Call Me Kuchu(referencing a self-empowering, inclusive synonym for queer in Swahili) is a documentary from the team of Katherine Fairfax Wright and Malika Zouhali-Worrall detailing the plight of David Kato, Uganda’s first openly gay person (yes, you read that correctly). Celebrating the 9thanniversary of a gay couple in the privacy of their quarters, Kato swings his hips to some music while being served appetizers (that’s my move, but I'll let him have it), before the film travels down the arduous, insurmountable issues Ugandan gays face today in the second decade of the 21st-century. Along with providing a slice-of-life impression of gays featured, the film goes on to detail a libel case affecting regular law-abiding gays, as well as a national proposed law from Ugandan MP David Bahati that would require citizens to "report" gay people within a twenty-four hour period of discovery.  |
| The unapologetically libelous Rolling Stone |
The main theme quite simply is the repressing environment which ignorance can impose on a minority, who must muster every ounce of strength they have to continue their fight lest unsound minds prevail. Homophobia is embedded in the culture of this stubborn country that would prefer to live in perpetual denial that circulates mistruths, disease, and death, than listen to Western leaders. Ugandan leaders speak out against the civilization of the west and homosexuality using Westernized media, but it is the west who introduced anti-gay laws to the world, as well as Christianity to Uganda in the later 1800s. While ignoring sensible, heart-driven Christian leaders in their own backyard like heterosexual Bishop Senjonyo (who was in attendance at the screening Saturday night), they invite the likes of Western Evangelicals like Lou Engle and Scott Lively, who manipulate and take advantage of this unevolved society, ripe for brainwashing. The documentary is rife with irony, which even includes a shot of an advertisement for unjudged R. Kelly. An anti-gay leader can sit down on a couch with a lesbian and have a “discussion,” but he’s never going to address any of the elephants in the room. The long list of lies that are allowed and encouraged to parasitically attach themselves to the gay movement include pedophilia, prostitution, and the deliberate spread of HIV. Even a terrorist bombing of Kampala is laid at the feet of gays. Gay youth are manipulated by the system, including curative rape, no counsel for defense, and subjection to abortions. Activists battle against an HIV spread rate which ignorance makes more rampant. Sometimes meandering through its ca. 90-minute runtime, Kuchu reaches an unfortunate poignancy towards the end (it's better if you go into this film blind).
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| David Kato and his mother |
This country is in such an infancy of its activism that even its drag queens have milquetoast names like Veronica. But, this is really no laughing matter. In his quest to out and expose average citizens, an editor of a local publication Rolling Stone (not be confused with the international entertainment magazine) by the name Giles believes in “ignor[ing] the right of privacy in the interest of the public." He goes on to wash his hands clean of any harm that comes to any of his publication’s targets, insisting his intent is only to bring “criminals” before the eyes of the law, ignoring the ancillary malicious effects of his plight. At a funeral for a murdered activist, those who would fit right in with the Westboro Baptists are the rule and not the exception. In The Crucible, John Proctor gives everything of himself and begs to keep his name. Not even in this African country can a gay man have that. The film closes with a juxtaposition of people celebrating the life of a gay man at a karaoke bar verses US citizens picketing the injustice of his death. It’s a telling moment that displays a tiny, but mighty band of people who only have so much energy and will against a tide ready to wipe them off the face of this planet.
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| Director Katherine Fairfax Wright |
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