Otelo Burning and Zulu surfing histories

This article documents the history of black male surfers in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and explores the ways in which the figure of the ‘Zulu surfer’ has assumed a range of meanings from the mid-1960s to the present. The appropriation of the iconography of Zuluness by the (white) mainstream surfing community means the Zulu surfer has had an ambivalent presence in surfing histories. The Zulu surfer was historically co-opted by (white) surfing as a form of staged exoticism, echoing similar tropes of the fascination with the Other in international surfing. On the other hand, the image of the ‘Zulu surfer’ has in more recent years been appropriated by young black male surfers in KwaZulu-Natal, as an expression of a subcultural lifestyle and identification. In the film Otelo Burning these meanings of Zulu surfing are sometimes in conflict. Despite the projected progressive politics of Otelo Burning, I argue, the black surfers in the film do not entirely escape the tropes associated with the eclectic exoticiz...