A Movie Review: Tsotsi
Note: Submitted as an assignment for Indepth Course in International Relations, 05th JUne 2006
Set in a shantytown in the suburbs of Johannesburg, Tsotsi follows a young gangster on a short journey to humanization. Though a sensitive personal tale of love and empathy (or the lack of it), Tsotsi makes a fine case for a theoretical analysis in IR from several different perspectives: it is also a tale of security/insecurity in certain places of the globe – of growing inequities in distribution of power, income and resources within specific societies and social groups, and the impact that this has on the provision of education and primary health care facilities for the poorest members of society. I will analyse the film, using Realist, Structuralist and Feminist approaches in International Relations.
Tsotsi, which in a South African language means ‘thug’, is the name adapted by the protaganist – a ferocious young man. He and his small gang prowl the city looking for potential victims with pitiless, predatory eyes. Their method of attack is vividly demonstrated on a subway, when they stab a man to death inside a crowded moving train to rob money. They are predators who steal and kill to survive according to the basic laws of nature; their actions resonate well with the Realists’ argument on some aspects of human nature, where actors pursue their self-interest aggressively to the determinants of others, without regard to the constraints of law or morality. Steans and Pettiford point to the central theme of anarchy in Realism. The backdrop and cinematography of Tsotsi establishes the chaotic, anarchic, dog-eats-dog world of a suburban shantytown from the very first few scenes: the camera pans over a jungle of shanties as the credits appear; Tsotsi, Butcher, Aap are all established as part of this jungle, following their basic instincts for survival: life, as in the starting scene of throwing dice, is a gamble. Anarchy is also represented through the protagonist’s past. As a child he led a lawless life, away from parental authority and care, a past that shapes not only his characteristics but also his destiny.
The group dynamic between Tsotsi and his four followers can also be interpreted from a Realist perspective. Though Tsotsi is the unofficial but obvious leader of the gang, his power is not uncontested. Both Butcher and Teacher Boy challenge Tsotsi’s authority in different ways, and by the end of the film, both characters suffer assaults –one broken and the other eliminated – by the protagonist. Furthermore, this power play does not take place in a lacuna; there are others who have stakes in this balance of power, such as Fela, who tries to bait Tsotsi’s gangsters to his side. Thus, the film conveys a sense of realpolitik – a shrewd awareness and a readiness to use force through repetitive bursts into violence.
However, the film doesn't offer a judgmental look at the protagonists, rather presenting their behaviour as the result of the environment they grew up in. Tsotsi reveals its beauty in its roughness through the contrasted portrait of an individual who becomes a metaphor of the world he embodies. A structural view of human nature holds that it ‘is not fixed and essential. The human subject is social and historical. Human Nature is conditioned by prevailing forms of social, economic and political organisations.’ The film presents the character of Tsotsi a product of his past and society.
Thus, Tsotsi is a rich dish for a Structuralist savouring. The key tenets of Structuralism according to Steans and Pettiford, are all well represented in the movie: Tsotsi’s world is obviously and profoundly shaped by the structure of the capitalist world economy and we see that protagonists’ crimes are determined by factors. The class distinction is spelt out. The shantytown exists side by side of a bustling, glistening city, with people who have more than two swanky cars to loose. John and Pumla are the embodiment of this other word, which has the power and the resources to order the Police around. The way John and Pumla screams at the police when they loose their baby is not just an expression of intense pain and despair, but also an expression of power and authority their class wields. The police is portrayed as carrying out their duties to protect them as efficiently as possible, not simply because they are the victims of a shocking crime but also because they are what they are! This reflects the very Structuralist argument that states reflect the interest of the dominant classes rather than the existence of a genuine national interest.
Thus, the breathtaking emotional drama of a gangster who carjacks a rich lady and unexpectedly finds her baby in the backseat, is carefully balanced with a latent call for justice. The film showcases the fundamentally unjust social and economic order that generates conflict and disharmony, and state institutions that does little to prevent it. In this sense, the main conflict within the film takes place between the bipolarised classes of a postcolonial society. As the events unfold we can see that the poor marginalized classes pose a security threat to the bourgeois, safe, comfortable home.
Structuralists argue that the economic base supports a range of other superstructures – state, law, education and health systems as well as mass media. Concentration of power in the hands of the rich is seen as inevitable. In the film power can be interpreted not only in crude terms, but also as the ability to access resources. Tsotsi has never been to school. His mother had no access to proper healthcare. The media doesn’t splash around Tsotsi’s side of the story, his tale of poverty-stricken childhood spent in a drainage pipe or his human transition which is the central theme of the film. The newspapers carry rich man’s tale of loss (who, it must be noted, has instant access to healthcare, security and mass media). The film clearly questions this: whose tale is heard by the society?
The argument can be stretched to include the core-periphery theme of the Structuralist argument. The film establishes Africa as a periphery society of the world system, laden with poverty, hunger and HIV/Aids. Johannesburg township forms the core within this periphery society, whereas the shantytown remains further outside. In one scene, Tsotsi revisits his childhood home, which turns out to be a stack of abandoned cement pipes at the outskirts of the township where homeless kids spend their nights. One cannot help remembering this stark pipe-home when Tsotsi visits the baby room full of soft toys and comforts in John and Pumla Dube’s home. Such images resonate the growing gap between the rich and the poor around the globe.
HIV/Aids is firmly established in the film as a disease of the poor, not only through ample exposure of HIV/Aids prevention billboards in several scenes, but also the character of Tsotsi’s mother, whose appearance is brief but crucial. The example of HIV/Aids in Africa illustrates the complex interrelationship between human security in individual societies and the distribution of power and resources globally. Tsotsi’s mother is defenceless against HIV simply due to her poverty, which affects her ability to access nutritious food, healthcare and medical supplies, all of which are necessary to combat Aids. The inequity is not merely economic. Thomas argues that women and girls continue to comprise majority of the world’s poorest people. Tsotsi’s mother is presented as oppressed by her alcoholic husband, directing our attention at another crucial dimension that needs to be explored in Tsotsi.
The film has much to be exposed through a Feminist lens. At one level, Tsotsi portrays women as victims and women as saviours. At another it places women in varying positions of power and character. In yet another, it questions masculinity, femininity, motherhood and complicates stereotypical ideas through the transition of the protagonist. And, there’s more!
To begin with, Tsotsi’s mother, as mentioned above, represents one of the worst positions to be in the world. She is an African woman, poverty-stricken, infected with HIV/Aids, oppressed by an alcoholic husband and is shown to be denied of her right to express her affection for her son as she lies on her deathbed. The powerful depiction of her circumstances transcends the less than 10 seconds appearance she gets in the running time of 1hour 36 minutes. She is a victim of her social position and is powerless, her voice lost among a million of ‘marginalized others’ who share her plight. But her voice is not lost in the memory of her son. Her tenderness for Tsotsi (or David, note that she is the only person in the film that calls the protagonist by his real name and thus becomes an integral part of his identity!) strikes a raw, sensitive chord in his character. Thus, this mother becomes a metaphoric ‘wounded other’ forever present inside seemingly ruthless Tsotsi, who is swift to kill and at surface seem to symbolise nothing but male aggressiveness.
This is the ‘other’ dimension invoked in Tsotsi by the baby he steals. His hopeless and disarmingly funny attempts to take care of the baby establishes his capacity for tenderness and love, complicating essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity. He repeats to Miriam that the baby belongs to him: “He’s mine”, even when he decides to leave the baby in her care; in a second raid of the same household Tsotsi steals milk powder and a baby feeder. The following confrontation with Miriam is thought provoking. Tsotsi tries to establish himself as capable of taking care of the baby, proving that he can now provide the baby with milk, an act that could almost be interpreted as an eagerness ‘to become a mother’, whereas Miriam voices the common worldview “you cannot become his mother’’, just by the ability to provide milk, thus establishing motherhood as exclusive to womanhood. Something Tsotsi, as a man, cannot be.
Stretching the argument down the same lines reveals that Tsotsi is as much a confrontation between yin and yan as between rich and poor, good and bad. Concepts of violence, aggressiveness, murder and ruthlessness are connected to ‘bad male’ where as tenderness, love, healing and caring is associated with ‘feminine goodness’. However, the film transcends this simple dichotomy in the emotional transition of the protagonist and indicating his capacity and craving for tenderness.
Miriam epitomises ideal African womanhood. Her stature exudes ampleness and fertility. She is a young single mother, widowed and alone in a big bad world, but she is independent, resilient and dignified. She makes her living by sewing and selling wind-chimers, thus associating her with righteousness, creativity and beauty, though her life circumstances could not have been much better than Tsotsi’s. She refuses to accept payment from Tsotsi in return of breastfeeding and caring for the baby. Her innate capacity for tender care transcending selfish interests, resonant with the theme of motherhood, is presented as the saving grace in a world driven by the law of the jungle. She is also the voice of reason that pressurises Tsotsi to return the baby to the mother. She is the antithesis to conflict, competition, violence and insecurity, which defines modern global politics as much as the shantytown she lives in. Not only does her character defy Realist or Structuralist interpretations, but she also provides a contrast to all the other female characters in the film.
For example, Pumla is portrayed as woman victimised by a criminal. Though she may come from a position of empowerment, from a privileged class, who can afford to vent her anger at the police officers, by the end of the story she is almost dehumanised: her inability to walk makes her a dependent on her husband. It is John who is the caretaker, and the hero of the last scene, successfully regaining their child back from the criminal’s hands. Other minor female characters (ie. Soekie, Fela’s girlfriend) are just the right trappings of a patriarchal society, where women can only survive or wield power by being someone’s woman (Fela’s girlfriend) or recasting themselves in masculine qualities (Soekie).
In conclusion, it must be noted that analysing Tsotsi shed light upon important issues of justice and equity, violence and security, gender and identity, poverty and marginalisation, making it a powerful social commentary and a political statement, as much as it is tale of universal humanity, love and redemption.
Bibliography
Gavin Hood, 2006, Tsotsi (English Title: Thug), South Africa, BBC Films
Steans J and Pettiford L, 2001. International Relations: Perspectives and Themes, London: Longman
Baylis J and Smith S 2004. The Globalisation of World Politics: an Introduction to International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press (3rd ed.)
www.imdb.com
Word count: 2134
Set in a shantytown in the suburbs of Johannesburg, Tsotsi follows a young gangster on a short journey to humanization. Though a sensitive personal tale of love and empathy (or the lack of it), Tsotsi makes a fine case for a theoretical analysis in IR from several different perspectives: it is also a tale of security/insecurity in certain places of the globe – of growing inequities in distribution of power, income and resources within specific societies and social groups, and the impact that this has on the provision of education and primary health care facilities for the poorest members of society. I will analyse the film, using Realist, Structuralist and Feminist approaches in International Relations.
Tsotsi, which in a South African language means ‘thug’, is the name adapted by the protaganist – a ferocious young man. He and his small gang prowl the city looking for potential victims with pitiless, predatory eyes. Their method of attack is vividly demonstrated on a subway, when they stab a man to death inside a crowded moving train to rob money. They are predators who steal and kill to survive according to the basic laws of nature; their actions resonate well with the Realists’ argument on some aspects of human nature, where actors pursue their self-interest aggressively to the determinants of others, without regard to the constraints of law or morality. Steans and Pettiford point to the central theme of anarchy in Realism. The backdrop and cinematography of Tsotsi establishes the chaotic, anarchic, dog-eats-dog world of a suburban shantytown from the very first few scenes: the camera pans over a jungle of shanties as the credits appear; Tsotsi, Butcher, Aap are all established as part of this jungle, following their basic instincts for survival: life, as in the starting scene of throwing dice, is a gamble. Anarchy is also represented through the protagonist’s past. As a child he led a lawless life, away from parental authority and care, a past that shapes not only his characteristics but also his destiny.
The group dynamic between Tsotsi and his four followers can also be interpreted from a Realist perspective. Though Tsotsi is the unofficial but obvious leader of the gang, his power is not uncontested. Both Butcher and Teacher Boy challenge Tsotsi’s authority in different ways, and by the end of the film, both characters suffer assaults –one broken and the other eliminated – by the protagonist. Furthermore, this power play does not take place in a lacuna; there are others who have stakes in this balance of power, such as Fela, who tries to bait Tsotsi’s gangsters to his side. Thus, the film conveys a sense of realpolitik – a shrewd awareness and a readiness to use force through repetitive bursts into violence.
However, the film doesn't offer a judgmental look at the protagonists, rather presenting their behaviour as the result of the environment they grew up in. Tsotsi reveals its beauty in its roughness through the contrasted portrait of an individual who becomes a metaphor of the world he embodies. A structural view of human nature holds that it ‘is not fixed and essential. The human subject is social and historical. Human Nature is conditioned by prevailing forms of social, economic and political organisations.’ The film presents the character of Tsotsi a product of his past and society.
Thus, Tsotsi is a rich dish for a Structuralist savouring. The key tenets of Structuralism according to Steans and Pettiford, are all well represented in the movie: Tsotsi’s world is obviously and profoundly shaped by the structure of the capitalist world economy and we see that protagonists’ crimes are determined by factors. The class distinction is spelt out. The shantytown exists side by side of a bustling, glistening city, with people who have more than two swanky cars to loose. John and Pumla are the embodiment of this other word, which has the power and the resources to order the Police around. The way John and Pumla screams at the police when they loose their baby is not just an expression of intense pain and despair, but also an expression of power and authority their class wields. The police is portrayed as carrying out their duties to protect them as efficiently as possible, not simply because they are the victims of a shocking crime but also because they are what they are! This reflects the very Structuralist argument that states reflect the interest of the dominant classes rather than the existence of a genuine national interest.
Thus, the breathtaking emotional drama of a gangster who carjacks a rich lady and unexpectedly finds her baby in the backseat, is carefully balanced with a latent call for justice. The film showcases the fundamentally unjust social and economic order that generates conflict and disharmony, and state institutions that does little to prevent it. In this sense, the main conflict within the film takes place between the bipolarised classes of a postcolonial society. As the events unfold we can see that the poor marginalized classes pose a security threat to the bourgeois, safe, comfortable home.
Structuralists argue that the economic base supports a range of other superstructures – state, law, education and health systems as well as mass media. Concentration of power in the hands of the rich is seen as inevitable. In the film power can be interpreted not only in crude terms, but also as the ability to access resources. Tsotsi has never been to school. His mother had no access to proper healthcare. The media doesn’t splash around Tsotsi’s side of the story, his tale of poverty-stricken childhood spent in a drainage pipe or his human transition which is the central theme of the film. The newspapers carry rich man’s tale of loss (who, it must be noted, has instant access to healthcare, security and mass media). The film clearly questions this: whose tale is heard by the society?
The argument can be stretched to include the core-periphery theme of the Structuralist argument. The film establishes Africa as a periphery society of the world system, laden with poverty, hunger and HIV/Aids. Johannesburg township forms the core within this periphery society, whereas the shantytown remains further outside. In one scene, Tsotsi revisits his childhood home, which turns out to be a stack of abandoned cement pipes at the outskirts of the township where homeless kids spend their nights. One cannot help remembering this stark pipe-home when Tsotsi visits the baby room full of soft toys and comforts in John and Pumla Dube’s home. Such images resonate the growing gap between the rich and the poor around the globe.
HIV/Aids is firmly established in the film as a disease of the poor, not only through ample exposure of HIV/Aids prevention billboards in several scenes, but also the character of Tsotsi’s mother, whose appearance is brief but crucial. The example of HIV/Aids in Africa illustrates the complex interrelationship between human security in individual societies and the distribution of power and resources globally. Tsotsi’s mother is defenceless against HIV simply due to her poverty, which affects her ability to access nutritious food, healthcare and medical supplies, all of which are necessary to combat Aids. The inequity is not merely economic. Thomas argues that women and girls continue to comprise majority of the world’s poorest people. Tsotsi’s mother is presented as oppressed by her alcoholic husband, directing our attention at another crucial dimension that needs to be explored in Tsotsi.
The film has much to be exposed through a Feminist lens. At one level, Tsotsi portrays women as victims and women as saviours. At another it places women in varying positions of power and character. In yet another, it questions masculinity, femininity, motherhood and complicates stereotypical ideas through the transition of the protagonist. And, there’s more!
To begin with, Tsotsi’s mother, as mentioned above, represents one of the worst positions to be in the world. She is an African woman, poverty-stricken, infected with HIV/Aids, oppressed by an alcoholic husband and is shown to be denied of her right to express her affection for her son as she lies on her deathbed. The powerful depiction of her circumstances transcends the less than 10 seconds appearance she gets in the running time of 1hour 36 minutes. She is a victim of her social position and is powerless, her voice lost among a million of ‘marginalized others’ who share her plight. But her voice is not lost in the memory of her son. Her tenderness for Tsotsi (or David, note that she is the only person in the film that calls the protagonist by his real name and thus becomes an integral part of his identity!) strikes a raw, sensitive chord in his character. Thus, this mother becomes a metaphoric ‘wounded other’ forever present inside seemingly ruthless Tsotsi, who is swift to kill and at surface seem to symbolise nothing but male aggressiveness.
This is the ‘other’ dimension invoked in Tsotsi by the baby he steals. His hopeless and disarmingly funny attempts to take care of the baby establishes his capacity for tenderness and love, complicating essentialist notions of masculinity and femininity. He repeats to Miriam that the baby belongs to him: “He’s mine”, even when he decides to leave the baby in her care; in a second raid of the same household Tsotsi steals milk powder and a baby feeder. The following confrontation with Miriam is thought provoking. Tsotsi tries to establish himself as capable of taking care of the baby, proving that he can now provide the baby with milk, an act that could almost be interpreted as an eagerness ‘to become a mother’, whereas Miriam voices the common worldview “you cannot become his mother’’, just by the ability to provide milk, thus establishing motherhood as exclusive to womanhood. Something Tsotsi, as a man, cannot be.
Stretching the argument down the same lines reveals that Tsotsi is as much a confrontation between yin and yan as between rich and poor, good and bad. Concepts of violence, aggressiveness, murder and ruthlessness are connected to ‘bad male’ where as tenderness, love, healing and caring is associated with ‘feminine goodness’. However, the film transcends this simple dichotomy in the emotional transition of the protagonist and indicating his capacity and craving for tenderness.
Miriam epitomises ideal African womanhood. Her stature exudes ampleness and fertility. She is a young single mother, widowed and alone in a big bad world, but she is independent, resilient and dignified. She makes her living by sewing and selling wind-chimers, thus associating her with righteousness, creativity and beauty, though her life circumstances could not have been much better than Tsotsi’s. She refuses to accept payment from Tsotsi in return of breastfeeding and caring for the baby. Her innate capacity for tender care transcending selfish interests, resonant with the theme of motherhood, is presented as the saving grace in a world driven by the law of the jungle. She is also the voice of reason that pressurises Tsotsi to return the baby to the mother. She is the antithesis to conflict, competition, violence and insecurity, which defines modern global politics as much as the shantytown she lives in. Not only does her character defy Realist or Structuralist interpretations, but she also provides a contrast to all the other female characters in the film.
For example, Pumla is portrayed as woman victimised by a criminal. Though she may come from a position of empowerment, from a privileged class, who can afford to vent her anger at the police officers, by the end of the story she is almost dehumanised: her inability to walk makes her a dependent on her husband. It is John who is the caretaker, and the hero of the last scene, successfully regaining their child back from the criminal’s hands. Other minor female characters (ie. Soekie, Fela’s girlfriend) are just the right trappings of a patriarchal society, where women can only survive or wield power by being someone’s woman (Fela’s girlfriend) or recasting themselves in masculine qualities (Soekie).
In conclusion, it must be noted that analysing Tsotsi shed light upon important issues of justice and equity, violence and security, gender and identity, poverty and marginalisation, making it a powerful social commentary and a political statement, as much as it is tale of universal humanity, love and redemption.
Bibliography
Gavin Hood, 2006, Tsotsi (English Title: Thug), South Africa, BBC Films
Steans J and Pettiford L, 2001. International Relations: Perspectives and Themes, London: Longman
Baylis J and Smith S 2004. The Globalisation of World Politics: an Introduction to International Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press (3rd ed.)
www.imdb.com
Word count: 2134
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