Pity those who think there’s no fun to be had as South Africa enters what could be the Year of the Banana. With the former second-in-charge of the country in the pay of a convicted shyster, the chief of police hanging with criminals instead of arresting them and a long list of other foibles by those tasked with our rule, there could be little to laugh about.
But there’s always been more to this soft, curvy fruit than potassium and bawdy jokes. And that’s the potential for great satire that comes with banana-fication of the republic.
Sure the thought of 2008 bringing more crime, power cuts, bad matric results and corruption scandals in high office does bring out the darker side of the banana-fication.
This tends to neglect the lighter, fun side, which has sadly gone untapped. A right shame, given the endless possibilities offered by the three-ring circus that political life in South Africa has become.
It’s disheartening to note just how little place is held by satire in our cultural life. Type “satire” and “South Africa” into Google and all you get is the cartoonist Zapiro.
Booksellers’ shelves are groaning under new releases by “up-and-coming” local authors — but few are good for a laugh. You would have thought it a winning formula for sales, but poking fun at the idiocies and idiosyncrasies of our rulers, their vices, their praise singers and their women just isn’t done, it seems.
They’re too burdened with heavy themes around “rebirth”, “renaissance” and (groan) “the black experience”.
Not that other media fare any better. It could be the fault of the politicisation of the SABC board — but the same overbearing seriousness affects the airwaves. If local television content isn’t crushingly “nation-building-esque” then it is weighed down with politically correct themes and settings, such as the “democratic Parliament”.
A new show that premiered on e.tv this week got me thinking about the endless possibilities that satire offers, particularly in the current setting. If the horn-rimmed glasses and Fanon-quoting filmmaker set of Melville really thought about it it would know it is sitting on a gold mine.
The Biggest Loser is a spin-off of a popular NBC reality show where a group of 14 fatties square off to (as the show press release tells us) “transform their bodies, health and ultimately their lives”. Overcoming a series of cream puff-style obstacles, the contestants are put into teams (red and blue) where they have to perform a set of gruelling tasks in a bid to land a hefty cash prize.
Watching these fatties all “a heave ho” on a Durban beach got me thinking about the fat of the land — and those in our government determined to rob us, the unwashed masses, of it.
Picture it: The Biggest Loser: The Race to Polokwane.
In the blue team no less personages than Thabo Mbeki, his Cabinet, and a couple of hangers-on, like Essop Pahad. In the red team (an apt reference to their commie leanings) Jacob Zuma, aided by comrades Blade, Gwede, Vavi et al. The prize — the biggest La-Z-Boy sofa that is the Presidential Seat.
Week by week we, the viewers, would get to follow the trials and tribulations of this motley crew, who would be assigned seemingly unsurmountable challenges — such as the Arms Deal Dance. Here the winning team would have to dance the Mshini Wam’ or just a standard toyi-toyi through a meadow littered with bull droppings and menacing pop-out figurines of Patricia de Lille.
Here you could envision a scene of the blue team having to dine on beetroot slices and bottles of olive oil after losing a challenge — thanks to Manto Tshabalala-Msimang’s hangover.
Sure, given that The Biggest Loser is copyrighted and strictly regulated, there isn’t much of a chance of this variation, but there are other themes.
A sure hit would be Queen BEE, where strictly female contestants compete to land a tender to refurbish the salons of the Union Buildings.
“Who will be the Biggest Queen BEE?” the show’s punchline would read. Using the BEE codes as a guideline, interviews would be held countrywide to secure the most suitable contestants who would not only provide entertainment, but also be at the top of the list of “most historically disadvantaged”. Here, think multiple amputee, illiterate Limpopo housewife …
But my personal favourite would have to be a reality show based loosely on the infamous words by some bigwig at the height of the Schabir Shaik corruption trial. Something about every powerful black man in office having “their Indian”.
So Who’s Your Indian! it would be called. Two teams of contestants, all of, er, Indian extraction, would compete against each other in a bid to land the prize — an ANC politician. Rather like landing that plum job with Donald Trump on The Apprentice — only this time openly involving bribes.
Contestants would be chosen carefully, their eligibility related to their bank balances. Throughout the show, they would offer enticements and “little somethings” to the politician, in a bid to secure his favour and patronage.
You could even bring in Schabir as host, in a cameo role. Bribes to be secured with Correctional Services beforehand, of course.
The contestants and team coming up with the most outlandish and colourful bribe would win. Strictly payable in hard cash in the show, which would naturally contain a disclaimer that the scenarios should in no way affect that politician’s eligibility for future office.
Ah, all wishful thinking, I suspect. Even if such shows were written, who would air them? Certainly not the SABC. Probably because the lives of these dramatis personae — an assortment of charlatans, pseudo-intellectuals, drunks and womanisers — are closer to truth than fiction. They could be sued.
But if they would just put such petty considerations aside, the ratings would go through the roof.
Who wouldn’t want to see Mosiuoa Lekota in a pair of baby-blue tights?