Woubi Cheri

Woubi Chéri is the first films to give queer Africans a chance to describe their world in their own words. Often funny, sometimes ribald, but always real, this documentary introduces us to gender pioneers demanding their right to construct a distinct African queer identity.

One needs a new language to create a new world; therefore, this film begins with a vocabulary lesson. The main characters explain for us that a woubi is a male who chooses to play the role of "wife" in a relationship with another man. A yossi is a bisexual man, perhaps married, who accepts the role of a woubi's husband. A toussou bakari is a lesbian. Controus are homophobes who oppose the woubi community.

The film introduces us to a cross-section of Abidjan's woubi community. Vincent, an immigrant from Burkina Faso, is a traditional griot and sage. Laurent defied his father's wishes that he become an auto mechanic to open a patisserie in Abidjan. Bibiche and Tatiana are gender-nonconforming and trans sex workers. Barbara, a glamorous, more mature transwoman, is the leader of the tight-knit group and President of the Ivory Coast Transvestites Association (preserving the organization's historical name). Laurent recalls this community was like a new family: "Your real family was the one you created. Nobody had to hide anything."

The community once called themselves "bats" because they hid together during the day and came out only at night. Even now, Tatiana says, "It's not easy for us to go out in the daytime. They throw stones at us. It's not easy for us here in Africa...But it's our right to be different. Without the right to be different, Africa is going nowhere." With the support of their emerging community, Abidjan's woubis are beginning to claim their place in a changing Africa. Barbara explains, "I do battle each time I'm out and about. I spread my magic powder to turn controus into yossis. It's like cleaning a house that is constantly dirty. You just have to keep cleaning." Her outspokenness, we learn, is not just intended for the sympathetic European filmmakers; on a trip into the country, she explains the mechanics of gay sex in graphic detail to two obviously fascinated local women.

It may be instructive to compare Woubi Chéri with the Library of African Cinema's earlier release, Dakan, the first African feature film on a gay theme. This film, by a heterosexual Guinean director, is a liberal's cry of protest against a society which refuses to see, let alone accept, same-sex relationships. In the absence of a supportive queer community, its heroes had no choice but to disappear. Woubi Chéri is the story of those who, for economic or political reasons, will not disappear but are creating an undeniable queer presence in the Ivory Coast. This is not to say that all queer people in the Ivory Coast are as flamboyant or "out" as the woubis in this film; there are no doubt as many sexualities and gender expressions emerging in Africa as anywhere else.

The woubis' bold, unapologetic attitude may remind some of movements in the U.S.. But the very untraditional djémé, or feast, which ends the film will convince anyone this is queer liberation African style. Dressed in luxurious boubous, the woubis perform customarily women's dances before an appreciative crowd, straight and queer. Barbara summarizes the moral for all of us: "The third millennium will be about a mix of modern and traditional, different ways of life and sex."