Representing violation in film: A study on resilience in Judy Kibinge’s Something Necessary

abstract

This article examines how Judy Kibinge in Something Necessary (2013) engages with the subject of sexual violence during the post-election violence in Kenya. It focuses on how Kibinge rethinks the filmic representation of rape, not as a recount of pain and violence but as a useful resource for developing resilience in youth, within the larger social-ecological system. Kibinge does this in three ways: first by speaking about rape through the inclusion of rape in the film, second by the ways in which the victim handles the pregnancy from the rape and third by the representation of one of the perpetrators as a transformative agent who represents the possibility of men triumphing over oppressive patriarchal norms. I undertake a content and textual analysis of the characterisation in Something Necessary to identify how resilience can be nurtured through the film as a cultural production that counters the culture of impunity and normalisation of sexual violence

keywords:

• post-election conflict
• Kenya
• rape
• resilience
• Something Necessary

Notes

1. Available from: https://www.standardmedia.co.ke/article/2000100499/police-report-shows-reduction-in-crime-level-by-8-per-cent (site accessed 2 February 2017).

2. Available from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/justice-for-liz-rapists-jailed-for-15-years-following-protests-over-grass-cutting-punishment-10174293.html (site accessed 2 February 2017).

3. After the post-election violence in Kenya, CIPEV was set up and tasked to investigate the facts and circumstances surrounding the violence, the conduct of state security agencies in their handling of it, and to make recommendations concerning these and other matters.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jacqueline Ojiambo

JACQUELINE OJIAMBO is a PhD candidate at the English Department of Stellenbosch University. She holds a Masters in Literature from the University of Nairobi and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature and Communication from the same university. Her research interests are African cinema, specifically, Kenyan cinema. Her Dissertation is titled Films by Kenyan Women Directors as National Allegories. Through reading these films as national allegories, her study examines how the films address present concerns and realities while at the same time connecting the past, present and the future. Email: [email protected]