23 NOVEMBER 2014 Television I
CANNOT think that watching KykNET’s dating show Boer Soek ’n Vrou is a particularly relaxing experience for the leadership of the Economic Freedom Fighters. In fact, I could picture them using it as something akin to a planning video for land grabs.
Every time the camera pans to a bucolic vista on one of the featured farms, I imagine someone in EFF HQ sticking a red pin on the relevant point in a map of South Africa tacked to the wall.
But because I’m not in the EFF leadership, I have a soft spot for Boer Soek ’n Vrou . Now in its seventh season, the reality show takes 10 farmers looking for love and sends would-be partners to stay with them. This season, for the first time, there was even a female boer: Lize, a livestock farmer from the Free State. Sadly, Lize didn’t receive enough expressions of interest from men to stay the course.
The show feels a bit like a time capsule. It harks back to an era when men were men, and the EFF was a distant dream. Two-tone shirts are still in vogue. Oldworld chivalry is the order of the day, and the women hoping to win a farmer’s heart know that one of the best ways to it is through his stomach.
The female contestants seem to place a tremendous amount of value on how neat their prospective farmer’s house is. Fortunately, they are all quite neat, although the farmers also undertake some feminine redecoration before the women arrive. They are, in the traditional sense of the word, gentlemen: they carry bags, leave presents on pillows, but also behave with a kind of polite wariness towards the sudden influx of oestrogen in the plaashuis.
It can’t be easy for the women, some of whom have to sleep three to the same room while vying for the attentions of the farmer. But they just get on with it in a business-like fashion. Those oversexed ex- hibitionists on shows such as Jersey Shore, or The Only Way is Essex, should be forced to watch these stoic boere and boeremeisies — and burn with shame.
The farmers attract hardcore fans during the course of the season, who take to social media to profess their love, or more daring expressions of attraction. The youngest farmer on the show, Albert — who happens to be from Prince Albert — induces Facebook outpourings like “Sal enige tyd my skoene onder sy bed in skop” (I’d kick my shoes under his bed any time).
The female contestants evoke strong reactions from viewers, too. “Marieta mag ’n goeie boer wees maar die boer soek nie ’n boer nie, die boer soek ’n vrou,” one Facebook commenter sternly counselled. Marieta might be a good farmer, but the farmer’s not looking for a farmer. The farmer’s looking for a wife.
It is precisely this dogmatism that a weekly skit on Afrikaans late-night comedy show VrydagNag Laat now seeks to subvert. Here, the boer’s not looking for a vrou — but ’n ou. In Boer Soek ’n Ou, Giel is a lonely gay farmer looking for the love of his life. He’s not picky: his future partner just has to be a Blue Bulls supporter with a soft heart and a tough beard. Like most good satire, it’s hilarious because of how accurately it reproduces the feel of the show it’s spoofing.
Will we ever see a lesbian farmer on the real Boer Soek ’n Vrou? Let’s take it slowly. This season, a female boer. Next season? If only Malema hadn’t had to sell his farm.