de Jager, Robin Claude2024-08-162024-08-162023-03de Jager, Robin Claude. (2023). Lil_ith- A love story for South Africa’s queer, misfit youth. [Master's dissertation, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg]. WIReDSpace. https://hdl.handle.net/10539/40164https://hdl.handle.net/10539/40164A research report submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of r Master of Arts: Film and Television, to the Faculty of Humanities, Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023.This project takes the form of an explorative filmic investigation into and reflection on the archetype of the queer misfit in South African cinema. The film and research take the standpoint of the South African misfit archetype being a post-queer-theory subject in relation to the country’s historical, socio-economic, sexual, traditional and technological landscape. I will compare the appearance of the queer misfit through the arrival of the neon and caustic characters of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s to South Africa’s contemporary emergence of this archetype, positioning Queer Theory and the New Queer Cinema movement of the early as the primary emergence of a ‘true’ queer voice. I will engage with the influence of socio-economic, political and technological stimuli as well as the emergence of post-Queer Theory in the West and South Africa and its contribution to the evolution of the queer and misfit in post-colonial South African cinema. Through a practice-led, autoethnographic approach I combined these findings with core theoretical frameworks on post-modern sexuality by Queen and Schimel to inform and fuel the development of the film Lil_ith. The film stands as a creative execution expanding on the South African Misfit archetype in relation to the global history of Queer Misfit representation as well as its relationship with South Africa as a nation in the process of de-lonialisation within a digitised and globalised world.en©2023 University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All rights reserved. The copyright in this work vests in the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.South AfricaJohannesburgQueerLGBTQI+Practice basedScriptProductionAdult cammingNew Queer Cinema MovementAdult modelUCTDSDG-5: Gender equalityDissertationUniversity of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg