THANGO NTWASA | Feather Awards become dishwasher of pop culture

When it comes to queer culture in the country, The Feather Awards have been the beacon of the LGBTQIA+ community.

A proud flag carried by Thami Kotlolo, best known as Thami Dish, for the past 16 years, the awards show has curated local pop culture through entertaining awards that are meant to be a light-hearted approach to the celebrity news cycle of each year.

This has always been the standard, even utilising the jargon that the queer men have created like “fag hag”, which refers to a woman who befriends a lot of gay men. The red carpet has contributed to unforgettable moments, including a showdown between Zodwa Wabantu and Skolopad, who arguably won the red carpet with a Lady Gaga-esque boerewors dress.

But over the years, the flamingo-pink world that Kotlolo has built has come into question – just who are these awards for? Lesbian queer activist, Bev Ditsie even took to social media tweeting that she was honoured to have won the Feather of the Year award in 2012 but felt that the ceremony is inherently misogynistic and a reflection of the gay men who get to “celebrate their friendships with their celebrity friends”.

In 2018, Hunk of the Year nominee Tumi Seeco was stripped of his nod after his homophobic rhetoric surfaced. AKA won a Drama Queen of the Year for alleging his ex, Bonang Matheba, had left rocks in his house. These inanimate objects were also nominated, by the way. This year’s Drama Queen nominations include SK Khoza and Mamokgethi Phakeng.

There are few queer people getting nominations and wins but there is always space for straight folk at this award show. With a number of them in need of fixing their reputational damage, have the Feather Awards become the celebrity dishwasher of pop culture instead?

There is a lot of power bestowed to nominees of the awards show as the non-queer ones are given queer ally status by the Feathers, a big role that means that their job is to stand up for the queer community. This includes other jilted Feather alumni, Zodwa Wabantu and Phat Joe, who were given this honour without having done any recognisable work for the queer community other than standing up to the infamous pink carpet.

AKA’s manipulative tweets around his break-up with Matheba played a role in how women are perceived in society. The claim was subjective enough to illicit rumours around witchcraft and drugs. Sometimes, these kinds of claims don’t afford women the luxury of being seen as ideal victims, instead AKA’s dangerous claims have a diamond trophy thrown at them actively trivialising his behaviour, which actually snowballed into a lawsuit. In 2021. Matheba won a lawsuit against podcaster Rea Gopane, who alleged she introduced drugs to AKA as a link between the rapper’s late fiancé, Neli Tembe.

It was all fun and games when Phakeng got her nod this past week as Kotlolo and company remained silent when more issues rose up around how she trivialised the suicide of Bongani Mayosi. A concerning rhetoric considering the prevalence of suicide in the country and who is affected by it the most.

Additionally, it ignores the queer community that is also affected by it that the Feather Awards are aiming to entertain. Instead, it is Phakeng who stands the chance of being a reputable queer ally even though she has stood by the likes of known transphobes like MacG.

After speaking to a colleague who had the opportunity of working with the Feathers for the nomination process, it became clear that winners and nods were given to preferred favourites. Something that has plagued other lighter events like the SA Style Awards, where another fellow journo relayed that they had very little liberty in picking who got the awards as certain individuals from within encouraged judges to vote for their preferred candidates.

Kotlolo has worked immeasurably hard to make actual structural changes in communities and even hosting workshops for the media as well. But just how much control does he have over an event whose cogs turn at the cost of governmental funding?

Smaller queer events are starting to pile up and create spaces of inclusivity with some finding comfort in exploring their sexuality and gender in the thriving nightlife and seminars hosted by young and old members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

Is there still a place for Kotlolo’s Feather Awards or are we all just giving a lot of attention to an event that revels in its own applause?