ABSTRACT

The year 1997 marked the release of Mohamed Camara’s film Dakan, which centers on two young men entangled in a homoerotic affair. Africa’s first LGBT film produced by an African filmmaker, Dakan featured explicit scenes of homoerotic love on the cinematic screen. While the film, upon its release, invited negative criticisms from Guinea where the plot of the film was set, it was paradoxically heralded in Europe and the United States as marking Africa’s triumphant entry into the liberal LGBT world. I pose the following questions: How does the film’s renunciation of heterosexual permanence valorize homoerotic possibility? How do the attempts by the young men’s parents’ to constrain them, through ritual practices, forced marriage, and the promise of wealth, create an archive of homosexual panic and enforce a postcolonial heteronationalist disorder? I argue that the film, unlike consequent documentaries on the situation of LGBT human rights in Africa, foregrounds a uniquely resilient queer African agency that nevertheless envisions a future of uncertainty.

摘要

1997年标志着穆罕默德·卡马拉（Mohamed Camara）的电影《达坎》（Dakan）的发行，该片的重点是两个纠缠在同性恋事件中的年轻人。非洲电影人达坎生产的非洲第一部LGBT电影在电影屏幕上以同性恋色情的鲜明场景为特色。影片上映后，引起了影片情节的几内亚的批评，但在欧洲和美国却自相矛盾地预示着这是非洲成功进入自由LGBT世界的标志。我提出以下问题：电影对异性永久性的放弃如何评估同性恋的可能性？年轻人的父母通过仪式习俗，强迫婚姻和对财富的承诺来限制他们的企图如何造成同性恋恐慌的档案，并造成后殖民异族主义障碍？我认为这部电影与随后的纪录片有关非洲LGBT人权状况的纪录片不同，