Madam is white and middle-class and Eve is her black maid. They are rivals and yet accomplices. Together, the two leading ladies of a wildly popular cartoon strip have entertained the new South Africa for more than 10 years.
The emergence of the new black elite, Nelson Mandela’s birthday, the fluctuating rand, polemics on the overseas visits of President Thabo Mbeki; no subject is taboo for Madam and Eve who expound on political, social and economic developments in the country.
A broken vase leads to a homespun version of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to look into human rights violations during the apartheid regime.
Eve, who sports a white apron and a feather duster in her hand, is often caustic and ironic. When the going gets tough, she has a favourite refuge: stretched out on an ironing board with a newspaper over her head to ignore the acerbic remarks of Madam and her mother.
Mother Anderson is a gin-swilling sexagenarian who has not really taken to the new order.
”Thousands of snowflakes landing everywhere. What can be more beautiful than a white South Africa?” she once said while watching snow fall — as Eve looked on aghast.
The cartoon strip was created in 1992, two years before the country’s first multi-racial elections and is now carried in about 12 newspapers as well as the Mail & Guardian Online, and has been turned into books.
The comic strip has been a runaway success and has been translated into several languages, as well as spawning a television series.
Ironically, the creator of this South African saga is American. Stephen Francis came to South Africa in the late 1980s and was inspired to create the characters with illustrator Rico Schacherl after observing the network of relationships in his in-laws’ family.
The strip started life in the Weekly Mail, which is now known as the Mail & Guardian. The characters have evolved since their inception in 1992.
Madam’s mother is shown being questioned about her racist tendencies in older strips. She defends herself, saying: ”That’s not fair! It’s an old cartoon! I’ve changed since then!”
”They have changed quite a bit, especially Madam,” said Schacherl.
”As a matter of fact, in 1994, we introduced the mother because Madam was getting too liberal and the contrast between her and Eve was dropping off.”
John Daniel, research director at Human Sciences Research Council, said the cartoon strip has struck a chord in South African hearts.
”People can identify with both of them. It does touch on a certain reality in everbody’s life. Madam and Eve is one of a whole set of developments since 1994 which have contributed to changing attitudes in South Africa. It has been one of the positive influences.”
He added: ”In a way the cartoon pokes fun at the white Madam, it makes her look rather silly, it demystifies her in the minds of the reader.”
Schacherl said an advertising agency ”recently did a bit of focus group testing and (found that) Eve is very popular” among the estimated million-strong domestic workers in South Africa and had ”sort of become a spokeswoman for them”.
Asked if the two women would survive a decade after democracy, Schacherl was upbeat, and said: ”As long as we still have material to work with.”
”South Africa is an extremely interesting place. We never ran out of material. We did have that comment after the 1994 election, people were saying what are you gonna do now?”
Schacherl said South Africa was still ”a funny place to live” and was certainly interesting enough to provide material for their satirical strip: ”Besides the politicians, we get inspiration from everywhere, even the characters themselves — they have a life of their own.”
He said they scanned newspapers and listened to talk radio stations to measure public opinion on issues they were going to deal with in the strip.
”You can gauge what’s on people minds and what they’re interested in. We got the idea [for a recent strip] about Mbeki going door-to-door to canvas for votes from a radio debate,” said Schacherl.
”We decide on an idea and then brainstorm over the course of a week. Steve writes the script, we talk about it and then I draw them — sometimes it can take an hour-and-a-half, but others, like the one for the Mail & Guardian, can take a day.”
Schacherl said they would like their strip to have a broader appeal — especially overseas — but that often it dealt with domestic issues. The strip is carried by specialist South African newspapers in Britain and Australia and their website at www.madamandeve.co.za is very popular with South Africans overseas.
Interestingly, Schacherl said they only had limited control over the Madam and Eve television series.
”People put their own interpretation on the characters. You will have decided for yourself how Madam speaks — people can get quite annoyed by it.” – Sapa-AFP, Staff Reporter
See Madam & Eve on the Mail & Guardian Online