The Drive-In and the Desegregation of Cinemas in Apartheid Cape Town

Abstract

Going to drive-ins became a popular pastime in Cape Town during the 1960s and 1970s, although most were restricted to white audiences. Towards the end of this period, however, the arrival of television and emerging cinemas in ‘Coloured’ areas pushed white cinema owners throughout the city to apply for permits for mixed-race audiences and to transform the white-only status of their venues. This article focuses on drive-ins, an overlooked dimension of South African cinema history, and proposes that these venues are an important lens through which to examine the racial politics of cinema during apartheid, particularly from the late 1970s. As spaces that contrasted with the homogeneity of walled cinemas and their urban audiences, the drive-in became both a symbol of segregation in the city and a placeholder for transition. The opening-up of all Cape Town’s drive-ins in 1980 signalled new commercial horizons of non-racial audiences, making desegregation a popular buzzword and revealing the complex dynamics of racial integration before the end of apartheid.