“As a person of the church, I want to say to you, condoms are here to stay — I have the virus in my blood. If anyone wants to ask me how I got it — I got it from a woman — let’s not lie to one another.”
These are the words of an HIV-positive Kenyan bishop, a character in Protection, a new documentary that discusses with unusual honesty the realities of HIV and condom use for African men and boys.
Through the eyes of Moruti “Babyface” Mthalane, a South African flyweight boxing champion who swears off sex with his committed girlfriend before matches; Elkana Ong’esa, an elder from Tabaka, Kenya, who since losing his daughter to Aids is determined to spur discussions on HIV within his conservative community; and Amara Conteh, an aspiring football player from Sierra Leone, who has five girlfriends and refuses to use condoms, Protection offers a platform to engage with the complexities of sex and masculinity in the age of a harrowing epidemic, changing traditions and shifting gender norms.
Stemming from discussions that occurred in the Norwegian Refugee Council’s education programmes from 2001-2008, the film’s primary objective is to act as an educational tool for organisations across the continent. In spite of being the best known way to prevent the sexual transmission of HIV, condom use remains stigmatised.
“The absolute resistance to condoms is really tragic,” says executive producer Jill Lewis. “[We needed] something that could make — condom use a greater reality and give it greater urgency — we want to help facilitate the normalisation of condoms.”
Protection was funded in large part by the Norwegian government and produced by South African Fireworx Media under the direction of award-winning director Francois Verster (Pavement Aristocrats: The Bergies of Cape Town; A Lion’s Trail; Seapoint Days) and supported by Sonke Gender Justice Network, a Cape Town-based, non-profit organisation focused on gender equality and male behaviour change.
The film’s goal is to increase men and boys’ participation in the fight against HIV. Female-centred approaches have been central to the response for years, largely in reaction to rising infection rates among women and girls, mother-to-child transmission, in recognition of the high levels of violence against women and the role of gender inequality in fuelling the epidemic, and because of women’s centrality in caring for sick family and community members.
‘Women can be empowered to Timbuktu’
But, says Lewis, “HIV is a problem which occurs between men and women and the solution has to involve both fully. An underlying motivation of the film is to open up discussion that will help men and boys protect themselves better. If you can get them to protect themselves from HIV, then any of their partners will also be protected. If men and boys aren’t on board, the women can be empowered to Timbuktu, but they’re not going to enact that empowerment if men are pitched against them.”
Protection focuses heavily on generational difference, with older characters claiming that condom use promotes promiscuity and degrades traditional values, while younger characters, concerned for their lives and wellbeing in light of watching throngs of friends and family die, push for greater condom use in the recognition of a reality filled with sex and HIV.
George Ncwena, an amateur boxing coach who lives in Soweto, thinks about condoms in a markedly different way to the younger champion, Mthalane.
“I don’t talk to my kids at all concerning Aids or sex,” Ncwena says in the film. “To me, by doing that, it’s as if I’m promoting my kids to go about sleeping with boys or girls.” Mthalane, in contrast, who is acutely concerned about his ability to continue boxing, insists that “you must protect yourself when it comes to sex. Condoms protect you from HIV/Aids.”
Dean Peacock, the co-director of Sonke, says Ncwena’s and Mthalane’s opposite stances demonstrate a shift in gender norms and sexuality. “There’s a growing number of men who recognise that gender transformation is happening, is going to happen and in many ways it’s in their interest that they have better relationships with their partners,” he says. “In South Africa sometimes there’s a discourse that makes it seem like we’re not going anywhere — [but] attitudes have changed. [Behaviour is] not innate, it’s not biochemical, it’s about how we socialise men and boys differently.”
Rather than using traditionally educative approaches such as condom demonstrations, scientific explanations or presenting HIV facts and figures, Protection provides no narration or history, instead allowing the film’s characters to speak openly, without judgment, and with limited editorial about the reality of masculinity, sexuality, religion and culture and their impact on condom use and HIV.
“The decision was taken early on that it wouldn’t be didactic,” says Lewis. “This film is [meant] to widen the landscape for discussion.”
Serious misconceptions
In this open-ended approach Protection flirts dangerously with serious misconceptions about condom use and HIV transmission and treatment. Mthalane’s coach equates testing positive for HIV with a death sentence. Attending one of Ong’esa’s community meetings, a woman living with the virus proclaims that she is alive today because of condoms, when in fact they would do little to aid her health after she’s been infected.
“The thing about a documentary is you don’t know what people are going to say, you don’t have a script,” says Lewis. “There are risks going that way — [But] the idea with this film is that you’re seeing the different pulls, the contradictions, the world that men and boys are navigating to think about condoms, HIV and their lives.”
What Protection lacks in its straightforward presentation of information it makes up for in its ability to show emotively the many faces of the epidemic. The film’s exquisite and simplistic cinematography adds to its honest portrayal of the consequences of inflexible masculinity and misinformation, which inhibits the use of effective prevention methods. In each setting images of young, physically active, healthy, happy men boasting about sex and love and dreaming of the future are matched with comments about family members dying of Aids, or fears of careers being cut short by an invisible virus.
To be used effectively, Protection comes with a comprehensive facilitator’s pack, providing the facts and figures the film does not. Sonke is assisting in disseminating the film, which is available in seven languages, across the continent. “Ideally, it will end up in the hands of traditional and religious leaders and boys in schools,” says Peacock.