Black Masculinity v. Pieter Hugo's Hyena Men

There is a long and intersecting history between African Americans and animals. Dating back to the slave trade, black people were, and are still currently, compared to any dark-colored primate or animal (Gorillas, monkeys, chimps, etc). Black people, through the lens of Afro-pessimism, are nothing but flesh to the non-black community. The social death of the slave goes to the very level of their being and becomes the center of their existence. A black person or a “slave” is someone who experiences exploitation and alienation, but as an object of exchange. This dehumanization of black people helps cultivate a change in the hierarchy between them and animals.

Black people, specifically black men, have been animalized to the point of familial ties.

The easiest way for these stereotypes to be showcased is in photography. Photographers have the power to do direct comparisons and expand narratives through visual aspects. We see this in modern times with Lebron James posing on the cover of Vogue as King Kong, a “savage” gorilla. Pieter Hugo is one of these photographers that have opened the conversation of black masculinity with his series The Hyena and Other Men.

In The human/animal in contemporary South African photograph by Amy Halliday, she quotes The Open: Man and Animal (2004), Giorgio Agamben by saying, “In Agamben's formulation, the anthropological machine fabricates the racial, ethnic, or social 'Other' as a barely humanized animal (using terms such as 'primitive' or 'savage') or, alternately, an animalized human; in either discursive construct, this less-than-full humanity becomes the basis for objectification, exploitation, and, in some cases, total elimination.” With this essay, we will explore how the black form is related to animality as it sits with the South African photographer Pieter Hugo's photo series The Hyena Men.

The Hyena men is a series of photos that showcase the complexities of the relationship between hyena men and their animals. Hyena men are an extended family that makes their living catching, training, and performing with the wild while traveling. African masculinity through the photos becomes aligned with the sexualization of the poses with the Hyenas (standing over them, forcing them to bare their teeth, etc). Sexualized dominance over animals, a practice called Big game hunting, is exclusive to white people and is a visual representation of colonialism. Their dead kills would be draped across the ground with them standing proudly over it, ready to be skinned and sold for luxury clothing or rugs. These same types of photographs would be taken of slaves on the plantations, lined up, and posing with dead expressions. African men doing the same poses and expressions as the slaves but posing as a white man over the live animals show the relationship they share. Both have been dominated by colonialism and white supremacy yet here they are in this relationship of codependency through pain and mutual respect.

The muted tones throughout the series make the men the focal point with their colorful dressings and the animals next to them staring off into the distance, muzzled. The discussion of these taxonomic borders of human and animal are embedded in the culture. Pieter Hugo uses his skills to dissolve these and create almost a harmony to pose the question of: Are these borders really here or are they created by tradition? To answer this question, the traditional borders and separation of man and animal are only there by definition of white colonialism. Black existence is given and taken away by the racial domination of non-black people, as they have been reduced to the flesh. Animals are dominated by their lack of intellect and the price of being a prize. Both share a libidinal economy of fear and desire. Halliday expands on this by stating, “But perhaps Hugo's insistence on these threshold conditions are uncomfortable precisely because they render visible the simultaneous dependency and disavowal inherent in these very distinctions. For the threshold is a space not of 'either/or', but one of 'both/and', of possibility and permeability that disturbs our still-prevailing categories of human and animal.” Through the eyes of white colonialism, there isn’t a difference between animals and black people. The over-sexualization of black men and the commodity of animal skins are akin to each other. The Hyena men and the hyenas are one and the same.

Exploring the complexities of the black male form as it relates to animality is something that can be explained by Pieter Hugo’s photography and Afro-pessimism. The lines between black people and animals are blurred between racial domination and human domination. Both are treated as expendable and as things rather than living beings. The black form, in white supremacy, is animalistic, savage, angry, and primal. The fear attached to black people is the same fear that is attached to a gorilla, a chimpanzee, or even a wild hyena. The question to be posed is: Is it better to be seen as an Animalized human or a Humanized animal?