The ‘Bling’ Of South Africa

This was a blog I wrote at the time of Khanyi Mbau’s interview with Debora Patta, but never posted. With this debate, again, coming to the fore after the publication of this picture on the front page of The Times yesterday, I figured now is as good a time as ever to post it.

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I can’t think of a single interview of Khanyi Mbau’s that doesn’t immediately spark off a slew of controversy and her recent turn with Debora Patta on 3rd Degree was no different. There more quotes there to achieve exactly what it was the indefatigable Ms Mbau wanted; to get her those headlines - for those who missed it, “blue cheese on a croissant,” is the 21st South African answer to Marie Antoinette’s cake.

Whilst of course, the interview was interesting in and of itself just because Khanyi Mbau, as much as it pains me to admit it, is fascinating as a character, if not so much as a person, there was a far deeper undertone to the interview. As 3rd Degree framed it, the programme was a look at the ‘bling lifestyle,’ of some of the South African elite. Though this is nothing new to the gossip pages, it burst into the wider public psyche after the Kenny Kunene’s equally famous and infamous 40th birthday party, particularly after Zwelinzima Vavi’s scathing attack on it and Kenny’s just as scathing open letter to Vavi.

From this a vociferous, yet important debate on where we, as a culture are going, and who we are erupted. To many, as shown by Vavi and his many supporters, Kenny, Khanyi and their ilk are a living, breathing, blinging representations of the pervesion of the South African democracy. Even I’m so tempted to say, that any sensible person would agree, amongst which I would number myself. However, I can’t.

Who Are We
The government oft repeats, these are foreign and alien notions to South Africa and yes; a South Africa where a small minority live a life of wealth and overt opulence, whilst the far larger majority lived a life of squalid poverty is not the status quo our constitution sought to engender.

However, the very system we chose to live by, the very system our constitution enshrines is a system in which the Khanyi’s and the Kenny’s flourish. However it may manifest, be it the football players and their WAGs of Europe or the starlets and rappers of Hollywood, where there is liberal democracy, our constitutional system, the ugliness of conspicuous consumption rears its head.

For me the irony of the whole issue was best illustrated on Twitter whilst the show was airing and the majority of South African Twitter users were watching and tweeting about the show, an American asked me what the big fuss in South Africa was about.

After I explained to him, his answer said it all, “Welcome to the United States.”

Is It Because They’re Black?
Thankfully, as the first salvo in this debate was shot off by a black man we can somewhat dodge the South African version of Alice’s rabbit hole, the race debate and though I hate to mention it, I would be remiss not to.

Why now, why when Kenny Kunene, a black man, is the one who is splurging his wealth about does the outcry arise? For years, both pre and post Apartheid, through the columns of Gwen Gill we were privy to the conspicuous consumption, often thinly veiled as charity functions, of white South Africans. One may do it ‘for charity,’ and the other may just do it, but be it Edith Venter or Khanyi Mbau, it’s all inconspicuously or not, conspicuous consumption.

Where Are The Parents?
Often these days where the Oprah’s and Dr Phil’s of this world explain our issues of why we are the way we are, we forget one simple thing, personal responsibility. Therefore, when Kenny, Khanyi and their supporters say, “Where are the parents, it’s not for us to be role models,” they are correct, but only to a degree.

The power is of the media and popular culture is pervasive, this we all know. Thus regardless how well a parent may raise their child, unless they raise their child locked in away from anyone and everything, not all aspects of who that child becomes is up to them. It takes a village to raise a child; sadly with the power the media holds in 21st century living, try as we may, we can’t choose who the villagers are.

When I was in university, I got heavily involved in a mentoring programme giving extra Maths and English classes to underprivileged kids. One day, talking to one of my kids, he pointed to my Puma backpack, my iPod and the clothes I was wearing. To me, these items didn’t mean anything, to Kenny Kunene even less, but to him, at 9yrs old, they represented an ideal of what he wanted to achieve, where to be one day in life.

In South Africa, where poverty is something that we face daily; be it saying goodbye to your maid at the end of the day knowing that she has a long trek to make back home, whilst you sip on your chilled chardonnay, or passing spare change to the beggar out in the hot sun whilst fiddling with the air-conditioning of your car, we all ‘spit in the face of the poor,’ as Vavi said of Kenny’s birthday. Granted, it’s at varying degrees, but just by living your average middle class lifestyle, it’s what we do. Perhaps the plain reason why Kenny Kunene, Khanyi Mbau and the others of the ‘bling culture,’ offend and anger us so is because what they do is a reflection of who we are, a grossly magnified reflection of course, but a reflection nonetheless.

When ‘It’s Only A Joke’ Doesn’t Cut It

Like most black South Africans, what I know of advertising, is based primarily on Generations, through the goings on at New Horizons. Luckily for me though, I know a few people in advertising and know that though they have a shocking lack of scruples, what with their using their intelligence and talent to sell superfluous stuff to people, they’re not murderous & fornicating idiots in bad clothes. Well, come to think of it, the bad clothes still apply. Nevertheless, I’ve come to recognise that people in the ad game, more often than not, are incredibly funny and intelligent and that intelligence and humour comes across in razor sharp wit.

After four hard years of drinking and partying I finally got to walk across the stage of UCT’s Jameson Hall and get doffed on the head by a man in a funny dress, something I could’ve easily achieved for far cheaper on any given night in Cape Town’s Pink Strip, but either way it allows me to be vaguely intellectual about things I see, so let me have my say.

However, at the same time, being someone who at times has had to explain down somebody climbing onto their high horse of moral indignation at a perceived slight because of a joke, I find myself in a strange position. In writing this, I open myself to the very derisive glares and sneers that I myself give when I say, “it’s just a joke,” to those who just “don’t get it.”

1st For Woman’s ad campaigns have always had their tongues firmly placed in cheek, essentially you could sum them up to a slogan learnt by all girls in primary school, which is hardly ever truly disproven, ‘boys are stupid.’ However, there new ads, advertising a new service, a helpline for customers aren’t in that vein, and in and of themselves aren’t offensive. Having said that though, there was certainly still something about two of these ads that got to me. I went back and forth on how to describe how I felt; offended was far too strong a word, so I finally settled on, ‘uncomfortable,’ a description that fittingly I’m uncomfortable with, as it’s neither here nor there really.

In these ads, there are talking heads and the talking heads are black actors with a particular accent, the accent which the majority of black South Africans speak in, from maids to political leaders. I hate to delve into the world of ‘deconstructing & decoding,’ but that’s exactly where I’m headed. Failing to see any other place where the humour in the advertisements lay, it would seem that the ‘humour’ in the adverts lay in the accents.

This is nothing new really, after providing us cellphone tools that we just could never live without such as the X-Ray Kit, for a mere R50* companies like 35050 also gave us the, ‘Madaaaam! MADAAAM! Yoouur fooone is riiiinging,’ ringtone, just to name one example amongst many, for which the ‘humour’ was the accent.

In and of themselves, beyond their banal quality, there’s nothing offensive in these attempts at humour. However, the subtext, that there’s something funny about the accent of black South Africans trying their utmost to wrap their tongues around a foreign language. An accent that is in no way in indicator of how educated or intelligent (two things which are not related) someone is, is where I have to say – and here I go again – I’m uncomfortable.

What this particular brand of humour seems to do is to carry on a rich and long tradition in Western entertainment. From the use of blackface in early 20^th century entertainment, to Prissy & Mammy, in ‘Gone With The Wind,’ right through to these ads, there is a single thick vein that connects them all, though obviously as the years have passed it’s far more subtle. Today, instead of the overt caricature being in front of us to laugh at, the caricature is now hidden behind a flimsy façade, and represented through the accent.

One of course would not be incorrect to point out that it’s not just black South Africans which are pilloried in this way, Afrikaners, Cape Coloureds, Durban Indians and just about any other group also come in for their share of roasting. The very concerns and reservations that I have regarding the use black people as figures of humour could and have been expressed by any of these groups.

I deliberately opened this blog with a race-based joke, or attempted joke even. I have no issue with jokes about race, in fact having laughed at jokes about paedophilia, rape and a multitude of other ‘taboo’ topics, I’m the last person to take umbrage at a joke about race. However, if a joke is going to go down that route, it’d better be damned good, and these ads are nothing of the sort. They resort to a cheap tactic knowing that out there, the Anneline Botes’ and Steve Hofmeyrs and will be able to have a good cackle, all because “it’s just a joke.”

As I said at the outset, advertising people are not stupid, and they wouldn’t use this kind of ‘humour’ if they knew that it would turn-off the majority of their prospective customers. The ugly fact is this, it’s not only the Anneline Botes’ and Steve Hofmeyrs who laugh at these ads, it’s you’re everyday South African, be they ‘African’ or not who does and therein lies the real problem. Our laughter shows an ugly attitude within us. An attitude that feels that if your English, even if it’s not your first language, is somehow ‘less than,’ then you yourself are less than and are fair game for a cheap laugh.

Of course I may be wrong, it may ‘just be a joke,’ and I’m ‘overthinking it.’ But hey, I was doffed on the head by that dude in the funny dress, and one of the few things that did sink in during those four years is that, to put it simply, sometimes, despite whatever may be on the surface, things are not as they seem. Frankly though, you don’t need a piece of paper from a guy in a funny dress and hat to know that. I may be wrong, but I don’t think so.

*And a subscription charge of R5000 every other minute.

For One Thing, This Fortunate Gay Man Has Had Enough

“You seem much cooler than those whores inside!” that’s what this nice looking gal slurred to my friends and me as we sat outside one of those dodgy little bars that you (well, I) find yourself at after everything else has closed but the night won’t end. I slurred right back, “Grab a seat,” how could I not after an opening line like that? As her and her boyfriend sat, more traditional greetings were given, names were exchanged and in that way the slightly inebriated will, she jumped right to the question that the sober normally dance around and asked, “you gay?” “Yes,” I replied and I thought that would be the end of it. But sadly it wasn’t because right next, she asked something that caused me to severely regret having invited her to join us. Reason being this girl, in one statement, proved to be a particular type of person fast rising up my (long) list of types I don’t like, the fagless, ‘fag-hag.’

So how do I know that this girl was a ‘fagless fag-fag?’ Simple, if the glow that lit up her face when I told I was gay wasn’t enough of a give-away, her insistence that we go to dancing at Bronx followed by her little-girl-who’d-just-lost-her-kitten look as she complained she had no gay friends were more than enough for me to mentally file her in that group.

In my opinion, the blame for the rise of these single girls out there searching for their ‘gay’ can be placed firmly at the door of that cultural watershed, Will & Grace. Since that show, this coupling between men and women has somehow become the biggest thing, making Romeo & Juliet a very distant. In fact, straight women no longer pine away for Romeo to recite sonnets to them from under their balcony’s, they now sit around and pine for a man to watch Project Runway with, take them to gay bars, and most importantly it would seem, give invaluable style advice. Something as a fortunate gay man, I am finally going to put my foot down about and say, ‘enough is enough.’

Now I know, it’s all great and good, Will & Grace broke barriers, opened up the representation of gay men in popular culture. With no Will & Grace there’d be no Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood (though technically he’s ‘omnisexual’), no Scotty & Kevin of Brothers & Sisters or many of the other diverse representations of gay men that we can see across popular culture now. All of which is important for the advancement of gay rights and all that other good ‘human & civil rights stuff.’ But, even despite this, I just can’t keep it to myself any longer, at times I can’t help but wish a pox upon the day Will & Grace was put on air!

I long for a time when a single straight woman didn’t see me as a prospective shopping partner, as someone who’ll spoon ice-cream or pour wine down your throat as we bitch to each other about why he was such a fucking asshole for leaving you for that fat cow whom we will now refer to as ‘the big blonde one.’ And yes, I can look at your boobs and judge them with none of that pesky ‘male gaze’ stuff, and unlike your girlfriends, you won’t have to worry that I’m lying to you, because I’m jealous that yours are bigger than mine or smaller. But most importantly, I’ll know if he’s gay or not (most of the time).

I suppose it would only be correct at this point to admit that I am a sort of Will to not one, or two but rather three sort of Graces, Lee, Jane & Aithne or BFF’s 1, 2 & 3 as my Twitter people may know them as. What can I say, as a modern African man, I see no reason why I can’t have three even though this is a slight stretching of the tradition of polygamy. But lets not be a stickler for details. Despite my friendship with these three totally amazing ladies, I see no reason as to why this fact has to make so many straight woman think that I, am a prospective best friend. Some might say that I’m exaggerating a bit, but I kid you not, not once but twice have I been invited to go lingerie shopping with them by women I barely know, and that’s just the most extreme of examples.

Now you fag-less hag, I know, gay men are meant to be all sorts of fierce and fabulous. I could lie and say we’re not, but not even you would fall for that, many can be and are. But like all people we each have our own foibles, I for instance, as Aithne & Jane would attest to am a very crap best friend at times. I have and will continue to (sorry buds I can’t help it) forget the various details of this or that ex-boyfriend, or that guy from the one time who said or did this or that. You see the problem is, when I received my “Being Gay For Dummies” package, I skipped over the friendship part and went straight to the sex bit because in all honesty that seemed far more interesting.

So word of advice ladies. Just because that guy you’ve just met is gay, don’t take for granted that you and he will be bestest best friends forever. For all you know, he may just be as loutish as that boyfriend of yours, choosing to spend Sundays shouting at the TV screen as cars go round and round a track for hours on end or watch men chasing after balls (not like that) and not in the slightest bit interested in hearing about your issues or ‘going dancing’ with you. So please give him a break, don’t latch onto him like that. We are men after all, and desperation is as much of a turn-off to us, as our breeder brethren.