Revisiting Melodrama

This article focuses on two post-apartheid melodramatic films that engage with the experiences of queer characters. While melodrama is often dismissed as a less serious and less sophisticated cinematic genre, I argue that it can be powerfully used to problematise dominant cultural discourses around gender and sexuality. In this article, I demonstrate that analyses of films that pay close attention to the generic features of melodrama can generate alternative readings of these films. Firstly, I focus on Christiaan Olwagen’s Afrikaans film Kanarie (Canary) and argue that, despite the hypervisibility of its oppressive context, the film maps the outlines of a utopic queer cultural politics. Secondly, I analyse Ian Gabriel’s Runs in the Family (2022), a largely neglected film that centres the experiences of its transgender protagonist. While this film initially appears to model a progressive and trans-inclusive worldview, I argue that it ultimately scripts a conservative family drama that inadvertently reinscribes the legitimacy of the dominant gender order.