• DOI:10.1080/00083968.2012.702088
• Corpus ID: 142631031

Post-prison Nelson Mandela: A ‘made-in-America hero’

@article{Lukhele2012PostprisonNM,
  title={Post-prison Nelson Mandela: A ‘made-in-America hero’},
  author={Francis F. Lukhele},
  journal={Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des {\'e}tudes africaines},
  year={2012},
  volume={46},
  pages={289 - 301}
}

• F. Lukhele
• Published 1 August 2012
• Art
• Canadian Journal of African Studies / Revue canadienne des études africaines

Nelson Mandela’s global iconography is accompanied by a respectful reluctance to countenance any scepticism with his saintly stature. However, a reading of the 2009 film, Invictus, directed by Clint Eastwood, invites an exploration of a dimensionality that has received scant attention, namely, the demonstrable role of the American film industry in the crafting of Mandela’s global image. This article ventures where angels fear to tread in advancing the view that Hollywood has played an inordinate role in the “making” of, or transformation of, post-prison Nelson Mandela into a global hero and secular saint; and that this process has not been a boon to the average South African Mandela spent nearly three decades to liberate. Indeed, the article argues that the beneficiaries of Mandela’s appropriation are the architects of the same, namely, Wall Street, which is instrumentalizing Mandela to script a jaundiced narrative of South African culture and history.