ABNORMATIVITIES: QUEER/GENDER/EMBODIMENT Scott Herring, Series Editor PREVENTION GENDER, SEXUALITY, HIV, AND THE MEDIA IN CÔTE D’IVOIRE CHRISTINE CYNN THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS COLUMBUS This edition licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial- NoDerivs License. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2018020066 Cover image: Aboudia. Untitled, 2013. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 198 x 124 cm (00557). Image courtesy Jack Bell Gallery, London. Cover design by Susan Zucker Text design by Juliet Williams Type set in Adobe Minion Pro The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials. ANSI Z39.48-1992. CONTENTS List of Illustrations vi Acknowledgments ix INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 1 AIDS as an “Imaginary Syndrome”: Humor as Negotiation of Racism, Austerity, and the Single-Party State 18 CHAPTER 2 Popular Satiric State Television Programs and HIV Prevention 50 CHAPTER 3 Regulating Female Reproductive Potential: Abortion and Family as HIV Prevention 95 CHAPTER 4 The Melodrama and the Social Marketing of HIV Prevention 138 CHAPTER 5 “Stay away from unhealthy places”: Sex Work, Condoms, and the NGO 169 AFTERWORD 203 Bibliography 209 Index 229 ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURE 1.1 Sketch of “Moussa” 28 FIGURE 1.2 AIDS is there . IT KILLS 46 FIGURE 1.3 Ivorian athlete Gabriel Tiacoh 47 FIGURE 1.4 Emaciated bodies as index of the truth of AIDS 48 FIGURE 1.5 Television spot: “AIDS is not a joke. It exists.” 49 FIGURE 2.1 Badoté’s body marked by sores 70 FIGURE 2.2 Sores on Badoté’s face 71 FIGURE 2.3 Kaloua as boss 72 FIGURE 2.4 Woman handing her partner the condom she demands that they use 76 FIGURE 2.5 Kaloua to Delta: “Do you see the tears that flow?” 79 FIGURE 2.6 Kaloua’s tears convert to laughter as Delta weeps offscreen 80 FIGURE 2.7 Wintin Wintin to woman: “Do you know that I love you?” 87 FIGURE 2.8 Patas monkey looks on skeptically 88 FIGURE 2.9 Wintin Wintin relaxing with his condom [chaussettes, or socks] on 89 Illustrations vii FIGURE 2.10 Wintin Wintin insisting that he did not come 90 FIGURE 2.11 Woman to Wintin Wintin: “Isn’t this your sperm in my hand?” 91 FIGURE 3.1 Jeanne and Sister Catherine 102 FIGURE 3.2 Supervisor with Kouako 104 FIGURE 3.3 Prudence Condoms campaign 115 FIGURE 3.4 “Life” advising the group about anal mucous membranes 120 FIGURE 3.5 Agent of progress Kafongo 125 FIGURE 3.6 A mysterious fortuneteller 126 FIGURE 3.7 Slow dissolve of Mado screaming in labor 127 FIGURE 3.8 Fatou believing that she is barred from producing children 130 FIGURE 3.9 Reverse shot of the children playing in the schoolyard 131 FIGURE 4.1 Adams as he attempts to put a condom on a prosthetic penis 154 FIGURE 4.2 Adams’s mother warning her daughter-in-law 155 FIGURE 4.3 Juliette urging Nathalie to calm down 161 FIGURE 4.4 Nathalie’s mother overhearing Alex trying to end his engagement 162 FIGURE 4.5 Nathalie and Alex arguing about testing for HIV 163 FIGURE 4.6 Nathalie and her mother 164 FIGURE 5.1 Condoms being used to sell drinks of water 176 FIGURE 5.2 Second wife learning that “in your blood . there is the AIDS virus” 186 FIGURE 5.3 Doctor reminding women, “Trust is good, but Prudence is best” 194 FIGURE 5.4 Amah as entrepreneur engaged in “real work” 197 FIGURE 5.5 Amah and Boni celebrating 200 FIGURE 5.6 Fortuna instructing a support group about HIV/AIDS 201 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ALTHOUGH RESEARCH and writing can be solitary enterprises, many people have participated directly and indirectly in this book’s production, and I am happy to publicly acknowledge them. I would never have finished graduate school and become an academic without the support of Lisa Estreich, Kim F. Hall, and Hiram Pérez. I am inspired by Hiram’s and Kim’s brilliant scholarship and continue to rely on their advice as I navigate through the university. Lisa helped me locate sources, edited drafts, dug a path in the snow, and mailed me letters, for which I thank her. At certain critical moments, Sarita See offered clear-eyed counsel that I appreciate even more in retrospect. A Fulbright research and teaching award from the Council for Interna- tional Exchange of Scholars in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, made it possible for me to begin this project. In Abidjan, Konan Amani was—and continues to be—an invaluable colleague and friend. Aghi Bahi, Koffi Olivier Koffi, and Angèle Gnako were generous with their time and expertise. I thank Brahima Koné and Mamadou Zongo for translating song lyrics for this book (though all responsibility for errors are mine), as well as Jeff Barnes and Alexis Don Zigré for patiently responding to my many questions. Kamagaté Allassana was an indefatigable fellow traveler. I am glad that Ama is still in my life, along with Aïcha, Matou, Kadi (Christine!), and Malik. They are busily engaged in building futures that I eagerly await to see unfold. ix x • ACKnowledgments The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation provided a postdoctoral fellowship in the Women’s, Gender and Sexualities Department at Barnard College, and I thank Abosede George, Rebecca Jordan-Young, Tally Kampen, Irena Klepfisz, Amanda Swarr, Neferti Tadiar, and especially Janet Jakobsen for providing such a congenial space for me to engage in research. The Director of Afri- cana Studies at Barnard, Kim F. Hall, invited me to split the fellowship, and the years I spent working with her, and teaching for and traveling with the program, continue to inform and inspire my scholarship. In New York City, a queer reading group that included Lisa Estreich, Maja Horn, Hiram Pérez, and Chi-ming Yang provided generative feedback on early drafts of chapters. At Andover, Steph Curci, Jeff Domina, Tasha Hawthorne, Tom Kane, LaShonda Long, Temba Maqubela, Megan Paulson, and Flavia Vidal were wel- coming friends and colleagues, and I am grateful for the support that enabled me to continue to research and write. At Virginia Commonwealth University, a Humanities Research Center Residential Fellowship made it possible for me to spend a semester engaging with Leigh Ann Craig, Kathryn Shively, and Sachi Shimomura in rich interdisciplinary collaborations and conversations that have shaped this book. The Humanities Research Center and the Global Education Office provided funding to conduct essential research in Paris. The Humanities Research Center also awarded travel grants that enabled me to attend conferences where I presented portions of this book in Montreal and Utrecht, and I am very grateful to the center and to its director, Richard God- beer. A reading group that included Myrl Beam, Jesse Goldstein, Samaneh Oladi Ghadikolaei, Brandi T. Summers, and Cristina Stanciu read significant portions of this manuscript and encouraged me to clarify some of my claims. I am as grateful for their sharp readings as for their good-humored camarade- rie and snacks. As I have made my way through VCU, Karen Rader has been a wonderful friend and mentor. I deeply appreciate her support and that of Kathy Ingram, Chair of the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, as well as the friendship of Liz Canfield and Jenny Rhee. Students have been indispensable in putting this book together, and I appreciate the careful work of Danielle Deshazor, Memunatu Koroma, Frankie Ann Mas- trangelo, Leah Thomas, and especially Alexius Houchens. Jennifer Brier and Vinh-Kim Nguyen were kind enough to read early drafts of what became a book proposal and, eventually, this book. Karen M. Booth, Ashley Currier, and Adeline Masquelier were tremendously encouraging read- ers, and I thank them for their valuable comments and suggestions. Kristen Elias Rowley at The Ohio State University Press has been a vital supporter and a judicious editor who helped to make the publication process much less stressful than I had feared. Many thanks to her and to Scott Herring, the edi- ACKnowledgments • xi tor of the Abnormativities Series, in which I am proud to participate. The lively cover art is by Aboudia, and I am grateful to the artist and Jack Bell Gal- lery for permitting me to reproduce it. A community in Richmond, which has included Elaine Bragg, Gigi and Stephen Curtin, Alyson Davis, Tania Fernan- dez, Sonali Gulati, Rosana McGann and Phyllis Aqui-Anwar, Nikhil and Urvi Neelakantan, and Beth Seward, have helped on the home front. Friends from long ago have seen me through multiple iterations of my work and life: Susan Caskie, Mare Diaz, Jen Holleran, Kit Leaning, Rob Shin, and Jen Sinton. Liam A. Donohoe has been a stalwart supporter during all these years. Finally, I thank Hyoun-Shin, Kenneth, Di, Michael, Jen, Pat, Mike, Tonya, Karen, Rob, Milo, Nico, Isaac, Isla, and especially Ibrahim, who has grown up alongside this book and who has so persistently and persuasively reminded me when I must set it aside and why I must finish it. The questions that eventually led to this book were first posed to me by women living with HIV whom I met in Abidjan. Almost all of them have since passed away, and their absences haunt this book. INTRODUCTION More philosophically, it may be supposed that the present as experience of a time is precisely that moment when different forms of absence become entangled [s’enchevêtrent]: absence of those presences that are no longer here and that one remembers (memory [la mémoire]), and absence of those others who are not here yet and are anticipated (utopia).