A STUDY GUIDE by Fiona Edwards
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A STUDY GUIDE BY FIONA EDWARDS http://www.metromagazine.com.au ISBN-13-978-1-74295-011-2 http://www.theeducationshop.com.au Skin (Anthony Fabian, 2009) is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa. Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners who are unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, and lovingly bring her up as their ‘white’ little girl. But at the age her husband’s rage and her daughter’s predicament. of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society. Sandra elopes with Petrus to Skin is the story of Sandra’s thirty-year journey from Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, rejection to acceptance and from betrayal to reconciliation, has them arrested and Sandra is as she struggles to define her place in a changing world imprisoned for three months. Sandra and ultimately triumphs against all odds. is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses as she is pregnant with her first child. THE STORY Sandra’s parents are shocked, and Having made the choice to be with Abraham fights through the courts Petrus, Sandra begins a life in a black iving in a country ruled by a (and the media) in an attempt to have township that has no running water legal system that segregated its the classification reversed. and no sanitation and which offers few Lpopulation based on the colour opportunities to make a living. She of their skin, ten-year-old Sandra The Population Registration Act of and Petrus have two children; in order stands out as being distinctly African 1950, which required that each inhab- to keep them, Sandra has herself looking. Her parents, Abraham (Sam itant of South Africa be classified and reclassified as ‘black’. While she feels Neill) and Sannie (Alice Krige), are registered in accordance with their more at home in the black town- white Afrikaners unaware of their black racial characteristics, was amended ship community, Sandra desperately ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a so that a person’s colour was deter- misses her parents and yearns for a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal mined on parentage, not on skin col- reunion. and, despite Sandra’s mixed-race ap- our alone; after this, Sandra becomes pearance, have brought her up as their officially ‘white’ again. Sandra, Petrus and their family are ‘white’ little girl. forcibly relocated and any chance But by the time she is seventeen, of ever reuniting with her parents Sandra is sent to a whites-only Sandra realises she is never going appears remote. Sandra and Petrus’ boarding school in the neighbouring to be accepted by the white com- relationship soon disintegrates and town of Piet Retief, where her (white) munity. She falls in love with Petrus Sandra is forced to flee with her brother Leon (Hannes Brummer) (Tony Kgoroge), a black man and children to Johannesburg, where she SCREEN EDUCATION is also studying, but parents and local vegetable seller, and they begin goes to the home of a relative. While teachers complain that she doesn’t an illicit love affair. When he learns of she speaks to her mother by phone, belong. She is examined by state the relationship, Abraham threatens her mother does not disclose her officials, reclassified as ‘coloured’ and to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. location nor initiate any reconciliation. promptly expelled from the school. Meanwhile, Sannie is torn between 2 Upon the death of her father, Sandra receives some money from his estate and uses the authorities to track down her mother, who by this time is living dramatise the life of an important straight dramatic films? in a nursing home following a stroke. historical person (or group) from the • Did the movie stay true to real A tearful and emotional reunion occurs past or present. Sometimes, historical events? and this is the catalyst for Sandra to biopics stretch the truth and tell a • Did the movie seem to embellish come to terms with her life and who life story with varying degrees of the truth – if so how could the she is. accuracy. audience tell? • What kind of research was under- Skin is a story of family, forgiveness Big-screen biopics cross many genre taken? Did the filmmaker under- and the triumph of the human spirit. types, as the films might variously be take primary research (eyewitness about an outlaw; a criminal; a com- accounts, interviews and original CURRICULUM LINKS poser; a religious figure or leader of a documents) or secondary research movement; a military hero; an enter- (summary, collation and/or synthe- Skin would be enjoyed by middle and tainer; an artist; an inventor, scientist sis of existing research)? senior secondary students of English, or doctor; a politician or president; a • What kind of restrictions does a History, Family Studies, Psychology, sports hero or celebrity; or an adven- biopic place on a filmmaker? SOSE/HSIE, Sociology, Values turer. Education and related subjects, and BEFORE VIEWING Media and Film Studies (particularly In many cases, these films put an Film as Text, Cinema Studies and emphasis on the larger events (wars, Sandra Laing’s story is set against Screenwriting). political or social conditions) surround- the backdrop of a racially segregated ing the person’s entire life as they rise South Africa. GENRE to fame and glory. Some begin with the person’s childhood, but others Before seeing the movie, it is impor- This is a feature film that is based on a concentrate on adult achievements. tant to spend some time discussing true story and which can be classified the politics and history of South Africa. as a biopic – a subgenre of the larger Biopics have existed since the earliest drama and epic film genres. Although days of silent cinema; examples are Apartheid was a system of legal racial the biopic reached the peak of its pop- French filmmaker Georges Méliès’ segregation enforced by the National ularity in the 1930s, it has remained a feature-length epic Jeanne D’Arc Party government of South Africa key genre to this day. (1900), Joan the Woman (Cecil B. between 1948 and 1993, under which DeMille, 1916) and the religious epic the rights of the majority ‘non-white’ It is important to remember that while Judith of Bethulia (D.W. Griffith, 1914). inhabitants of South Africa were the essence of the film is true, other curtailed and minority rule by white elements have been added to ensure STUDENT ACTIVITY people was maintained. SCREEN EDUCATION that the film works dramatically. Discuss the biopics that you have While racial segregation in South Af- ‘Biopic’ is a term derived from the seen. rica began in colonial times, apartheid combination of the words ‘biography’ as an official policy was introduced and ‘picture’. These films depict and • How different are they from following the general election of 1948. 3 STUDENT ACTIVITY The South African rebel tours were a series of seven cricket tours staged between 1982 and 1990. They were known as the rebel tours because South Africa was banned from inter- national cricket due to the apartheid With the enactment of apartheid books’ containing fingerprints, a photo regime. As such, the tours were laws, racial discrimination became and information on access to non- organised and conducted despite institutionalised. Marriage between black areas. the express disapproval of national non-whites and whites was prohibited, cricket boards and governments, the whites and non-white neighbourhoods From 1958, black people were International Cricket Conference [now were segregated, and many jobs were deprived of their citizenship, legally the International Cricket Council] and classified ‘white only’. In 1950, the becoming citizens of one of ten trib- international organisations including Population Registration Act required ally based self-governing homelands the United Nations. that all South Africans be racially called bantustans, four of which classified into one of three categories: became nominally independent states. The tours were the subject of white, black (African) or coloured (of As well as employment, the govern- enormous contemporaneous mixed decent). The coloured category ment segregated education, medical controversy and remain a sensitive also included major subgroups of In- care and a range of amenities such topic throughout the cricket- dians and Asians. Classifications were as parks and beaches, seats, toilets, playing world. based on appearance, social accept- waiting rooms and water fountains. ance and descent. A white person was Government services provided to Australian rebel cricket tours went to defined as ‘in appearance obviously black people were vastly inferior to South Africa in 1985–86 and 1986–87. a white person or generally accepted those for white people. as a white person’. A person could • Research media articles about the not be considered white if one of his • Many countries opposed rebel tours. or her parents were non white. The apartheid in South Africa. How • What was public opinion? determination that a person was ‘obvi- was this demonstrated? • How were the cricketers viewed ously white’ would take into account • What is the rationale behind in Australia and received in South ‘his habits, education, and speech and boycotts? Africa? deportment and demeanor’. A black • What did Australians do to show • You are a journalist writing for person would be of or accepted as a their disgust at the regime? the sports page of a metropolitan SCREEN EDUCATION member of an African tribe or race, • Sport and politics. Discuss the newspaper. Write a 400-word while a coloured person was neither involvement of sport in bringing opinion piece on the rebel tours. black nor white. Non-compliance with down apartheid in South Africa.