“While You Weren’t Looking”
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| Petronella Tshuma and Thishiwe Ziqubu as lovers from the opposite sides of the tracks in Catherine Stewart's "While You Weren't Looking" |
The
thesis of Catherine Stewart’s new film While
You Weren’t Looking, which opened on 2 October, is made explicit by the
lovelorn gay lecturer Mack (Lionel Newton), who tells his students, “If you
can ‘queer’ gender, you can ‘queer’ anything.” He means that the
broad-mindedness of the openly homosexual, bisexual, and sexually explorative
characters in the film – as well as those who approvingly accept them – is
precisely what is required for South African society to move into the
non-racial, non-sexist, progressive state to which it aspires.
Noble
though the film’s position be, it fails to match this vision with artistry.
With its clumsy dialogue and artificial performances, the film doesn’t take a
sympathetic look at the lives of queer South Africans as much as it retreads
jaded stereotypes – the gay art lovers, the gaudy feather boas – and tries (and
fails) to kindle discussion on the problems they face. We have a gorgeously
inclusive Constitution, as the characters assert, but in spite of this – or,
perhaps, because of it – problems still arise.