There are plenty of tropes in movies, some are good and some are bad.
And some are littered all over like Netflix’s latest movie, Kedibone.
Presenting itself as a coming of age flick, Kedibone sees Natasha Tahane take on the titular character who has to navigate city life after leaving home in Soweto for the Lamborghini-ridden streets of Johannesburg.
For years movies like these have been thrown in our faces, warning young women of men in fast cars and quicker credit card swipes.
We even hear it in local music as per Ringo’s uDoli with an apt music video that captures the unnecessary Doli-trope – a woman that leaves poverty in a township or village and arrives to a city where everyone is obsessed with her beauty and it leads to her being swindled until she must go back with nothing.
Something that happens to the Doli in Kedibone.
Predictably, Kedibone swaps her loyal best friend for doltish slay queens all while losing her morals and breaking her blesser’s heart.
The movie comes to a much appreciated end when the blesser, played by Kenneth Nkosi, gifts her with a car. When he forces himself on her, Kedibone’s boyfriend walks in and loses his mind.
He throws her into the car and crashes it but luckily they survive and Kedibone learns to forgive him in a space of a year and they live happily ever after.
The essential issue with this movie is that it works on a morally corrupt compass. It’s the perfect movie if you get off to random podcasts by men who preach about how women should be submissive and aspire to be marriage material.
It is the kind of movie for men who still scorn the rejection received from every materialistic woman they were not compatible with.
It is backwards in its portrayal of women, other than costuming that is stuck in a 2012 Lil Wayne music video, women in the film are constantly shown to be incapable without men.
While men are able to be alcohol and drug connoisseurs, not a single woman in this movie is capable of being a responsible drinker.
Then there is the issue of blaming women for rape.
Kedibone’s virginity is a character on its own.
Her boyfriend, Mrembula (played by Wright Ngubeni), who has been preying on her for years sells his car to fund her varsity fees.
When this is questioned by his best friend he explains that his return of investment is “deflowering” Kedibone when she turns 21.
But because Mrembula’s actions are constantly contrasted with Kedibone sheepishly involving herself in dangerous situations it makes it easy to frame this cradle-snatcher as a good boyfriend to his girl-child lover.
Oddly enough, he acts the same way as the blesser who expects rewards for buying his way into Kedibone’s life, equally able to charm her enough romantically.
The movie is unaware that Kedibone’s boyfriend who is the moral compass of this movie is actually one of the villains that has made himself the centre of Kedibone’s problems.
Much like a lecturer who guilts her into sleeping with him and a celebrity who impregnates her after raping her while passed out.
In this bumbling film where every technical failure that could happen happens and the most talented cast is wasted on a Sunday school screenplay, women are encouraged to be meek.
Women are told that they should not be ambitious or take it upon themselves to change their lives.
If this were a series, Kedibone would be a cautionary tale for independent women and why more of them should aspire to be in the kitchen.
Women from townships and villages are not stupid, they know what drugs are and they have a backbone.
Writers like Zaba LeRoto Hlatshwayo and directors like Thomas Gumede who lean on the Doli-trope are frightened of basing movies on actual complex women from townships like Carol Bouwer or Khanyi Mbau, women who are not defined by their relationships to men.
And perhaps this movie reflects Netflix’s dedication to misogynistic, racist, homophobic and transphobic content.
As the worst movie in the cinematic history of SA, Kedibone is the maiden ship of Netflix’s declining public appeal.
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