Is This The Most Gay Intimacy We’ve Gotten On African Television?

MTV Shuga Down South is back with the sophomore season. It is set one year after the events of season 1, and all your favorite characters are back, with a few new additions to the cast. Down South made headlines last year for including a gay narrative in its storyline, taking us through the struggles of Reggie as he navigated through friendships and family with the secret of his sexuality.

In Season 2, he is estranged from his family because of a homophobic father and is out on his own, hustling his way through life. It doesn’t appear to be easy, but he has made connections with some new LGBT friends, through which he made the acquaintance of Odirile, the young man who would go on to be his lover in Episode 5.

Watching this latest episode and the scenes where Reggie and Odirile get it on after a conversation on PrEP and safe sex, I was struck by the realization that this could be the first time gay intimacy, however moderately explicit it is, is shown on any entertainment platform starring Africans. I can’t think of any other television show or film that has featured more than a brief second of kissing between two actors playing gay characters.

Or is there? If there are such shows, let us know in the comments section.

MTV Shuga Down South airs new episodes every Thursday on its youtube channel. Check below for a clip of the scenes between Reggie and Odirile.

Rainbow Nova

April 02, 13:12 Reply

Okay….(breathes in and out)
As much as I would like to be impressed by this (as I initially was after reading the article) I certainly am not, after seeing the clip I’m less than ecstatic. I mean seriously, adding cuts of a straight sex scene in a gay scene to better pacify the homophobic African audience in the name of entertainment? That is not the definition of progress to me but toleration, someone is probably thinking that we should be happy that we at least got a scene especially one as explicit as this (that is if you have not seen Fifty Shades Of Grey, Friends With Benefits or Endless Love though straight movies but puh-leez, that’s the kind of explicit I’d like to see not complacency like this).

Since when did Africa who happens to be one of the top most noteworthy searchers of online queer pornography choose to pity the LGBTQIA+ community by such a “grand gesture of a sex scene” and please who’s deems this worthy of a sex scene really? Call me proud ‘cause baby that’s what I am, proud of be who I am and never will I settle for such disrespect and call it “progress”, never. I am not some thorn in Africa’s skin to be tolerated and given such mediocre content that‘s not even the least of the most average man’s desires. Imagine if it was a straight scene, you would most definitely have seen more than that, it’s not even a likely scenario for heaven’s sake, it’s a known fact. This isn’t comparing foreign content to local content, this is letting entertainers and producers and directors and filmmakers know that if you would like to include LGBTQIA+ narratives and content for the purpose of profit and entertainment (or really any content at all), please consult the LGBTQIA+ community for advice and expectations. We are not begging for content so it really doesn’t matter if they don’t put it there, we’ll make our own. Let this be a mantra for every LGBTQIA+ African, you deserve more but only if you demand more, you’re not asking/begging to exist or survive or be treated fairly, you deserve to be but only if you want to be and you use your voice to demand for it.

Well done MTV but you can do better and if not then please don’t bother with this, if I were speaking as a critic on Rotten Tomatoes, it would be ugly as this is less than trash or rubbish, it’s absolutely passionless, rehearsed and a disgusting display of heterosexual/cis-gender privilege and heteronormativity. I for one am tired of such “thoughtful acts of kindness to the sexual minority” that seem more like money-making tricks to me. Reminds of Modern Family’s attempt, now that’s even more pathetic.

5 Comments

Mitch
March 25, 07:08 Reply

At least they showed us both guys kiss.
Unlike TIERS and that movie that is still paining me in my intestines.
- Lizzy
  March 25, 21:07 Reply
  
  You think if TIERs could do it they will not? Only fair to understand things that goes on before hiding behind computer to type
- KingBey
  April 04, 07:31 Reply
  
  LMAO!
  
  Go and watch pornhub na
Realme
March 25, 08:07 Reply

O.M.G like seriously.. Wow I’m speechless
Rainbow Nova
April 02, 13:12 Reply

Okay….(breathes in and out)
As much as I would like to be impressed by this (as I initially was after reading the article) I certainly am not, after seeing the clip I’m less than ecstatic. I mean seriously, adding cuts of a straight sex scene in a gay scene to better pacify the homophobic African audience in the name of entertainment? That is not the definition of progress to me but toleration, someone is probably thinking that we should be happy that we at least got a scene especially one as explicit as this (that is if you have not seen Fifty Shades Of Grey, Friends With Benefits or Endless Love though straight movies but puh-leez, that’s the kind of explicit I’d like to see not complacency like this).

Since when did Africa who happens to be one of the top most noteworthy searchers of online queer pornography choose to pity the LGBTQIA+ community by such a “grand gesture of a sex scene” and please who’s deems this worthy of a sex scene really? Call me proud ‘cause baby that’s what I am, proud of be who I am and never will I settle for such disrespect and call it “progress”, never. I am not some thorn in Africa’s skin to be tolerated and given such mediocre content that‘s not even the least of the most average man’s desires. Imagine if it was a straight scene, you would most definitely have seen more than that, it’s not even a likely scenario for heaven’s sake, it’s a known fact. This isn’t comparing foreign content to local content, this is letting entertainers and producers and directors and filmmakers know that if you would like to include LGBTQIA+ narratives and content for the purpose of profit and entertainment (or really any content at all), please consult the LGBTQIA+ community for advice and expectations. We are not begging for content so it really doesn’t matter if they don’t put it there, we’ll make our own. Let this be a mantra for every LGBTQIA+ African, you deserve more but only if you demand more, you’re not asking/begging to exist or survive or be treated fairly, you deserve to be but only if you want to be and you use your voice to demand for it.

Well done MTV but you can do better and if not then please don’t bother with this, if I were speaking as a critic on Rotten Tomatoes, it would be ugly as this is less than trash or rubbish, it’s absolutely passionless, rehearsed and a disgusting display of heterosexual/cis-gender privilege and heteronormativity. I for one am tired of such “thoughtful acts of kindness to the sexual minority” that seem more like money-making tricks to me. Reminds of Modern Family’s attempt, now that’s even more pathetic.