Primetime: The script
Once hands stop being tools and traffic dwindles, dinner is served or already digesting and night begins its watch — people all over the country sit in front of their screens.
It’s more ritual than routine. Soapies, and other shows in the primetime slots, are cultural pillars; active participants in documenting the lingua franca and, at times, educating and entrenching both positive and negative norms. From Moroka glamour to Mukwevho tradition, primetime viewing has been as much a melting pot as the society represented in the narratives.
Soapies have threaded themselves into the nation’s tapestry, transcending the staged essence of the medium. We call actors by their character’s name in their most recognisable role, signalling a fractured familiarity as a result of devout viewing: Sophie Ndaba will always be Queen and Sindi Dlathu will always be Thandaza.
Generations in particular has been a major figure, anchored by Archie Moroka’s radio-rich voice and the glamour of the advertising industry, woven in colourful fashion thanks to Queen’s fabulous charm — which brought life to the word “darling”. Muvhango and Isidingo were never far off; where Barker Haines was the antecedent to David Genaro in Rhythm City, only less charming, and Doris’s “You must never” is still clear as day.
The late 1990s and early 2000s were a time of imagining; a hopeful era in a country beginning to think of itself as part of the rest of the world, chasing a dream that was no longer just democracy. The original mainstays of primetime viewing still cling to a multicultural approach to characterisation, settings and themes.
Johannesburg still receives much attention, owing to the fact that it is a perfect muse for the mix soapies are looking for: a mosaic of language, cultural creation with interaction, a growing black middle class with its own complexities and a working class, viewed as more than just poor but also acutely affected by poverty in social terms.
The drive for multilingual dialogue and delving into various narratives does, however, have its shortcomings. Having two characters speak different languages, fluently, while in dialogue is difficult to believe. It’s a homogeneous projection of everyday communication that is stop-start and often limited to basic phrases, verbs and nouns. Emzini Wezinsizwa was a realistic display of how gaps and mistakes in translation happen in everyday life, sometimes with comic results.
Storylines that include multiple narratives face the challenge of providing in-depth and nuanced depictions of characters, which are, inherently, based on stereotypes. Repetition of these stereotypes does little to change oppressive norms accepted by many of the viewers.
The shows often entrench traditional, heteronormative and patriarchal views held by older viewers and do little to widen the thinking of younger audiences.
There’s certainly been an increase in the portrayal of homosexual men but these characters, and the renditions by the actors, play significantly into sometimes harmful stereotypes.
Gender Links’ South African co-