The Power of Visibility: A Visual Semiotics Analysis of the 1990 Pride Celebration in South Africa

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to explore the significance of celebrating Pride in South Africa, with specific reference to the 1990 inaugural gay Pride march. The first lesbian and gay Pride march was held on 13 October 1990 in Johannesburg. This was the first Pride march on the African continent and acted as both a gay Pride event and an anti-apartheid march. There were 800 people in attendance, with gay rights pioneers such as Beverley Ditsie, Justice Edwin Cameron, Donné Rundle, Hendrik Pretorius and Simon Nkoli addressing the large crowds. Two of the main aims of the Pride celebration were to publicly march in support of the decriminalisation of homosexuality in South African law, as well as to call for an end to apartheid. This 1990 Pride march thus served as a publicly visible rallying point. Over three decades of annual gay Pride marches have been observed in South Africa to encourage the just treatment of LGBTQ+ identities. Since the initial event in 1990, Pride marches have continued to grow in South Africa, with each of the nine provinces now hosting a march. Pride has also become a symbol of the LGBTQ+ community’s struggle for equality in South Africa and throughout the African continent. Even so, (Black) queer people in South Africa are still coded and marginalised in mainstream media discourses as disaffected bodies, and at worst, they are confined to the impermeable background of LGBTQ+ history. This article makes use of a qualitative visual semiotics analysis, using a non-probability purposive sample of five images from the first Pride celebration in South Africa, to explore the significance of celebrating gay Pride in our context. The findings indicate that even though things have improved significantly for the LGBTQ+ community in South Africa, this community still faces many societal issues that are a direct result of the legacy of oppression that has been perpetuated against the community throughout history.