Brenda Atkinson
The idea of the New South Africa surely kicked the butts of the makers and purveyors of popular culture: Madiba had barely had time to warm the presidential leather when our TV screens and magazines began spawning ads that warmed our hearts with visions of how we could be.
Quicker than you can say “rainbow” we colourful South Africans were good- naturedly toasting Charles Glass, cheering our children in soft-focus mini-olympics in which black kids always won, giggling knowingly as Grandpa Gogo took the piss out of some fat white slob with a bee sting. It gave us hope, it promised us a future in which black and white could laugh at each other, and at themselves, without someone pulling out an Uzi.
What these ads also suggested was that history’s power-brokers were in fact willing to give over just a little of that power; that wealthy straight white blokes were prepared to be the butt of black jokes. The implication was that they had no option, really, because black executives and creatives were increasingly entering the arena of image-making.
The trend came into sharp focus at this year’s Loerie Awards: as Net#work’s Mike Schalit observed in a Business Day interview, much of the country’s most outstanding recent advertising has been marked by a specifically South African sense of humour; a vernacular, if you like, that clinches our rainbow identity.
Schalit should know: one of Net#work’s 19 Loeries was for a print ad that drew laughs each time it was flashed on screen. Devised for Big and Tall clothing, this deliberate Wonderbra rip-off features a very chubby young black woman smiling coyly down at her large breasts, which are comfy in a Big and Tall bra. The payoff line is “Hoezit, my bra.”
It’s easy to see why these ads are successful: they’re affirming because they allow us to reflect on our own uniquely South African funniness as we congratulate ourselves for getting the in-joke. They are an ingenious, more sophisticated version of earlier boytjies-in-the-bar beer ads because they confirm our PC credentials by positioning us within the pun: we are in dialogue with the advert, not just observers of its narrative.
But a little tight-lipped observation reveals that the inclusivity for which we applaud ourselves is really a bit of a ruse.
A very clever ruse, because it disguises the fact that, almost without exception, the perspective behind these New South Africa ad jokes is that of the boytjies-in- the-bar (the white ones, that is).
Vodacom’s most recent “free message retrieval” ad features a fat black dude on a yacht, dripping with chains and nubile white maidens in bikinis. He roars with laughter as he replays a message from a woman telling him to “pack your bags and leave!”
The notorious Nando’s “Tailgunner” spot and MTN’s “Hitchhiker” (the Village People joke) send queer stereotyping through the roof. Likewise, Tranquilit radio ads suggest tranquillisers for parents who discover that a) their white daughter is dating a black guy, and b) their white son is dating a guy.
The list goes on. The trick with these ads when you’re on a mission to identify white heterosexist supremacist ideology in your pop-culture diet is to ask yourself whether they’d get the same laughs if the situations were reversed.
For example, fat white guy on boat surrounded by nubile black women in little more than suntan oil. Huh? Or group of fags forced to hitchike get picked up by a straight white guy. Or daddy collapses and reaches for the tranquillisers because he’s just discovered that his son is, gasp, straight. Makes you laugh, er, think, doesn’t it?