No sympathy for women in a man’s world
Society has allowed men the privilege of being troublesome
Here is a fun drinking game you can play with your friends this weekend – who knows what the latest update on CiCi Thwala’s court case with Arthur Mafokate?
If you make it out of the night sober, you must be around the most informed people in the world.
If not, you are surrounded by people who are also getting quite overwhelmed by the information overload around us.
Sadly, we are becoming desensitised by shocking celeb news. Even death is easy to mock.
The cancellation of Arthur has the piercing ferocity of a soggy paper straw.
It’s hard not to imagine that should it come out that Babes Wodumo was in fact drunk and did in fact provoke Mampintsha at some point of that night, many will pull their attention economy coins together and make it rain for Durban’s finest.
Mampintsha’s career literally lies in the palm of his hands and between his convincing lips. Should he play it like Arthur, this court case could see him as a profitable social-pariah.
Sympathy has no value in the world of celebrities – it’s how Twitter reacts to it.
Social media reactions have quickly become a potent poison, capable of bringing extinction to creatures the size of Beyoncé.
In this entire furore women always seem to pay the biggest price. The nature of a woman’s celebrity is so entrenched in how sexualised she is that her music is a disposable byproduct of her nudity.
We watch bio-pic after bio-pic of our favourite female idols. We see how cast and crew have come together to portray the scandalous and difficult lives of female celebrities yet somehow their artistry gets drowned in the drugs, addiction and men who dominated their lives.
We watch men get presented as brilliant artists who are formidable innovators paving the way for their peers.
Under the oppressive thumb of patriarchy, young women stand no chance of having a self-defined career in the industry.
We shift blame to these women because we sit with the uncomfortable truth of how society has allowed men the privilege of being cantankerous fits of anger.
We can cancel Mampintsha all we like, but it will not take away the many women being abused in the industry.
Perhaps DJ Tira spoke out swiftly this time because R. Kelly’s career has lost its phoenix-flame but we must remember DJ Cleo’s choice of words when tweeting about his friend and fellow artist Brickz.
This is a boys club and we are kidding ourselves thinking they will simply wash their hands of each other.