21 Up South Africa: Mandela's Children (2008 Video) User Reviews

Compelling documentary about growing up in post-apartheid South Africa

[jabberwhack · 7/10 · 6 February 2020]

This documentary follows a group of black, coloured, and white young people at 7, 14, and 21. It offers a glimpse into the life and thought of the interviewees (their education, their work, their love life, their hobbies). Watching this in 2020, I felt that it had a very heteronormative tone: the children are asked about marriage and what kind of partner of the opposite sex they would like to find. I also noticed that black children seemed to be addressed questions about race more directly than white children, or at least, that the footage of black children's response to racial issues was used to a greater extent. I was struck by the fact that a young English-speaking white girl, Lizette, through the whole segment, never brings the topic of apartheid up. In any case, an image is worth a thousand words, and seeing the quality of life and job prospects of the black children as opposed to the white children was very informative about the continuing ills of post-apartheid South Africa in the 2000s.