Film producer Ross Garland says Constitutional Court Judge Edwin Cameron’s accusations of homophobia in Spud: The Movie disregard artistic freedom and could constitute defamation.
In a letter that appeared on the blog Constitutionally Speaking, Judge Cameron said the film contained references that were homophobic and would condone violence against gays and lesbians.
The film is based on the first of the acclaimed Spud novels written by KwaZulu-Natal playwright, actor and author John van de Ruit, about a boy named John “Spud” Milton and his adventures at a boarding school in the Midlands in the early 1990s.
In the letter, Judge Cameron praises the film for its “fine acting, excellent cinematography, and sensitive direction”, but said his experience of it had been spoilt by “the casual denigration of gays – the amiable gay-hating incidents – that occasionally spike up in the movie”.
“They start with the John Cleese character denouncing Virginia Woolf and another novelist as lesbians. He owns (of course) that he has nothing against lesbians – in fact, he says, he would like to give them all a thorough ‘rogering’. At the Waterfront Nu Metro last night, this evoked a big laugh,” he said.
He found it “distressful” that a South African-made movie, with a South African producer, could reflect this speech. “Its effect cannot be other than to condone that sort of violence besetting lesbians in our country.
“Yet you must know, Ross, that it is exactly this impulse that is imperilling the safety and the lives of lesbians in townships throughout the country, and appears to have resulted in several brutal murders. Middle-class academics and discussants call it ‘corrective rape’. But to township lesbians it is a constant and benighted horror – the need butch men express to set their sexuality at rights, by giving them a thorough ‘rogering’,” he said.
Judge Cameron cited examples in Africa where homosexuals had been brutally punished for their sexual orientation, and referred to other instances in the film where he believed characters “connived with these impulses”.
“I think of the underpants-collector who is accused of ‘faggotism’ – and of the cringing scene showing the ineffectually simpering rugby coach, clearly depicted as an effeminate gay man, exhorting his team to give ‘more pressure in the rear’ (a ‘joke’ that was already current, and made me cringe, when I was a teen struggling with my own sexuality at Pretoria Boys’ High in the late 1960s).”
He said the film was politically correct on other issues, such as black/white relations and a pupil’s Jewishness not being “sneered” at.
Garland responded that Judge Cameron was the first to complain publicly about homophobia in the book and film in the five years since Spud was published.
“With readers and audiences across the country being moved by the story of a vulnerable boy who learns to find his own voice and thereby overcome the bullying and bigotry at his school in 1990, it is hard to fathom how Justice Cameron arrived at his opinion,” he said.
“It is also alarming to have a Constitutional Court judge demonstrate such disregard for free expression and artistic works. Fictional characters should not be censored because they offend the personal tastes of one individual, irrespective of the position that person holds in society.”
Garland said he was taking advice on whether the publication of the letter was defamatory.
Van de Ruit declined to comment on the issue.
Pietermaritzburg Gay and Lesbian Network director Anthony Waldhausen supported Judge Cameron. “We have done research into homophobia in Pietermaritzburg recently, and we have found many incidents of hate crime being experienced by the gay and lesbian community,” he said. “That kind of statement (referring to Cleese’s lines in the film) would fall into verbal hate crime. It is insensitive and lesbians watching the film would certainly have been hurt by the statements. They (the film-makers) did not think of the consequences.”
Durban Gay and Lesbian Community and Health Centre manager Nonhlanhla Mkhize said although she had not watched the film, the scene in question had brought up unpleasant memories for an acquaintance.
“What seemed a harmless joke in the film is unfortunately a reality in our schools,” she said. “This scene reminded someone I know of the hardship she went through at a girls’ boarding school and of having to deal with her sexual orientation. There must have been something in the movie to have raised such emotion in her. We are not yet in a position where we can joke about these things. We understand that it is difficult for film-makers in these instances. This issue is a reawakening, telling us that we have to be cautious when dealing with these issues.”
Constitutional rights analyst Ayesha Kajee said Judge Cameron’s letter was “strange” because he was a judge in the Constitutional Court.
“As a judge of the Constitutional Court, he is meant to uphold freedom of expression, to the limit of hate speech, which is given to us in the constitution,” said Kajee.
“The authors of our constitution deliberately gave us this right because they wanted us to be free to talk about any issues and not be pushed underground. Any discriminatory sentiment essentially does not stand up to debate; it becomes exposed for the ugly, nasty thing it is, and we grow as a society from this.” - The Mercury