ABSTRACT
The reproduction of racial and ethnic stereotypes has long played an ideological role in South African comic art. The longstanding stereotype of the African male as a threatening savage endowed with prodigious erotic power has endured into the post-apartheid period, where it is used 'knowingly' by cartoonists and satirical artists. But this tendency has seldom been as visible as in the scandalous images in which South African president Jacob Zuma's penis has been symbolically employed to refer to the state of South African politics and society. At first glance, the presidential penis represents patriarchy, an old-fashioned traditional culture out of step with the modern world, while also making reference to Zuma's profligate and licentious tendencies. From the colonial period until the third quarter of the twentieth century, satirical portrayals of black subjects by white South African artists tended in the main to be negative and demeaning, giving visual expression to the prevailing ideology of white supremacy.
