Not so funny: Humour, Gender and Queer Sexualities in Niq Mhlongo’s “The Stalker” and “Woman to Woman”

Abstract

The themes of gendered humour, queer relations and societal norms are common tropes in South African literary traditions. However, they are seldom researched in conjunction. This paper analyses Niq Mhlongo’s two short stories, “The Stalker” and “Woman to Woman” from the collection For You I’d Steal a Goat (2022), through this intersectional lens. In the two short stories, Mhlongo uses the backdrop of traditional marriages to capture the essence of human experience by critiquing the perceptions of queer sexualities and patriarchal norms in South Africa. Through the strategies of absurdity, banter of the characters, sarcasm and situational humour, the stories not merely create instances of laugher to the reader but also serve as an illumination of the experiences of queer identities and non-confirming minorities. This study invokes Kimberly Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, Judith Butlers’ theory of gender performativity and Alleen Nilsen and Don Nilsen’s theory of features, functions and subjects of humour, to explore how the short stories deploy the aesthetics of humour expose the constructed and performative nature of gender and sexual identities moral conservatism in post-apartheid South Africa as represented in the short stories. We argue that while the humorous approach of the short stories provides amusement and entertainment, they simultaneously reflect broader misconceptions about gender and homophobic attitudes.