It’s officially been called ”one national conversation”. But in reality Heartlines, the South African Broadcasting Corporation’s (SABC) R44-million moral-regeneration project, is not about dialogue. It is a one-way instruction manual for good behaviour put out by the corporation in conjunction with the non-government Mass Media Project — a tripartite alliance between big business, politics and God.
I was invited on to the SABC2 programme The Big Question last Sunday. A culmination of the Heartlines eight-part television series, it was the longest live chat show aired in South Africa to date.
I got there, I suspect, because in a review of the series in the Mail & Guardian I had called the forces behind Heartlines ”the new Holy Trinity”. After shooting my mouth off under TV cameras, I have now received a number of e-mails from conservative Christian groups wanting me as a friend.
But I don’t want to be a Heartlines buddy. I don’t want to see my fear of rape, child abuse, HIV and violent crime through their eyes.
Initially, I approached the series with an open mind. After its tight human dramas in ultra-contemporary settings, I concluded that here was a sow’s ear made into a silken purse.
But the phrase ”one national conversation about values” can be supplanted by ”tongues have been wagging” in the industry about compromised creative principles. And it is highly unlikely that the Mass Media Project is really up to hearing what’s being said.
Here is the background: the censoring of the Unauthorised documentary series episode about President Thabo Mbeki earlier this year appeared to be the culmination of events at the public broadcaster, signalling an end to a period of relative freedom of content on the airwaves. The demise of an adventurous generation of commissioning editors has been followed by a new climate of conservatism in which the content hub no longer deems barrier-breaking creations like Yizo Yizo suitable as family fare.
When SABC CEO Dali Mpofu claimed in July that there is no blacklist at the SABC, there was no talk of the creative industries that produce local content. Everything was seen as political. But the TV industry was rife with rumours of the new guard trying to break monopolies through forensic investigations and by imparting a climate of fear among filmmakers. What we’re living through now is the calm, conservative aftermath.
Ironically, some of the creative geniuses behind groundbreaking works like Yizo Yizo have also been behind Heartlines. Today we can see how, in the quest for survival, leopards have changed their spots. The rebellious, left-wing filmmakers of yesteryear are today producing content on behalf of Christian conservatives.
On the surface, the Heartlines series seems quite benign. In one episode a middle-class man dips into church coffers to buy his wife a Christmas gift. In another, after some difficulty, a tight-knit Christian community embraces a freed prisoner on the road to reform. In all the episodes there is scant talk of God, and negative experiences are seen as vehicles for arriving at one of the eight states of grace (acceptance, responsibility, forgiveness, perseverance and so on).
My major problem arose when I downloaded the organisation’s publication, The Values Book, off the net. This torrid piece of propaganda is, one assumes, the tool church facilitators have used in discussion groups about the broadcast dramas their congregants have seen.
In every instance a sort of Christian disclaimer follows what appears to be a progressive approach to issues of the day. While the series ostensibly preaches tolerance of diversity, there is also talk of sexual immorality, swathes of text about how Jesus was sent to remind the Jews of the meaning of their own laws, and stipulations of how good wives are supposed to behave (”caring for her husband’s needs”).
In keeping with the Christian outlook, the official line is that all can be cured through abstinence until marriage and prayer. No explanation is given of why the embattled family unit is now the breeding ground of child abuse, wife battery and HIV.
So in response, I’ve developed a scenario I don’t think Heartlines the Sequel will be taking on. Two Soweto lesbians, Ms Mokwena and Ms Khumalo, shack up. They approach an adoption agency, which bestows on them a beautiful white newborn child. After some friction with the community, they gain acceptance and marry in the local church.
Now that’s a story the conservative United States Christian Templeton Foundation, which has bankrolled Heartlines, is unlikely to fund.