Luna's second Call for Papers, 'The Evolution of African Fantasy and Science Fiction' will be released on Tuesday the 7th of August 2018. Explore the five brilliant papers you will find in the book.
Today, we introduce you to Robert S Malan (South Africa). He is presenting the paper: "Portrayals of South Africans in Popular Entertainment: Bad Accented Baddies, Prawns and Black Panther".
Robert says:
"A lot has happened in a relatively short period for South Africa, since it became a Republic in 1961, independent from British rule. It has been especially interesting to note the changing perception of South Africans in popular entertainment, from the lows of international sanctions as a consequence of apartheid, to when this shameful period was officially ended, by way of Nelson Mandela’s release in 1990 and election as President in 1994. Even after this, however, portrayals tended to be a little one-note.
The purpose of this paper is to examine these depictions of South Africans internationally during the apartheid years, and how this evolved in the wake of the science fiction movie District 9 and its follow-up, Chappie. Expanding on from that, we’ll examine how illustrative these movies were of South Africa as a multi-racial country and, beyond that, representations of Africans in the wider entertainment industry. For this, we’ll look at how the recent Black Panther movie marks a breakthrough moment for Africa."
As always, you will be able to pre-order at a discount through the Luna website, and if you are subscribed to our newsletter, you will also get the special extra discount voucher on the 1st of July.