DISCUSSION GUIDE
Global Lens 2010
Shirley Adams
Shirley Adams, 2009, South Africa
In English and Afrikaans
92 minutes
TABLE OF CONTENTS
One Page Summary: Before Screening
About the Director: Oliver Hermanus
Film Aesthetics
Narrative Themes in the Film
About South Africa:
Statistics and map
History and today
References from the film
Additional resources
Promoting Cross-Cultural
Understanding through Cinema
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc.
All Rights Reserved.
Page 2
ONE PAGE SUMMARY: Before Screening
Shirley Adams (South Africa,
2009)
Directed by Oliver Hermanus
In English and Afrikaans
92 minutes
SYNOPSIS
In this deeply affecting
portrait of ordinary courage
in present-day South Africa,
a single mother—Shirley
Adams—struggles to care for
her paraplegic teenage son,
Donovan, in a depressed
district on the outskirts of Cape Town. Wearied but resolute, she desperately clings to him as he withdraws
from the world following a suicide attempt, and is hopeful when his spirits are momentarily lifted by the
appearance of Tamsin, a pretty but overeager social worker. But when the relationship between Donovan and
Tamsin sours, his fragile emotional health declines, and Shirley's faith and perseverance are put to the
ultimate test. First-time director Oliver Hermanus's observant camera holds close to its subjects, capturing
the claustrophobia, intimacy and hushed anguish surrounding the tender daily routines of a mother and her
child.
CHARACTERS/(CAST)
Shirley Adams (Denise Newman)
Donovan (Keenan Arrison)
Kariema Samsodien (Theresa C. Sedras)
Tamsin Ranger (Emily Childs)
Philda Jacobs (Lee-Ann van Rooi)
A mixed-race woman of Cape Flats, single mother of Donovan
Shirley’s son, paralyzed ten months ago by a stray bullet
Shirley’s concerned next-door neighbor and friend
A student social worker who wants to help with Donovan’s care
Shirley’s friend whose son is a childhood friend of Donovan’s
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are the challenges faced by Mrs. Adams and her son, respectively? How does each relate to the
outside world?
2. How does the camera tend to frame the title character? From what perspectives do we see her usually?
How does this framing affect our relation to the character?
3. How would you describe the community and day-to-day environment in which Shirley Adams and her
son, Donovan, live? What details or clues give you the strongest sense of this setting?
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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ABOUT THE DIRECTOR: Oliver Hermanus
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
Shirley Adams is a woman I have known for over a decade. I
don’t know when I first gave her this name, but she has always
been a mother whose son was shot while crossing a field on his
way home from school. I had heard of such a story at the supper
table one night at home: my sister retelling an experience she
was having as an occupational therapy student, working with a
disabled youth and his family. She was shocked at how this one
single event had destroyed an entire family. It has taken ten
years or so to find the right way of telling this story—the right
method or technique.
That method was portraiture. My hope is that this film allows
you to coexist with Shirley, in her home, seeing her struggle to
give her son Donovan some kind of reason to keep on fighting
the demons that have poisoned his life.
It is only through the education that I have subsequently
received in filmmaking that I came to discover the filmmakers
and the films that tell the stories of ordinary people, told in an
ordinary way. “Social realism” is not necessarily a movement
reserved for cinema; it is a term that I use to express how I
interpret this woman. I admire her, I believe her to be a true
survivor—a true heroine. She is a colored woman from Mitchell’s Plain but she is just like any other poor
disenfranchised mother of the world. She is desperate.
Her story is meant to be simple and unsentimental. As much as she fights against the extinction of everything
she has worked for her entire life, she cannot stop it, and it’s the struggle that this character endures that I
find most interesting as a filmmaker.
I want you to experience life as she does during this time. I want you to ‘uncomfortably’ suspend your
disbelief and allow yourself to be introduced to a place and a time that is riddled with hypocrisy and
hardship. But out of which should come a message about survival and strength.
Yes, it’s about race, and crime, in post-apartheid South Africa, but at its core it is simply the film about a
woman, named Shirley Adams.
BIOGRAPHY
Oliver Hermanus was born in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1983. He began his professional career as a press
photographer, covering international events such as the Glastonbury Music Festival and the G-8 Summit. He
holds a BA in Film Media and Visual Studies from the University of Cape Town where, as a student, he
directed a number of short films and documentaries. Shirley Adams is his first feature film.
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FILM AESTHETICS
Film is unique as an art form in its synthesis of visual arts, writing, drama, movement, and sound. The
following notes about film aesthetics and technique suggest some things to watch and listen for in viewing
Shirley Adams.
Composition of the Image
Distance from the subject, the frame in which the subject appears (alone or in a crowded room, for instance),
and the angle at which a subject is viewed—these are all examples of compositional choices by a filmmaker
that affect how a viewer interprets a scene. For example, close-ups may be used for dramatic emphasis and to
create a feeling of intimacy; wide shots from a distance may emphasize character in relation to setting and/or
allow only a detached, impersonal view of the character. A high angle looking down may make a character
seem powerless or victimized, while a low angle looking up may make a character seem powerful or
menacing.
Shirley Adams is a woman who will do whatever it takes to care for her wounded and desperate
child. But her pride, profound grief and accompanying ambivalence toward the outside world
make her a lonely and withdrawn figure too. The camera conveys this, in part, by repeatedly
framing her from behind or around a corner. For example, when Kariema tells Shirley that
Jeremy Jacobs confessed to firing the gun that paralyzed Donovan, Shirley asks to be left alone.
The handheld camera remains relatively still, framing her in a medium-shot from behind her
back, as she breaks down. It then slowly backs away through the doorway. The frame grants her
some of the respectful distance she asked Kariema for, while suggesting we can’t completely
know her thoughts or feelings, even as we empathize with her. The composition thus lends
dignity to her character, even when circumstances leave her unusually vulnerable and exposed.
Music and Sound
Music in a film’s soundtrack can be used to comment on or enhance a setting or action. Music often
underscores, literally, the emotional significance of a scene, or merely sets a mood or establishes a particular
atmosphere (cheerful, somber, dangerous, etc.). In film, music and image are always in a kind of dialogue
with one another.
Natural sounds can add a dimension of reality or unreality to a scene. Off-screen sounds, such as traffic noise
or gunshots, can contribute subtly or overtly to the narrative elements at work within the frame.
The opening scene of Shirley Adams is intensely dramatic, but we hear no music in the soundtrack
to underscore the drama, only realistic sounds coming from the immediate setting of Donovan’s
bedroom. The jerky, rapid movements of the handheld camera, which stays close to the action,
suggest the chaos and emotional energy in the scene, but all we hear are the natural sounds
occurring inside the frame: Shirley’s voice and labored breathing, the rustling of bed covers, and
so on, as Shirley tries to revive Donovan from an apparent overdose, calls for help, and moves
him out of bed in preparation for taking him to the hospital. This raw soundtrack helps convey a
sense of immediacy, a realistic feeling of being in the room as a real-life emergency unfolds.
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Dialogue
The words expressed by the characters in a film can be spoken out loud in conversation, by a character
speaking to himself or herself alone, or in an internal speech or words delivered in voiceover in the
soundtrack. Dialogue often communicates to the audience much more than the information or ideas
expressed in the words themselves. Dialogue serves several functions in a story:
•
•
•
It can help set the scene by explaining events leading up to it, or by describing something about the
characters and their relationships with each other (this kind of dialogue, “exposing” the basis or
background of a scene, is called exposition).
It can serve to develop the relationships between characters.
It can bring out or highlight indirectly some of the larger themes in the film as a whole.
The conversation on the bus between Shirley and Philda Jacobs begins with Philda asking how
things are going. Shirley’s untruthful reply—that things are fine, and her husband is working hard—
followed by a bland remark about the weather, tells us how guarded she is about her personal life,
too timid or proud to reveal how bad things have gotten. Philda seems to understand this, and next
asks bluntly if the police have caught those who shot [Shirley’s] son. As a result, we learn important
information: The case remains unsolved after ten months; Philda’s own son, Jeremy, is a friend of
Donovan’s whom Philda has warned in the past not to cross “that field” (the dangerous patch of
ground where Donovan was shot); and Philda’s bemoaning the youth violence of the day suggests
it’s been on the rise, before innocently mentioning that Jeremy spends much of his time outside with
a group of peers. This seemingly “casual” but tense dialogue between the two women helps to fill in
the larger social setting for us, introducing relationships that take significance as the story unfolds.
Narrative Structure
The narrative structure in a film establishes the major themes in the story, answering the question, “What is
this story about?” The structure may be linear, running in a straight line chronologically from beginning to
end; it may be episodic, made up of a series of connected but also distinct sections; or it may even be
circular, finally leaving us once more at the beginning of the story but with perhaps a new perspective on it.
The narrative often employs visual and other metaphors to underscore the meaning or significance of its
story. Although a narrative usually centers on some problem or conflict inherent in the story, there is not
necessarily a sense of resolution at the end of a film. In fact, the lack of any resolution often spurs the viewer
to further consideration of the themes developed in the course of the narrative long after the film has ended.
The tragedy and hardship that befall Shirley Adams and her son, Donovan, put them both in
strained relation to the outside world. They interact exclusively inside, at home. Donovan resists
his mother’s attempts to take him outside at all. After his death, Shirley tries taking Kareima’s
advice to “move on,” calling up her old employer and getting her old job back—but she too now
finds it impossible to leave the house. Her narrative journey beyond her grief will involve a literal
move from inside to outside, from the private realm to the realm of nature and community. Thus,
the story begins in Donovan’s room, in a chaotic and claustrophobic atmosphere, and ends
outside, on a beautiful, serene day, when Shirley takes Donovan’s ashes and a suitcase to the
ocean. As she arrives we see her smile for the first time. Her back is to us in the last shot, but she
seems at peace, having emerged from a shell of private shame, sadness, and grief through a
painful catharsis, and into the light of a new beginning.
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NARRATIVE THEMES IN THE FILM SHIRLEY ADAMS
Watch for scenes or events that correspond to a particular theme, making mental or written notes as to how
the theme unfolds in the film. Note whether the film developed the theme as expected, and if not, what
happened instead. Questions for each theme are designed to encourage discussion.
Race and Class
1. How would you describe the community in Mitchell’s Plain, the Cape Flats township where the story is
set? What sorts of people, classes and ethnic populations live there?
2. What is the impression Tamsin makes on you, and on Mrs. Adams, on her first visit to Donovan’s room?
What are the sources of the tension between Mrs. Adams and Tamsin?
3. What similarities and differences do you detect between racial and class lines depicted here and those in
the United States and other countries? How would you compare them?
Public and Private Life
4. When Philda Jacobs sees Shirley asleep on the bus, she wakes her ahead of her upcoming stop and strikes
up a conversation that begins, “So how’s things?” What is Shirley’s response? How do you account for it?
5. Tamsin is a sudden intrusion on the very private life of Shirley and her son. What is Tamsin’s effect on
Donovan, as far as you can tell? How do you explain his reaction to her?
6. Kariema urges Shirley to “move on” after Donovan’s death. What is Shirley’s initial response? How is
she finally able to move on?
Women’s Worlds
7. Kariema brings Shirley an envelope she found in her mailbox. What does Kariema say about where it
came from, and do you think what she says is true? If not, what’s really going on?
8. What can you tell about Shirley’s life before her son’s injury? Would you describe her as generally
satisfied with it? Why or why not?
9. For a brief period, Shirley seems to reconcile herself to Tamsin’s help and actually welcomes it. What
draws Shirley and Tamsin together? What do you imagine they see in each other?
10. Donovan’s injury makes him totally dependent on his mother. What are his feelings about this
dependency, as you understand them? Would you call their relationship a natural one, or do you think
there is something unnatural or problematic about it?
11. Shirley assumes total responsibility for her son, but is very reluctant to show any dependence she might
have on support or help from others. How do you explain this? How would you defend or criticize this
aspect of her character?
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Violence
12. What, as far as you can tell from clues in the story, were the circumstances under which Donovan was
injured? From what you know of the setting, how unusual are such circumstances?
13. What might motivate a young man like Jeremy Jacobs to join a gang? What possible contributing factors
can you point to in the world portrayed in the film?
14. Besides the gang violence that has affected the main characters so dramatically, what other forms of
ordinary or extraordinary violence, if any, do you detect in the setting and environment of the film?
Parents and Children
15. Where is Donovan’s father and how do you explain his absence? What clues or details in the story refer
to him, and what do they tell you about him?
16. Returning from the hospital for treatment for his drug overdose, Donovan insists sullenly that it was an
accident. When his mother gets up in frustration, he asks her in a quietly desperate voice not to leave his
side. How would you describe the relationship that has evolved between Shirley and Donovan since the
accident? What does each need, want, and resist from the other?
17. What factors, both outside and at home, might you point to in trying to explain the rise in violence
among the youth of Mitchell’s Plain? Do similar factors exist where you live, or in other countries and
parts of the United States you know about? How would you compare the situations?
18. One of the last things we see Shirley do is pay a visit to Philda Jacobs, the mother of the boy who shot
Donovan. How do Shirley and Philda treat and relate to each other? How would you compare them at
this point?
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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PROFILE OF SOUTH AFRICA
FULL NAME: Republic of South Africa
SIZE: 1,219,090 sq km (470,693 sq miles)
POPULATION: 49,004,031 (July 2011 est.)
CAPITAL: Pretoria (administrative capital)
GOVERNMENT: Republic
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RELIGION: Zion Christian 11.1%, Pentecostal/Charismatic 8.2%, Catholic 7.1%, Methodist 6.8%, Dutch
Reformed 6.7%, Anglican 3.8%, Muslim 1.5%, other Christian 36%, other 2.3%, unspecified 1.4%, none
15.1% (2001 census)
ETHNIC GROUPS: Black African 79%, white 9.6%, colored 8.9%, Indian/Asian 2.5% (2001 census)
LANGUAGES: IsiZulu 23.8%, IsiXhosa 17.6%, Afrikaans (official) 13.3%, Sepedi 9.4%, English (official)
8.2%, Setswana (official) 8.2%, Sesotho (official) 7.9%, Xitsonga (official) 4.4%, other 7.2% (2001 census)
LITERACY: 86.4% (of population 15 and over); 87% male; 85.7% female (2003 est.)
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE: 23.3% (2010 est.)
GEOGRAPHY & CLIMATE: South Africa, at the southern tip of the continent of Africa, is slightly less
than twice the size of Texas. Mostly semiarid and subtropical along the east coast, it enjoys sunny days and
cool nights. Its dramatic coastline is nestled by both the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The country has a vast
interior plateau rimmed by rugged hills and narrow coastal plain.
CURRENT ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: Lack of important arterial rivers or lakes requires extensive
water conservation and control measures; the growth in water usage is currently outpacing supply;
agricultural runoff and urban discharge are polluting rivers; air pollution is resulting in acid rain; while soil
erosion and desertification are also concerns. (CIA World Factbook)
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BACKGROUND:
Since the end of apartheid in 1993, South Africa has become the self-styled “Rainbow Nation,” and a potent
symbol of the possibilities for democratic transformation around the world. Although a long period of often
armed struggle preceded the eventual dismantling of the apartheid system, South Africa ultimately managed
the transition to nonracial, majority rule government peacefully in the end, electing longtime political
prisoner Nelson Mandela as president in 1994.
Today South Africa is a major tourist destination, attracting travelers with its exceptional physical beauty and
multicultural society. And yet for all its laudable accomplishments in the past two decades, post-apartheid
South Africa’s transition to an egalitarian society has not been perfect by any means and comes with
significant contradictions. Serious economic problems continue to plague the country, especially poverty—
including a persistent lack of economic power among the more disadvantaged groups—and poor public
transportation. Unemployment remains high despite impressive economic growth in the years immediately
preceding the global financial downturn of 2008. Outdated infrastructure is also a drag on the economy.
South Africa’s conservative economic policy focuses on controlling inflation, maintaining budget surpluses,
and operating state-owned enterprises to ensure low-cost basic services to low-income areas. Xenophobia,
including violence against foreign (mostly other African) groups, has also been on the rise.
Early pre-recorded history Southern Africa has been inhabited for thousands of years and although there is
no written history covering the years before the first sightings of South African land by European explorers
in the late 1400s, the earliest known evidence of human societies living in the region is that found in Peers
Cave in Fish Hoek (Cape Town), dating back some 12,000 to 15,000 years. Most of South Africa’s black
majority descends from Bantu language groups that migrated south from central Africa roughly 2000 years
ago. An even older population of Africans belonging to the Khoisan language groups also survives to this
day, albeit in much smaller numbers, in the western sections of the country. On the eastern coast, the
Nguni—descendents of Zulu and Xhosa peoples—have been a significant presence for centuries, since at
least 1500.
First European contact with Southern Africa in the 15th century In 1488, Portuguese explorers led by
Bartolomeu Dias—looking for a sea route to Asia, and in particular to the spice-laden markets of the Indian
subcontinent—reached the Cape of Good Hope, situated on the rocky Atlantic coast of Africa’s southern tip,
about 50 kilometers south of modern-day Cape Town. The event marked a significant breakthrough for the
development of European trade with the East, while for Southern Africa it pointed to the turbulent colonial
history to come. Other Portuguese followed Dias, including Vasco da Gama, but a permanent European
settlement only took hold when Dutch traders, working for the Dutch East India Company, established a way
station on the Cape in 1652. The Cape Colony, as it was called, began with the establishment of Cape Town
but later stretched eastward to include roughly half of present-day South Africa. Cape Town grew slowly,
however, and labor shortages eventually encouraged importation of slave labor from Indonesia and
Madagascar—a population whose descendents formed some of the first so-called “colored” communities of
the Western Cape. Also in the decades following the founding of Cape Town, waves of colonial migrants
from Europe—made up of Dutch and Germans, as well as French Huguenot refugees fleeing religious
persecution—settled the area of the Western Cape. The descendents of these groups form the Afrikaner
population of South Africa.
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The far-reaching effects of colonial settlement on the native populations European settlers arrived in a
land that was already occupied. The European settlements impacted this population dramatically, socially
and politically, and led ultimately to the subjugation of the native “black” majority by a “white” minority.
The first frontier war between European settlers and native peoples was fought in 1779, as Dutch colonial
settlements encroached on the land of the Xhosa near the Great Fish River in what is today the Eastern Cape
province.
Arrival of the British In 1795, the British Empire, amid its war with France, took control of the Cape of
Good Hope from the Dutch East India Company, opening the way to British colonial settlement soon after.
The British returned Cape Colony to the Dutch in 1803 but then took control once more, just three years
later, with the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, anxious to protect the empire’s trade route to the East. Over the
following decades, British and Afrikaner colonials would engage in an often-violent struggle with each other
over the land, even as they cooperated in wresting it from the native inhabitants. In developing their hold on
the Cape, the British (like the Dutch before them), relied heavily on imported slave labor as a cheaper
alternative to European migration and expanding settlement. At the same time, the British introduced
discriminatory legislation to keep the native southwestern black population of Khoikhoi (called Hottentots by
the Europeans) from working for anything but the most minimal wages. The Hottentot Code of 1809 forced
Khoikhoi and other so-called “free blacks” to carry passes detailing their place of residence and their
employer. Without such a pass, a black African could be pressed into a labor contract with a white master.
British and Boer tensions The British sent armies several times to fight against the Xhosa people in the
south of the country to open up land for the cramped population of Afrikaner farmers (known as Boers); [the
British] finally drove the Xhosa permanently north of the Great Fish River in 1819, closing the frontier, and
opening up a large area of the south exclusively to smallholder farming. However, despite their general
support of Afrikaner farmers, the British Empire’s decision in 1807 to end participation in the slave trade
undermined the labor system these farmers relied on—a situation exacerbated by British missionaries’
criticism of the harsh practices meted out by farmers against black African laborers. These trends alienated
the Afrikaner population, and a situation that was further inflamed by closing of the frontier, which gradually
increased competition for farmland. By 1828, the British rescinded the Hottentot Code, and in 1833 the
British Parliament abolished slavery throughout most of the empire, including southern Africa. Another
sweep into Xhosa lands by the British army captured new areas for white settlement in 1834–35, but before
the Boers could take advantage of this the British concluded a peace settlement in 1836 that returned the land
to the Xhosa once more.
The Great Trek By 1836, the domination of British rule and British culture in much of the southern region
forced many Afrikaner farmers to move northward into the Transvaal region in a migration called the Great
Trek. The move led to conflict with the native tribes of the Transvaal, in particular the Zulus, who had
recently conquered a large stretch of territory (an area today known as KwaZulu-Natal), creating a vast
military state under their leader Shaka; Shaka was assassinated in 1828 and succeeded by half-brother
Dingane, who led the Zulus unsuccessfully against the Boers at the battle of Blood River in 1838. The Zulus
maintained a formidable presence in the region, however, and later resoundingly defeated British forces
during the Anglo-Zulu War at the battle of Isandlwana in 1879, despite the clear technological advantages of
the British. The concerted and much more ruthless response of the British to this unprecedented defeat by a
native force, however, would that same year destroy the independence of the Zulu nation.
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The Boer republics, discovery of diamonds and gold, and the onset of the Anglo-Boer Wars Even
before the defeat of the Zulu nation, the Afrikaner “Trekboers” established two independent Boer republics:
the Transvaal and the Orange Free State. But tensions with the British only increased. A large influx of
European, principally British, immigration and investment followed the discovery of diamonds in the
Northern Cape on the banks of the Orange River in 1870, followed by the discovery of gold in the Transvaal
in 1886. The demand for labor in these mines drew in many black Africans from neighboring countries as
well as native blacks. The conditions under which they were housed and managed by the mine owners set a
precedent throughout the region for years to come. Meanwhile, the Boer response to this influx, combined
with British moves toward annexing the territory, led to the outbreak of two Anglo-Boer Wars (1880–1881
and 1899–1902). The first war ended in a truce, the second ended with a British (Anglo) victory and British
annexation of the Boer republics.
The Union of South Africa forms in 1910 under rule of a white minority The two formerly independent
Boer republics merged with the British Cape and Natal colonies into a single dominion of the British Empire
on May 31, 1910. The South Africa Act of 1909, passed by British parliament, brought the Union of South
Africa, as the new entity was called. A self-governing dominion of the British Empire, its constitution united
British and Boer citizens in political power, and gave superior status and privileges to whites, while
effectively widening the status gulf between white and non-white. The constitution also made Dutch an
official language alongside English, though this was later replaced by Afrikaans (the Dutch-derived language
spoken by Afrikaners and mixed-race Coloreds, who are a majority language in the Northern and Western
Capes today). Unable to agree on the capital city, the Union divided principal features of a capital city among
three cities: Pretoria became the administrative capital; Cape Town became the seat of the parliament; and
Bloemfontein became the seat of the judiciary; these three distinct capitals remain in effect today. In 1931,
the Union moved to equal status with other lands under the British Commonwealth, which meant Britain
could no longer legislate on its behalf. In 1961, the Union became the present-day Republic of South Africa.
The origins and rise of the African National Congress On January 8, 1912, a group of activists for
equality among blacks and whites founded the South African Native National Congress in Bloemfontein,
with the aim of ending almost three centuries of white repression of blacks by eliminating all restrictions
based on color and gaining political power and representation for South Africa’s black majority. The
organization began in response to anti-black laws such as the 1913 Land Act, designed to force black
populations from their farms and into the towns and cities to work as cheap labor (which also served to
restrict their movements and the places they could live). In 1925, the organization became known as the
African National Congress (ANC), but underwent a sharp decline in the mid-1930s, partly eclipsed by other
militant organizations like the formerly whites-only Communist Party, with which it refused to ally. The
ANC did not become politically relevant again until the mid-1940s, when young radical members, including
Nelson Mandela, led it away from the passive resistance approach of years past toward a nationalist-style
mass movement.
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The rise of the white-supremacist National Party and the establishment of apartheid In 1948, the farright National Party (NP) came to power in all-white elections; the National Party would rule South Africa
for the next half century (until 1994). The new government passed laws that laid the foundation for an even
more rigid system of racial segregation and white domination, a system that became known as “apartheid”
(after the Afrikaner word for “separateness”). Specific racial groups were codified, making them official
legal categories: “black,” “white,” “colored,” and “Indian.” Residential areas were forcibly segregated by
racial category. “Bantustans” were areas officially reserved for Bantu-speaking groups of black Africans
during this time. The term bantustan was later replaced in the 1970s and 80s by “homeland” or “national
state.” There were ten such homelands by the 1980s, often overcrowded, with some divided up into as many
as a dozen discrete pieces of land.
Colored Africans were often forcibly removed to underdeveloped suburban neighborhoods called townships
(see below). A March 1960 anti-apartheid protest in the Sharpeville township turned into a notorious
massacre, in which police killed 69 protesters and injured 186. The massacre jolted the international
community into recognizing the horrors of South Africa’s apartheid regime. Mass protests were sparked
across the country as well, most violently crushed by the forces of the government, which declared a state of
emergency, making further protests illegal. Mass arrests followed as well as the official banning of antiapartheid organizations, including the ANC and the Pan Africanist Congress (the PAC, formed by former
ANC members in 1959, had organized the Sharpeville protest).
The ANC during the apartheid years The years leading up to the Sharpeville Massacre were marked by
massive unrest, organized resistance (including strikes and campaigns against pass laws), and armed clashes
between white authorities and black militants. In 1961, the ANC, banned in the wake of Sharpeville, went
underground and continued operating covertly, meanwhile forming a military wing called Umkhonto we
Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), or MK, to “hit back by all means within our power in defense of our people,
our future, and our freedom.” MK used guerilla warfare and sabotage in continuing the struggle against the
apartheid regime. Meanwhile, Nelson Mandela and other anti-apartheid leaders were arrested and imprisoned
on charges of treason against the state, which in 1961 withdrew from the British Commonwealth (in part
over international protests against the apartheid system) and declared itself an independent republic.
National and international struggle leads to the end of the apartheid era In 1984, South Africa created a
new constitution that granted “coloreds” (i.e., mixed-race people, normally of mixed Afrikaner and black
African ancestry) as well as Asians (Indians and Malays) limited roles in national government and limited
control over their own affairs. However, blacks remained completely disenfranchised and real power still
remained firmly in white hands. By 1986, popular uprisings in black and colored townships in the 1970s and
1980s—and probably also the mounting international protests and organized campaigns against South
African apartheid in many countries, including the United States—had persuaded some members of the allwhite NP to open a secret dialogue with Nelson Mandela. Mandela had by then already spent some 20 years
in prison, much of it on the notorious Robben Island, like many other political prisoners at the time. The
discussions eventually encouraged significant changes with senior NP officials. In 1990, recently elected
President F.W. de Klerk officially withdrew the ban on anti-apartheid groups, including the ANC and PAC.
Two weeks later, the government released Mandela from prison after 27 years.
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The establishment of majority rule in South Africa under an ANC government The year after
Mandela’s release, the South African government under de Klerk abolished the last legal cornerstones of the
apartheid system, including the Group Areas Act (see below), the Land Acts, and the pass laws contained in
the Population Registration Act. Negotiations with ANC leaders and others finally resulted in a new
constitution coming into effect at the end of 1993, leading in turn to South Africa’s first nonracial elections
in April 1994. These elections made longtime anti-apartheid crusader and political prisoner Nelson Mandela
the country’s first black African president. Mandela’s party, the ANC, has dominated South African politics
since then. During Mandela’s five-year term as president, the government addressed many social issues
neglected in years past, including housing shortages, unemployment, and crime. It also sought further
integration for South Africa into the global economy through a market-driven economic plan. Mandela’s
term also stressed national reconciliation, establishing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, under
Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to air the crimes and lingering grief and grievances suffered by the population
emerging from the “long night” of apartheid. In these first years, the political violence that had racked the
country for so long greatly diminished.
Thabo Mbeki succeeds Mandela in 1997 Mandela stepped down as president of the ANC in December
1997, passing the party’s leadership to deputy president and longtime ANC stalwart Thabo Mbeki. After the
national elections in 1999, Mbeki became South Africa’s second post-apartheid president; although elected
for a second term, he resigned before completing it in the face of scandals that led to his being “recalled” by
his party. Mbeki’s administrations focused on economic growth overall and greater economic power for the
black majority. During his time, he oversaw the expansion of a black middle class, but a lack of satisfactory
improvement with respect to poverty and other development issues led in 2007 to a shift of support away
from Mbeki and toward Jacob Zuma, another ANC stalwart with a strong following who beat out Mbeki in
elections for the leadership of the ANC that year. Mbeki was “recalled” by the ANC the following year and
resigned as president as a result. He was replaced by Kgalema Motlanthe, who served out the rest of his term.
Motlanthe then became deputy president when Jacob Zuma ascended to the presidency after the general
elections in April 2009. Although the ANC won a majority in those elections (65%), the broadly centrist
Democratic Alliance, with 16% of the vote, managed to come to power in the Western Cape, which thereby
became the only province the ANC does not govern.
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 15
SOUTH AFRICA TODAY:
President Jacob Zuma Initial elation over the election of populist figure Jacob Zuma rapidly cooled over
the proceeding months. Serious economic woes sparked a wave of strikes among miners, doctors, train
drivers, construction workers, and many others in the first half of 2009 that amounted to a loss of more than
half a million working days. At the same time, some of South Africa’s poorest citizens have been mobilizing
in large numbers, impatient with the dire living conditions they face more than 15 years after the end of
apartheid. Some of the unrest in the townships has sparked violent clashes with police. Media coverage was
quick to paint Zuma as ineffectual and out of touch with these events.
Xenophobic violence Attacks against African immigrants from Zimbabwe and Mozambique erupted across
the country in 2008, in shocking displays of violence not witnessed since the apartheid era. High
unemployment and epidemic levels of crime among township populations are fanning the resentments and
suspicions channeled at foreigners, who become convenient scapegoats for systemic crises. Such outbursts of
xenophobic violence have drawn public attention to the inability of the ANC-led government to adequately
address the crisis in unemployment and low living standards for those at the bottom of the nation’s social and
economic hierarchies. Unemployment levels in townships remain well above 25%, which is the national
average, while the citizens here often lack basic services as well.
The 2010 Football World Cup and the Shack Dwellers Movement In the summer of 2010, South Africa
became the first African nation to host the FIFA World Cup soccer championship, the world’s largest
sporting event. Ahead of the tournament, however, came evictions of poor South Africans and attacks on a
20,000-member strong representative movement that had arisen among them, Abahlali baseMjondolo (the
name is Zulu for “people who live in shacks”; the shack dwellers’ movement demands the right to suitable
housing in the city for its poor). In September 2009, preceding the World Cup in Durban, where a new
stadium was being completed for the championship, an armed mob attacked a settlement of shack dwellers
who had been threatened with evictions under the government’s slum clearance policies. The attack left two
people dead and forced Abahlali baseMjondolo’s leader, Sbu Zikode, into hiding.
Science fiction film District 9 based on the fate of a real-life Cape Town community South African
director Neill Blomkamp studied the real world of Cape Town’s District Six in preparing the scenario for his
2009 sci-fi hit, District 9. District Six was a highly diverse and cosmopolitan section of the city near the port,
a densely populated mixed community of mostly coloreds (see above), black Africans (called Natives in the
apartheid era), Indians, Malays, and Chinese. But this changed drastically after 1966. That year the South
African government invoked an infamous piece of apartheid-era legislation, called the Group Areas Act, to
declare District Six “whites only,” removing its non-white inhabitants from an area deemed too valuable and
desirable for anything but white settlement. (The official reasons for the removal of the community
emphasized its supposedly volatile mixing of races and high incidence of crime and vice). Over the next 15
years, District Six was cleansed of its former inhabitants, through almost 70,000 evictions. Because those
deemed non-white were not legally permitted to live in Cape Town at large, most of those evicted were
moved into ramshackle government housing in Cape Flats, a barren and isolated stretch of the city that soon
became an urban ghetto, plagued by poverty and crime, with an overcrowded population reaching nearly one
million. Many of the residents evicted from District Six would settle in Mitchell’s Plain (see below), the
setting for Shirley Adams. Recently, the ANC-led South African government has begun a process of restoring
District Six, and families with former claims to the area have begun applying for housing there. Cape Town’s
District Six Museum, meanwhile, commemorates the historic community and its violent dissolution as an
instructive legacy of the apartheid era.
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 16
REFERENCES FROM THE FILM:
The “Colored” population During the apartheid era (1948–1994), the National Party-led government used
the term “Colored” to describe one of four official racial groups codified in law (the others were “Blacks,”
“Whites,” and “Indians,” all terms being capitalized in apartheid-era statutes). Colored referred to people of
“mixed race,” and most commonly people of both Dutch and African ancestry. Although they suffered severe
discrimination under apartheid, the colored population generally has more in common culturally with the
white population, especially the Afrikaners, sharing the same language and, in most cases, religion. There is
a minority colored group of Cape Malays (like Shirley and Donovan’s devoted neighbors Kariema and
Kareim) who are Muslim.
Mitchell’s Plain Shirley Adams and her son Donovan live in a large and mostly colored township called
Mitchell’s Plain. (Under apartheid, the term “township” referred to an urban living area reserved for nonwhites, and more often than not was underdeveloped and located on the outskirts of a town or city; the term
persists today, though in a less pejorative sense.) Located about 20 kilometers outside of Cape Town, in the
area known as Cape Flats, Mitchell’s Plain was built in the 1970s to receive members of the colored
population who had been uprooted from their former homes, including District Six under the authority of the
Group Areas Act—apartheid-era legislation that allowed for choice land to be designated “whites only” (see
above). Today, in post-apartheid South Africa, there are no longer legal restrictions dictating where people of
differing ethnic or racial makeup may or may not live. However, the government has forced the removal to
townships of poor communities living in unofficial urban shack settlements. Moreover, in the post-apartheid
era, local communities remain bound together by things like shared histories, common language, economic
status, and ethnicity. Most of Mitchell’s Plain [nearly two million residents] are people who were, or whose
parents were, legally designated “Colored” under the apartheid regime (see above). As reflected by the
dialogue in the film, people in Mitchell’s Plain generally speak a distinctive version of Afrikaans as well as
English. As also depicted in Shirley Adams, this Cape Town suburb is known as a high crime area, plagued
by gang violence and drug abuse.
Unemployment and gang violence among South African youth As discussed above, South African
society has been wrestling with high levels of unemployment overall, but levels of joblessness in colored
townships like Mitchell’s Plain can be much higher still than the national average. Mitchell’s Plain also
suffers from high levels of homelessness, drug addiction, crime, and gangsterism. The young men attracted
to gang life have few tangible options for employment or careers. Moreover, local communities in Mitchell's
Plain are often fragmented, families often broken up, and thus the communities can offer little in way of
support or competing social models to alienated youth drawn to the social networks offered by gangs.
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Page 17
Sources for Profile of South Africa and Background:
University of Texas at Austin (map)
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/south_africa_pol_2005.jpg
BBC Country Profile
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/country_profiles/1071886.stm
CIA World Factbook
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sf.html
iExplore
http://www.iexplore.com/dmap/South+Africa/Overview
Library of Congress – A Country Study: South Africa
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/zatoc.html
Encyclopedia Britannica
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/555568/South-Africa
US State Department – Background Note
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2898.htm
Newsweek – on South Africa’s District 6 as inspiration for the sci-fi film District 9
http://www.newsweek.com/id/213805/output/print
Abahlali baseMjondolo – Shackdwellers’ Movement
http://www.abahlali.org/
Global Issues – Unemployment among South African Youth
http://www.globalissues.org/news/2009/06/30/1984
Democracy Now – South Africa’s poor targeted for evictions ahead of 2010 World Cup
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/10/1/south_africas_poor_targeted_by_evictions
©2010 The CW Film Foundation, Inc. All Rights Reserved.