the Nakawa
Housing Estate near Kampala. Sanyu is expected back from London
after years of living there. Anyango's reminiscing trails their forbid
den love,- and, how they are haunted by their community is person
ified in the character of Mama Atim. As Anyango reports,
Atim says the word immoral to me ? slowly and emphatically
... so it can sink into my head. She wants me to hear the word
in every breath, sniff it in every scent so it can haunt me like
that day I first touched you. Like the day you first touched me
(168-69).
After Mama Atim stumbles upon them naked their "names
became forever associated with the forbidden. Shame."
Consequently, their parents forbid them to see each other ever
again. Handed a litany of "don'ts," homophobia becomes so
engrained in their psyches that Anyango shares: "After all these
years, I still imagine shame trailing after me tagged unto the hem
of my skirt." Yet the rebelliousness in both lovers persists. In spite
of the persecution, what they feel for each other does not repel
them, and as Anyango says: "It did not occur to either of us, to you
or to me, that these were boundaries we should not cross nor should
think of crossing." Thus, while Dibia seems to offer no escape for
African homosexuals within Africa, Monica Arac de Nyeko offers
hope through the defiance she creates in her characters.

This content downloaded from 62.204.192.192 on Fri, 26 May 2017 14:09:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Azuah: Same-Sex Sexuality Issues in African Popular Media 187

Indications are that homosexual-themed literature will

continue to grow, in part because many homosexuals prefer to iden
tify with fictional characters than to come out in a hostile envi
ronment. Such literature is likely to be X-rated in much of Africa
for now. But an increase in the depictions of homosexual characters
in African literature and other media could alter society's accep
tance by convincing readers that sexual orientation is neither a
choice, nor a crime, nor a Western imperialist plot against Africa.

This content downloaded from 62.204.192.192 on Fri, 26 May 2017 14:09:27 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms