I can just see it. Hordes of Americans and Japanese following tour-guide tannies with their empowerment-coloured brollies pointing out ”This is where Charlize was born.” ”This is where Charlize went to school.” ”This is where Charlize ate her first samoosa.” But it’s not only Benoni that’s going bananas. The movie houses in Sandton, Sea Point and Scottsville are all doing brisk business in patriotic popcorn. And every Theron — from Skilpadfontein to Strandfontein — is tracing her family tree in the direction of Charlize to bask in its celebrity shade.
While our sports teams are fluffing their lines, our artists are clearly on the ball. First, JM Coetzee scores with the Nobel Prize for literature, and now Charlize Theron touches down with an Oscar for best actress. The Mexican waves may be dwindling in our stadiums, but our actors and writers are making proudly South African waves on the world’s stages. Not since Francois Pienaar held the Rugby World Cup aloft in 1995 has the country experienced such a bout of patriotic fervour. For one of us has just made it in Hollywood, that pimp of the American dream.
JM Coetzee may have been awarded the keys to his adopted Australian city, but our Charlize will probably get the whole of Benoni. True to her word, she brought home her Oscar to obtain her country’s approval before returning to Los Angeles to settle down with him. We all watched Princess Charlize in awe last Sunday night. All of us with an M-Net decoder, that is.
Those without access to the pay channel were just plain lucky. Not that the regal Charlize had anything to do with it. It was just that the Carte Blanche programme was like a really shabby cross between a Big Brother eviction night and an Idols show.
It began with Charlize emerging from a stretch limo to a loud bang that had Ms Theron nearly diving behind the vehicle for cover, probably thinking that it was about to be hijacked. (Limos have great space specs for two of our more important means of transport: taxis and hearses).
Instead, streamers rained down on her as M-Net representatives stood by awkwardly, rendered pillars of salt by the non-existent director of celebrity protocol. Then, slashing her way through the streamers with her Oscar, Charlize made it up the Big Brother red carpet that had been re-cut for the occasion. At the top of the stairs, she was briefly interviewed by Zaa, a hobbit from Africa who struggled to reach his microphone towards the statuesque meisie from Benoni, who’s evolved into a highly sophisticated woman of the world.
Once inside the building, Charlize was greeted by the regular Big Brother rent-a-crowd as if at a surprise birthday party. This time, they’d left their posters at home, but brought along their practised enthusiasm. Then came the real cringe-surprise: PJ Powers, who for some reason had been brought out of retirement to serenade Charlize. The voting lines are now open to choose your favourite idol to perform at such occasions.
Not everyone gets to have their class reunion broadcast live on television, but that is what happened to Charlize as former classmates were sprung on her like reluctant family members being reunited with unhappy Big Brother evictees. Here was an international star who’d earned her stripes playing opposite some of Hollywood’s biggest stars like Al Pacino, Woody Allen and Keanu Reeves, yet she was being celebrated in the same patented format as the Big Brother one-too-many-nights wonders.
Some of the background inserts were interesting enough. But then there were the interviews with people who’d seen the movie that made one despair that some of those interviewed would be voting in the forthcoming election. ”Charlize is our first home-grown celebrity,” gushed one. Really? Has she not heard of Nelson Mandela? Miriam Makeba? Peter Marais?
Charlize has chosen to ply her trade in the United States. Like other South African artists who have decided to work in Europe, Australia, Canada and even Bollywood. But unlike many, she has used her celebrity to speak out strongly on national issues like rape. And she indicated that she will raise the issue of HIV/Aids in her forthcoming meeting with President Thabo Mbeki.
We trust that he will listen and, if not, we hope that Charlize throws one almighty tantrum like the one that first got her noticed in a bank by a film agent.