Men in African Film & Fiction (review)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest internationally on engaging men to implement and maintain gender equality and justice. This move toward a balanced sharing of men's and women's abilities to make their own choices without being limited by socially and culturally constructed stereotypes also allowed, if only in part, that research in men's and masculinities studies greatly increase. Although publication in this field is still rather small, it already stands as a stimulating newcomer in the examination of a wide range of social, political, historical, and economic issues within the academe. In addition, men's studies contribute to the pioneering work accomplished in women's studies, by confronting gender injustice in no less comprehensive, multiform, and innovative ways. When it comes to exploring men's involvement in any kind of unjust practice, however, the critic's task may appear difficult from the outset. Indeed, men are traditionally represented as dominators and oppressors of women more so than the opposite. The task is, by no means, less complex, when problematics of gender are located within an African context, for men on that continent are usually seen as either victims or perpetrators of slavery, subaltern actors in colonial, postcolonial, neocolonial settings, just as much as they are considered imperialistic when it comes to controlling the various forms of African women's individuality, health, sexualities, civil and legal rights.

To me, the exploration of literary and cinematographic works that play a part in undermining the order of any culture dominated by men is one of the main reasons why Men in African Film & Fiction (2011) is an exciting book that presents innovative research not merely in men's and masculinities studies but also, African studies as a whole.

But perhaps, it is best to make a pause here, for I feel that what is meant by "masculinities studies" remains rather blurry and could thus benefit from some clarification. I will propose, then, that "masculinities" not be understood in parallel with or opposition to "femininities," for this interpretation would taint the entire discipline and its body of inquiry with the gender stereotypes, the psychological traits and behavioral acts characteristic of men and women, it so vibrantly works at deconstructing. Rather, "masculinities" is a term that epitomizes a socio-politically oriented body of knowledge that establishes a dialogue with and allies itself to various critical and theoretical perspectives, such as psychoanalytic criticism, feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories.

On the one hand, then, this collection of articles edited and co-authored by Lahoucine Ouzgane examines African patriarchal discourses that manifest various modes of domination controlled and exercised by men, modes of male domination that remain quite prominent throughout the continent. On the other, the book challenges a number of preconceived ideas perpetuated in the West about African men and the roles they play in their respective societies. The authors embrace multidisciplinary theoretical perspectives, but they nonetheless chose to concentrate on two particular modes of cultural expression: literature and film. Each in a unique way, they examine certain of Africa's important challenges: poverty, gender inequality, AIDS, sexual ostracism, to name only a few. One of the many virtues of this book is that it offers deft and ground-breaking analyses that move beyond the rhetoric of crisis, chaos, disorder, and what have you that we have been accustomed to hear when it comes to Africa, its people and cultures. Another of the book's virtues is that its essays examine just as much Africa's longstanding history and its colonial period, as the recent socio-economic impacts globalization has on this continent.

Jane Bryce's essay, for instance, "The anxious phallus: the iconography of impotence in Quartier Mozart & Clando," looks at sub-Saharan cinema with a focus on the two Cameroonian films (those named in the title) from a dual standpoint, psychoanalytic and political: how can the castration complex in Freudian analysis and more specifically, the loss of potency—which, she adds, is a recurrent theme in African cinema—illuminate the functioning...