For years television has allowed us a peak into different worlds, sometimes morbid and dark, but sometimes glossy and grand.
Take the entrants on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition who could go from shabby old homes with all kinds of faulty plumbing to a home fit for a feature on a Top Billing episode and a fountain to boot.
We have even seen television take on all kinds of human interest projects, even changing the appearance of cars and people’s personal style, all in the name of rewarding them with what they truly deserve.
Yet not all that glitters is gold and the glimmering world of these transformative shows has proven to be a monster, especially for those who are the subject of change. Previous reports have shown that the home makeovers left many in debt, the new cars of Pimp My Ride have often been polished cases of unroadworthy genius and makeover shows only burdened those they changed with unreal expectations of keeping up with an overly publicised glow-up.
This issue currently is also set to face new e.tv series Ng’khokhele, where YouTube sensation George Mnguni takes on the role of mediating between two parties – one is owed and the other a defiant force who might not be willing to acknowledge the alleged crime.
It does no-one any good, judging what a show is capable of delivering purely based on its trailer, however, when the premise is built around epic confrontations between two parties and an internet comedian throwing self-interested jibes and retorts then what is the purpose of a show like this?
Mirroring the indulgent world of Uyajola 99 and Rea Tsotella, the vacuous release from e.tv becomes a trend that insists on pretending it's solving a problem through investigative reality, only to leave a mess that sits in our collective subconscious about how we approach tense issues, problem solve and view people who are different from us. While television might be a window into different worlds, it only seems to carry the culture of separating us instead.
There is a polarising limitation to how we see different people on local television, where the poor are quarrelsome and on the verge of being bamboozled. Their representation is not always uplifting and is limited to something that is subject to mockery.
In the past, shows like Zola 7 and its spinoffs have been able to broaden horizons and give access to those in need. Yet, they have also allowed an opportunity to bridge the world between different social groups.
The often linear world of shows like Ng’khokhele rarely opens up our minds in the long run. We are limited to bits and bites that only establish the harmful and toxic views society has already entrenched on social groups that already exist.
When it is abundantly clear that such a show only aims to harm and make foolery of the people it talks about, what becomes the purpose of these shows? Better yet, who are they actually helping?
These shows play out like the Hunger Games where instead of standing in the limelight to stay alive, you are a joke that people can laugh at for a living. Ng’khokhele is not aiming to fix the quarrels between two parties no less than Uyajola 99 is exposing a cheating spouse in the noble name of morality.
The modern day jester is no longer paid for hard labour but instead paid for portraying the pain of their life that ultimately kills what it means to be black on TV. Because let’s face it, there are more shows of us as black people being humiliated than there are of white people tumbling over each other like a bad Jerry Springer fight.
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