A few days after the premiere of Black Burns Fast, Sarah and I have the opportunity to sit down with director Sandulela Asanda and chat about her film and the state of racism and homophobia in South Africa today. Having experienced South Africa as white Europeans several times over the last years, we feel privileged to discuss Sandulela’s perspective on her home country as a queer Black South African woman.
fGR: To start us off, could you please tell us a bit about how you experienced growing up with racism in South Africa and how things may have changed over time?
Sandulela Asanda: The end of apartheid was the end of racial segregation, and opened up a lot of avenues and access for Black people, including economically. At the same time, even 30 years later, there are still a lot of discrepancies and a lot of inequalities that still happen as a result of apartheid. A lot of discrimination also happens according to class because they’re so interlinked. Because our white population has had decades to have access to assets, jobs, they received social support when Black people didn’t, and as a result, the majority of the Black population are quite poor.
In South Africa, we actually don’t even have a real middle class like other countries do. A middle class means you’re at least two generations in, so at least your parents before you were middle class. No Black South African has that experience. Or at least there are very few, and those are people who probably lived in exile and were able to build a life overseas and then come back. So, as a result, our middle class is also quite sensitive, it’s not really stable. I’m considered middle class-ish – my parents are doctors, but their parents worked on farms, or were teachers. Back then, Black women couldn’t work once they got married, so it’s a single income household. My parents both came from single income households, and from big families.
When I grew up, we were the only Black family in our neighborhood. In school, I was either the only Black girl in the grade, or there were very few of us in my class. No one outwardly says, „oh, you’re Black, so we’re not going to play with you“, but those things come through in the social dynamics, in the way that people talk to you and relate to you, and in assumptions that are made. Even the others’ parents ask you constantly, „what do your parents do“, „how did you get into the school“, „where are you from“, or „you speak so well“, and „you’re doing so well in class, my gosh“. Having to constantly deal with that, you get a sense that you’re not meant to be in this space. And that affects your self-esteem – affected my self-esteem. Some people grow from it, and some people don’t. It was kind of half-half for me.
One thing I also noticed in high school is that the people of color were punished more harshly than the white students were, or people would get away with things because their parents are part of the board, or because their family had been going to the school for however many generations. All of those things come into play about how you’re treated socially, even by your teachers. Some of them were alive during apartheid. In our boarding houses, we weren’t allowed to really speak our home languages, even though we have 11 official languages. We weren’t allowed to speak to each other. In my school – and I know of similar cases – Black kids were basically told „not more than four of you can congregate and talk, because you make too much noise, and it makes people a bit nervous“. When we’d be laughing together, people would say, we laugh like hyenas, or like monkeys, we were called KFC.
I could write a book about that experience and all of those microaggressions. Dealing with the accumulation of all that discrimination and racism, it felt like I didn’t have the space or capacity to consider the other things about myself, because my race was so emphasized. My being Black affected so much around me that I didn’t even have time to think about my sexuality, my religion and other factors, because it just felt like I needed to deal with and survive racism before I was able to deal with other things.
fGR: With alle these heavy topics, why did you decide to use so many comedic and light-hearted elements instead of depicting the „harsh reality“?
SA: It became very clear to me that South African society, even at what’s considered a higher class level, isn’t that transformed, actually. If we’re experiencing that at a higher class level, think about how it’s trickling down, and how that’s even worse. That was something that I really wanted to address, and in a way that wouldn’t make people shut down. So I intentionally chose the genre of a coming-of-age story, and for it to be comedic, as well, because that gets people to the screens, but also gets them talking when their guard is down.
Another reason is that the media I had access to wasn’t addressing those things. In most films, the Black girl is the funny best friend, who is only one-dimensional. She’s not going through her own complicated growing-up journey. It’s tough to be something that you don’t see, so I wanted to present that.
fGR: What are differences between your experience as a Black queer woman vs. being part of „only“ one of these marginalized groups?
SA: There are a lot of intersections. Just being a girl and being a woman, versus my male counterparts is already a very different journey, because there’s also the sexualization that happens, with the way your body is treated. We’re told to get longer skirts because of our body, because our bums are bigger. They used to have this saying: if a white boy was speaking to a Black girl, apparently he had jungle fever. Things like that were still being said in the 2010s. So as a girl, you’re also being heavily sexualized, and adultified. At the same time, if one person does something, we are all lumped into the same group.
fGR: Were you as focussed on academic success as Luthando was, when you were younger?
SA: The reason why I made Luthando a scholarship student and made her so studious, is because a lot of us are told that education is the one thing that no one can take away from us. Education is how we advance, and how we get somewhere. We don’t have friends who can get us into internships, and big jobs. If we want to get anywhere, be someone, we have to work hard at school. We know that if we mess up here, we won’t be able to go to another school like this.
We see this with Pumeza, Luthando’s mother. Luthando is being bullied in class, and her mother understands that. But she comes from a time when white people bullying you was granted. Whatever happens, getting your degree, doing well at school is the most important part and that’s where her attitude came from. Someone actually asked me why the mother was so loving but stern. But that’s kind of what you had to be. My grandmother, for example, was also very strict – with the understanding that if you’re not firm and strong, then your children also won’t be. But with what Black children are going through, they need that strength to get through to the other side.
fGR: In your film, the white and Black girls don’t really mix, unless it’s a rather unpleasant experience. Was this your experience as well when you were at boarding school?
SA: It’s not always like that. I did have a few white friends at the time, that happens. There’ll be light intermixing in the classes, but when it really comes down to it, we have separate main friend groups. That even happens in university. I remember one day we were talking about decolonization of education, and trying to address structural racism. And other students didn’t realise that all the Black students sit together and so do the white students – and we had to explain why. Whenever I walk into a room, I’m thinking about who I’m going to sit next to. And it’s not because I fear anyone, but I want to sit with people who have a better understanding of my experience. At the same time I know the white students have access to old tests from older brothers and sisters, they go to tea with the lecturer on weekends – why would I sit next to them, when they don’t share these resources with us? Some people have their MacBooks and iPads and some people don’t.
Yes, there are people who intermix and actually make an effort intentionally to do that, but I don’t think it’s happening en masse enough, and I think, as a result, when Donald Trump started kicking around in South Africa, that’s how he also got a lot of support.
And look, my producer (Cait Pansegrouw) is an amazing ally, and she understands these things because all her friends were Black when she was in high school. But she made that intentional step to do that and to educate herself. And that takes effort – realising your privilege and the ways in which you have messed up in the past. It’s tough to hear that you’ve treated someone badly without knowing that you have. But it’s a necessary thing that needs to be done and unfortunately I have the feeling that most of the country doesn’t want to do that.
fGR: What is the ratio of Black and white kids in these very privileged schools depicted in your film?
SA: In a private school, they pride themselves in having intimate classes, often with a maximum of 25 people in a class. In my entire school, there were about 300 students. My grade was the biggest grade in the school, and there were 70 of us. Out of the 70, there were 19 Black girls, and that was the most Black girls in the grade that the school had, so for the rest it was a lot less. I’d say, Black students make up around 10% of the entire school.
fGR: And how do you get access to these schools, mostly through scholarships?
SA: Our parents work hard and can afford it, if they want to. There are families who have really done well for themselves and gotten to that level. But a lot of the Black students get in through full or partial scholarships.
fGR: And would you have to attend private school to have a better chance at success?
SA: In South Africa, we have private schools and Model C schools, which used to be fully white institutions. These schools receive government funding, but are mostly funded by the parent body and alumni. And then there are public schools fully funded by the government. Model C schools and private schools are getting close in terms of access to resources and quality of education, which is why there is a huge fight to get into the Model C schools. If you want to go to one of the bigger and more prestigious universities, like UCT, Vids, Stellenbosch, University of Victoria, which are our top four universities, you have to try to at least be in a Model C school and do well, or be in a private school.
And sometimes students get accepted to these universities, but don’t receive accommodation or the funding for accommodation. They end up going to university and for the first three months they’ll be sleeping in the library or on school grounds trying to get funding. Or people try and get scholarships and late registrations and end up in a stampede fighting for these spots. One mother died in line trying to register her child for university because there was a stampede. It’s very disheartening. We don’t have enough universities. Unemployment is on the rise and it’s all just simmering, waiting to blow. Apartheid was dismantled 30 years ago, but how long has the system been around? Before apartheid we had colonialism, it’s been centuries. It’s going to take time to unravel this system, so we need to be intentional about it. And that takes a lot of work. At the same time, we have all these global challenges like climate change, wars, threats from the United States. It truly is a challenge.
fGR: You mentioned homophobia when you spoke about your troubles of funding this film. What would you say is the state of homophobia in South Africa today?
SA: Legally, we have a lot of protections, which is great. We can get married and everything. But en masse, South African society is quite conservative. Even in media, you only rarely see queer people, very rarely at the centre of a positive storyline as well.
I’d say we’ve also regressed a little bit, because of this wave of conservatism that’s going through South Africa. It is better in the city centres, and again, class helps, because you’re a little safer and more insulated, but for people who live in the townships or in rural areas, it’s still tough, and it comes from a lot of negligence.
It also comes from religion, and ideas of what is African and what is not – even though that’s also informed by colonialism in large parts. But even when class can insulate you in certain situations, walking on the street is still not safe. Every year, we’re still hearing about older and younger people who are getting killed because they are gay. Two weeks before I came here, there was a 17-year-old in KwaZulu-Natal who was killed because he was gay. A month before that, there was a 17-year-old who was killed in Cape Town because he was gay. So it’s definitely still happening. Compared to the early 2000s, I would say less so, but it’s still happening.
fGR: How is it, then, for you to now publicly stand for such a topic?
SA: I’m worried, at least partially. I live in Jo’burg, and luckily there is quite a big queer scene. I think I, myself, am okay. I’m also shielded by class a little bit. It’s unfortunate, but I guess it kind of helps that people don’t take women’s sexuality very seriously, or they don’t see it as much as a threat as they see it with men. At least in the space that I’m in currently. But I know that if I went to the township and maybe somewhere else, it might be a bit worse.
But you know what? Someone needs to do it, and I want to do it. I think what’s kind of insulating me also is that I’m not touching culture directly.
2017 we had a film called Inxeba, which looked at a gay love story, but that was taking place during the closer tradition of initiation to becoming a man. Those actors and those filmmakers – coincidentally, my producer was one of them – received death threats. The film was also banned, but they managed to get that overturned. But all the lead cast had to leave the country until it blew over, and the main reason of that was because it was taking place in a cultural setting, a specific cultural setting, and the cultural leaders, traditional leaders were very quick to say: „this doesn’t happen here, we don’t have gay consummate“, which is a complete lie. It’s because they’re protecting the patriarchy. So I think that, hopefully, because I’m not touching that kind of area, yet, I’m a bit safer. And I do, as a filmmaker, intend on continuing to make queer films. I’m not going to stop doing that. I made it very clear to my parents as well, and they did not want me to shake the table. But I’m tired of feeling like I have to hide who I am, and also just not seeing myself portrayed in media.
fGR: So you also plan to show it in South Africa?
SA: Oh, yes! I want to do a full-on theatrical distribution. The genre that I chose helps a lot. That it is a comedy, a coming-of-age story, a school film. It’s a queer film, but the themes are still very universal, so people can relate to that. When we showed the film in Durban last year, a lot of parents thanked me because they now have a better understand of what their children go through in these schools and of what it’s like for a queer child. In a review, someone said the storyline with the mother feels unresolved, but I actually did that on purpose. Pumeza is a Christian woman and she is very concerned with what people think. She won’t be immediately accepting, just like the parents of a lot of African children, realistically, especially people who come from a more conservative background. It’s something that is going to need more conversations and understanding and this is my way of preparing the girls that it’s okay to come out and they will have support, but for the oldies it’s going to take some time to get there. But at least Luthando is not kicked out of her home or outright abused. Many people experience that or the kids leave home before that happens. I have friends who left for university, lived their truth and never went back home.
fGR: It’s nice to have a film that’s so humorous about all these terrible topics.
SA: We have this saying, that if we don’t laugh, we’ll cry. Us South Africans, we don’t take anything seriously. We laugh about a lot of the sadder things because we have to. It’s better than crying. But I’m also just so tired of everything being sad and gloomy. We need joy. We need whimsy. We need to laugh. And I’m thinking: why can’t we do both? Why can’t we laugh and think?
fGR: Black Burns Fast does that really well – and we’ve noticed that the dads in the audience seemed to be laughing the hardest!
SA: That’s so interesting! Because when I did my short film, men were walking out. And maybe that’s because the short was a bit more focused on these two girls learning how to masturbate. But there was no nudity, there was nothing explicit there. And I’m just wondering, what are they imaging when they’re seeing this happen? What exactly is the issue?
I’m very happy to hear that. Just hearing people react to it and engage with it, even though they may not be the target audience, makes me so happy. Because I think otherwise it’s quite easy to just turn away and not ever realise, what you are doing to others. A lot of people are just following the talk that their parents have and the way they interact. They take dinner time conversation to school and don’t realise, that maybe they shouldn’t be saying these things. And that’s part of growing up. We shouldn’t vilify that. But we should be embracing what we need to do and this is the perfect time to talk about these things.
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We can’t help but agree and hope that Black Burns Fast reaches a large audience globally to spark these conversations we need to have. For a more comprehensive background on Apartheid, a background article is coming up. Hannah’s review of Black Burns Fast can be found here. We also recorded a podcast episode in German after the premiere.
