WHAT I’M WATCHING
SCOTTNESS L. SMITH
Executive producer and director
My parents didn’t believe in M-Net, so I'm a “series late-bloomer”. I missed The Sopranos, Grey's Anatomy — all the big early ones. My first series was Game of Thrones... as in all of them. I watched all of them over a weekend. Great for my street cred, not so great for my social life. I streamed all the seasons and I was hooked by the scope of the story and how all the narratives interlink. GOT's politics is a little problematic, but so what, it’s entertaining!
I waited until the Johnny Boyega “Star Wars” to get in on the franchise and from there I was hooked on that too. Again, I watched all of them over a weekend. I cant wait for 2019 and for GOT’s next installment.
I’m a cynic. I wait to see which shows are getting the most love. Then, fully intending to hate the show, I watch it. I nearly always love it, and have to admit the crowd is right. In the words of Shadow Henderson (Denzel Washington) from Mo Better Blues”: “You grandiose motherf!ckers don't play shit that they like. If you played the shit that they like, then people would come, simple as that!”.
The world is opening up. But it’s also flattening out. The Eurocentric mainstream is dulling down cultures across the world. And it’s all vanilla, which is boring. So I think there is a massive opportunity for culturally relevant popcontent from marginal communities. For Africans, Asians and Latin Americans, Netflix and streaming are a huge space to play in.
You have to represent where you’re from. Your block, corner, ’burb, whatever makes you you. That’s what the world is hankering for. If you feel that you’re not being represented, then you need to do something about it, or wrap yourself in an identity that is being represented. Or get on with your life and forget about it. We’re going to be pushing up daisies soon enough, so make the content that counts.
We’re shooting the first Ndebele series ever in the next couple of weeks. It’s called “Ikani”. We’re working on an SA-Nigeria co-production of the sequel to Hear ME Move (called Hear 2 Move). And there’s something big bubbling under across the ocean in Australia.