The Family as Black Nationalism: Cosmopolitan Archetypes in Black Popular Township Television Films

Abstract

The apartheid regime conspired to advance black ethnic divisions to facilitate the homelands and diminish the threat of black people to South Africa. From 1994, the democratic dispensation has engaged in various nation-building attempts to solidify a united South Africa that is multicultural and multilingual in conjunction with a progressive Constitution. Popular township films by Ekasi: Our Stories and Lokshin Bioskop have ventured into this arena which was the forte of the South African Broadcasting Corporation, to engage in storylines that encourage nation-building. In this article, I argue that popular films have emerged to represent cosmopolitan tropes that galvanise Black Nationalism. Also, the films engage negative black tribal stereotypes that, if not attended to, could result in black disunity. It can also be argued that the latter has been a stimulant for African conflicts, occasionally causing genocides. This article explores the role popular films play in conveying a nation-building narrative that sustains Black Nationalism and reconciliation in post-apartheid South Africa.