Oppression, victimhood and liberation: Interrogating character representation in Darrell Roodt’s Sarafina (1992)

Abstract

This study sought to interrogate character representation of victimhood in the film. It focused on how characters have been depicted to represent oppression, victimhood and resistance towards liberation in the film Sarafina, a South African film. The study is hinged on qualitative research design. Secondary sources that compromised of scholary publications, dissertations, thesis and articles related to the study have been consuslted. The study employed postcolonial theory to highlight how oppression leads to loss of identity on the characters thus leading to victimhood, hence the oppressed try to fit in the system through adopting the ways of the oppressors but they were not fully accepted by the white supremacy and thus triggering the urge to resist so as to liberate themselves from the colonialist. The study concluded that liberation is a process that is achieved through growth. Filmmakers depict liberation through use of characters. They do so my mapping abstract ideas of oppression, victimhood and resistance on the characters.