Zapiro puppet program pleases
I watched the Zapiro “Z-News” puppet program last night. It was roughly produced, some of the voices fell short and the puppetry was rudimentary. But it is a pilot, and there is nothing that proper funding won’t fix.
There are some really funny bits: Thabo singing “I Will Survive” on Idols (“…I will survive, I will survive, … and so on and stuff like that,..”) , Zacob Zuma also on Idols doing a double-header (as it were) singing both “De la Rey” (with shower-head affixed) and “Umshini wam”. The segment with Manto Tshabala performing an operation with beetroot, lemon and garlic is hilarious.
The voices for both Thabo and Jacob are excellent. Helen Zille’s is poor. But generally I enjoyed it and found its good bits far outweighed the poor. Watch it, it’s fun.
This of course follows the cancellation of the show by the SABC on the on the grounds that “South African viewers are not ready for it”. The SABC then went on to cancel a documentary on political satire in South Africa, not once but twice. Luckily, the documentary fell into the hands of the Mail & Guardian, and you can watch it here.
South Africa suffers from a extreme dearth of political satire. It also suffers from a stifling political correctness that causes any criticism of the ANC to attract vicious denunciation. Critics are regularly dubbed counter-revolutionaries, colonialists, cultural imperialists and, the favourite, racists. And given the apartheid history of the country, the racist tag is something that most “white” people want to avoid.
This political correctness is self-reinforcing: the more political criticism and satire is suppressed, the more intolerant the general ANC defender becomes. To the point where it appears that no TV channel will carry political satire. This is very dangerous to the future of democracy in South Africa.
The rise of the comedian in political commentary in the US, has resulted in the majority of young people getting most of their political news and analysis from channels such as Comedy Central. Jon Steward is now a major political force, overshadowing political analysis in the traditional media.
Young people in South Africa need to see that it’s okay to laugh at and criticise their leaders. Only by exposing them to popular political satire will this stultifying political correctness be broken down.
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