Struggling artists face tough ethical choices over politicians’ support, less so celebrities
Last week, I wrote about the limited forms of support, financial and otherwise, that the government provides to SA’s artists, and the disappointingly pedestrian (or simply utilitarian) positions adopted by its major political parties on the arts.
Everyone in the arts community would like more public and private money spent on and in the creative economy; no doubt most would also like to see it distributed more evenly. Yet on those occasions when politicians do decide to offer their patronage, problems inevitably arise.
From the performing arts (think of Sarafina 2) to the visual arts (the painting of Nelson Mandela that sold for R4m at an ANC fund raiser, or the time Humphrey Mmemezi used his work credit card at a McDonald’s to, um, buy artwork for his office), we have come to expect corruption scandals in this sector to differ from those in energy or finance only in degree, but not in kind. If artists want to be ethical when earning income for their talents, there are some tough decisions to be made.
Performing a song at a political rally? It’s just a gig. Composing a song at the behest of a presidential crony? You’ve crossed the line. Inviting a loathsome mayor, minister or MEC to the opening of a show? Merely observing protocol, not necessarily currying favour.
There are lots of grey areas here. Each case is unique. As always in matters of ethics, the key consideration is power — status, money, popularity and influence. How much does the artist have? How much does the politician have? Who seeks to gain what?
The power imbalances are mostly substantial. I recently spoke to a media-studies graduate and aspirant stage performer drowning in debt, who said she was given the opportunity to join the cast of a show commissioned by the ANC Women’s League.
She knows that the league is antifeminist and reactionary, and that its record on genderbased violence is reprehensible. But she also has to eat and pay for a roof over her head. What would you do?
That student could attest, to adapt Marshall McLuhan, that the medium determines how the message is judged. If President Jacob Zuma was paying to keep an obscure weekly open mic poetry session afloat, I honestly wouldn’t mind. But if the money was going to a prominent broadcaster or a celebrity, I’d condemn it without a second thought.
The intersection between the media and the arts is significant. This is an arts column but I regularly write about TV, radio and digital platforms because there is an art to producing this content; and these are the means by which most art forms, broadly defined, are consumed.
Like many of the big personalities on SA’s airwaves, Anele Mdoda moves seamlessly between media and genres in music, dance or comedy.
It is her position as a talkshow host, however, that makes Mdoda an interesting figure in the issue of political interference. Daily Maverick’s Marianne Thamm revealed this week that the Department of Social Development paid the SABC R500,000 to secure “a two-hour hagiographic profile” of Social Development Minister and Women’s League president Bathabile Dlamini, which was aired on successive episodes of Real Talk With Anele while the ANC’s elective conference was under way in December.
The story is primarily about a ministry using public money to pay for propaganda, as part of a factional battle within the ANC and to “clean up” the minister’s hopelessly tainted public image. In this aim it was, I may add, partially effective: despite my visceral dislike of Dlamini as a venal politician, I almost found myself soften towards her as a mother, a daughter and an amiable talkshow guest. And that is precisely the problem. Mdoda has washed her hands of culpability, pointing out that she does not decide on who is interviewed, and has autonomy only in her “research” and in “what is asked”. But she enabled a brazen puff piece that allowed Dlamini to skirt all the difficult questions she should be forced to answer. Mdoda has power because she is famous.
And now she is complicit in the protection of those who abuse state power.