Netflix might be the world’s largest streaming giant, but here in Africa, Showmax is the king of SVOD, boasting of a plethora of locally made content from the very political films of filmmakers like Ousmane Sembène to the maudlin dramas of Nollywood. Its catalogue includes local language films in Afrikaans, isiZulu, Kiswahili, Sepedi, Setswana, Sesotho, isiXhosa, Igbo, and Hausa. And supplemented by these are several critically acclaimed and commercial Hollywood films and shows.
Showmax also has acquired, distribution rights to several channels and VOD platforms like HBO and ABC studios that are originally unavailable on the continent in a bid to provide Africans with a diverse range of entertainment. Local content is regionalised to the parts of Africa where they’d be viewed and consumed better. This is why, for instance, films and series on kykNET, an Afrikaans language channel, is not available on Showmax Nigeria. However, Hollywood films and shows and entertainment from outside of Africa are available across the regions of the platform.
In May 2020, when an array of queer entertainment including reality shows like Finding Prince Charming and The Boulet Brothers Dragula were made available on Showmax, I found that it wouldn’t be available in the Nigerian region. In fact, it was made available only in South Africa. Also, on June 8, critically acclaimed Rafiki debuted on Showmax. I caught it that day and in the euphoria, I wrote a piece (yet to be published) on what the beautiful love story between Kena and Ziki could mean for queer people across the continent, applauding Showmax’s thoughtfulness in making it available in pride month. Days later I searched for the film and could not find it on the platform. I would learn later through a chat with the Showmax official Instagram page, that Rafiki was never intended to be available in the Nigerian region.
Bothered by the disparity in the availability of a critically acclaimed African film like Rafiki on the regions of the platform, I checked with the Showmax official website. At the end of each month, Showmax publishes a listicle of films coming to the platform in the coming month; I compared what’s coming to Showmax South Africa, Showmax West Africa and Showmax East Africa in June, and found that Rafiki, although a Kenyan film, did not come to Kenya too.
Rafiki is a 2018 film directed by ace Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahui. It had its premiere at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and would go on to screen in festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the Black Star Film Festival, garnering critical acclaim and worldwide recognition. But back home in Kenya, Rafiki would be banned from screening in cinemas in the country by the Kenyan Film and Classification Board (KFCB), their reason being that Rafiki “preached” homosexuality against the country’s laws.
In Kenya, homosexuality is criminalised for up to 14 years imprisonment. It is so too in Nigeria under the Same-Sex Marriage (Prohibition) Bill (SSMPA) passed by former Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan in 2014. In South Africa, unlike in Kenya and Nigeria, homosexuality isn’t criminalised and same-sex marriage is constitutional. It seems due to the legalised homophobia in Nigeria (and Kenya), Showmax is restricting queer content from the region(s).
Nigeria does have a history of opposing entertainment with queer content. In 2016, episodes of Loud House that were deemed controversial were removed from airing on Nickelodeon Africa. Loud House is an animated series about the daily antics of 11-year-old Lincoln Loud and his 10 sisters. The episodes that were termed controversial were episodes that had Lincoln interacting with a married same-sex couple. By 2017, in a move spearheaded by the KFCB, the same outfit responsible for the ban on Wanuri Kahui’s Rafiki, Loud House was deleted from showing on Nickelodeon Africa.
In May of 2016, due to complaints from Nigerians, Nigerian Broadcasting Commission (NBC) moved to have I am Cait a reality show on the trans woman Caitlyn Jenner removed from E! Nigeria. Their reason was ridiculous. Nigerians deemed the show “unfit for kids”. I am Cait is not a show for kids. Also interesting is the fact that MultiChoice has a parental guidance feature on all its DSTV decoders enabling parents to block shows that’s unfit for their consumption or that of their kids. In fact, it was due to these oppositions to queer entertainment that when, in 2018, OutTV, the Canadian television channel that caters to queer entertainment was launched on DSTV, it was made available only in South Africa.
Both DSTV and Showmax are subsidiaries of MultiChoice Africa. NBC regulations are restricted to Cable TV programming, but the new NBC code sixth amendment allows for the regulation of online programming. This could mean that NBC now has powers to regulate the kind of content available to Nigerians on streaming platforms.
However, with or without NBC regulations and restrictions, Nigerian content producers and filmmakers have shown apathy towards queer representation in their productions. YouTube is flooded with web series and short films about young Nigerians by young Nigerian filmmakers but none has a representation of queer characters or told queer stories, save for the web series Everything in Between and short film Hell or High Water which are both advocacy productions from or The Initiative for Equal Rights (TIERs).
In the early days of Nollywood, queer representation was for negative portrayal and fraught for moral lessons. Maybe Nigerian filmmakers are now better educated, maybe they consider homosexuality a matter too controversial to approach and would rather stay away from it even in stories and shows where it’d seem too disingenuous to pretend that gay people do not exist in Nigeria. Filmmaker Tope Oshin is the director behind the TIERs’ feature film We Don’t Live Here Anymore, a film that tried to examine the consequences of homophobia on young queer people; it was thus surprising that on becoming MTV Shuga Naija series producer for its last season, she didn’t think it important to have queer representation on the show especially as HIV/AIDs, the focal point of the show, also affects the gay demographic. Perhaps she feared backlash from Nigerians and worried about being accused of propagating wrong morals on teenagers and adolescents, the show’s targeted audience. But the previous season of MTV Shuga set in South Africa, MTV Shuga Down South, aired across channels on Nigerian Television, had the character Reggie who was homosexual and was in a same-sex relationship.
Nigerians defend their homophobia by insisting that homosexuality is against the Nigerian culture, Goodluck Jonathan’s SSMPA criminalising homosexuality has further fortified homophobia in the country, hence a sizeable proportion of Nigerians might be passively receptive of and ambivalent to queer entertainment with foreign characters but, like the bulk of Nigerians vehemently opposed to queer entertainment, be strongly opposed to the idea of Nigerian films and shows with queer representation.
While it might not be easy to pinpoint Showmax’s reasons for restricting queer content such as Finding Prince Charming and the beautiful love story Rafiki, there’s no denying that Nigeria’s homophobic customs have contributed to this decisions. It would also be disingenuous to completely admit this restriction of queer entertainment to Nigeria’s homophobic customs because Joel Edgerton’s Boy Erased (about a gay boy forced into conversion therapy by his parents) is available on Showmax Nigeria. Also, the critically acclaimed and controversial South African film Inxeba about a gay boy who grapples with Xhosa’s manhood initiation custom is available on Showmax Nigeria, as is the South African gay celebrity couple Somizi Mhlongo and Mohale Motaung’s reality show on their flamboyant wedding Somizi & Mohale: The Union.
If contents such as these—Boy Erased, Inxeba, Somizi & Mohale—can be streamed on Showmax and no known NBC regulation of content on streaming platforms, it becomes difficult to totally suggest that it’s due to Nigeria’s homophobic laws and past antagonism of queer entertainment that’s made Showmax restrict the simple love story Rafiki from Nigeria. Or is Showmax only treading with caution?
DIKA OFOMA WRITES ABOUT FILM AND CULTURE. HE’S ON INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER AS @DIKAOFOMA.
The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this Op-Ed by the Writer are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of The Rustin Times.
