Skin (ATOM Study Guide)

Skin (Anthony Fabian, 2009) is one of the most moving stories to emerge from apartheid South Africa. Sandra Laing is a black child born in the 1950s to white Afrikaners who are unaware of their black ancestry. Her parents are rural shopkeepers serving the local black community, and lovingly bring her up as their 'white' little girl. But at the age of ten, Sandra is driven out of white society.

Skin is the story of Sandra's thirty-year journey from rejection to acceptance and from betrayal to reconciliation, as she struggles to define her place in a changing world and ultimately triumphs against all odds.

THE STORY

Living in a country ruled by a legal system that segregated its population based on the colour of their skin, ten-year-old Sandra stands out as being distinctly African looking. Her parents, Abraham (Sam Neill) and Sannie (Alice Krige), are white Afrikaners unaware of their black ancestry. They are shopkeepers in a remote area of the Eastern Transvaal and, despite Sandra's mixed-race appearance, have brought her up as their 'white' little girl.

Sandra is sent to a whites-only boarding school in the neighbouring town of Piet Retief, where her (white) brother Leon (Hannes Brummer) is also studying, but parents and teachers complain that she doesn't belong. She is examined by state officials, reclassified as 'coloured' and promptly expelled from the school. Sandra's parents are shocked, and Abraham fights through the courts (and the media) in an attempt to have the classification reversed.

The Population Registration Act of 1950, which required that each inhabitant of South Africa be classified and registered in accordance with their racial characteristics, was amended so that a person's colour was determined on parentage, not on skin colour alone; after this, Sandra becomes officially 'white' again.

But by the time she is seventeen, Sandra realises she is never going to be accepted by the white community. She falls in love with Petrus (Tony Kgoroge), a black man and local vegetable seller, and they begin an illicit love affair. When he learns of the relationship, Abraham threatens to shoot Petrus and disown Sandra. Meanwhile, Sannie is torn between her husband's rage and her daughter's predicament.

Sandra elopes with Petrus to Swaziland. Abraham alerts the police, has them arrested and Sandra is imprisoned for three months. Sandra is told by the local magistrate to go home, but she refuses as she is pregnant with her first child.

Having made the choice to be with Petrus, Sandra begins a life in a black township that has no running water and no sanitation and which offers few opportunities to make a living. She and Petrus have two children; in order to keep them, Sandra has herself reclassified as 'black'. While she feels more at home in the black township community, Sandra desperately misses her parents and yearns for a reunion.

Sandra, Petrus and their family are forcibly relocated and any chance of ever reuniting with her parents appears remote. Sandra and Petrus' relationship soon disintegrates and Sandra is forced to flee with her children to Johannesburg, where she goes to the home of a relative. While she speaks to her mother by phone, her mother does not disclose her location nor initiate any reconciliation.

Upon the death of her father, Sandra receives some money from his estate and uses the authorities to track down her mother, who by this time is living in a nursing home following a stroke. A tearful and emotional reunion occurs and this is the catalyst for Sandra to come to terms with her life and who she is.

Skin is a story of family, forgiveness and the triumph of the human spirit.

CURRICULUM LINKS

Skin would be enjoyed by middle and senior secondary students of English, History, Family Studies, Psychology, SOSE/HSIE, Sociology, Values Education and related subjects, and Media and Fil