Government should help local theatre

Jan 04, 2005

About two months ago, I returned to my university residence in Grahamstown, South Africa after an exhausting task and found a group of people from different African countries watching African Magic on DStv. It broadcasts movies, soaps and other related programmes about Africa.

About two months ago, I returned to my university residence in Grahamstown, South Africa after an exhausting task and found a group of people from different African countries watching African Magic on DStv. It broadcasts movies, soaps and other related programmes about Africa.

The characters in these programmes are African. I had heard about African Magic (I actually attended its launch in Kampala in 2003), but had never taken off time to watch it.

I sat down on the couch with these colleagues and started enjoying what our African brothers and sisters were depicting. What was on offer that night was a Ugandan drama called That’s Life Mwattu.

These friends were laughing at every funny side of it and sympathising with any character that went through a hard time. You could see they were touched. I proposed we change to CNN International for breaking news.

The idea was to test these guys and see whether they were interested in what they were watching. I proposed CNN because I knew half of the group were current affairs enthusiasts.

My proposal was thrown out and some accused me of being unpatriotic. I got what I wanted.
So I was informed this is a club that gathers every Thursday to enjoy what was once described as the epitome of Ugandan drama during the early 1990s when it hit the G-spots of millions of viewers across the country.

They had even coined a name for it which is Ugawood. It is basically adapted from Hollywood, the way the Indians came up with Bollywood and Nollywood by the Nigerian film industry. I was touched by this and started watching Ugawood whenever it appeared on tv.

What surprised me was that people were interested in an extremely low budget soap with ill-trained performers and poor footage.

Again the episodes, which African Magic is broadcasting, are the very poor ones Ugandan Television (UTV) aired more than 10 years ago; those episodes of a fresh Nakawunde from Kiboga and a traditional healer (Kakinda) taking sexual advantage of desperate barren women looking for ways of artificially enhancing their chances of becoming mothers. The viewers were even willing to strain their eyes and read the subtitles since they could not understand the local language (Luganda) used.

This viewership means that Ugawood has too much potential. If other people from across the continent can stand this poor show, what would happen if we had a better product? The answer is it would be a phenomenon. It is time, therefore, the concerned ministry came up and fully supported our local arts.

Top soaps here in South Africa like SABC3’s Insidingo, the most watched TV programme according to figures from the South African Advertising Research Foundation, set back producers an equivalent of more than sh1.5m per minute which is sh37.5m per episode of 25 minutes.

Given the nature of our advertising industry, no production company can independently come up with a top notch quality production. The government needs to come in and offer its financial muscle to the industry. As for talent, we have already shown we can match the best.

This industry has a lot to do with promoting our cultures. Culture is important because it develops coherent viewpoints that allow people to act suitably and monitor their own standards and behaviour in a society.

It is also important that we realise the influence the media, especially television and radio, have on our children. Traditional families have almost ceased to exist in Uganda and the only available and effective source of information children can use to learn about their cultures is the media. Naturally people hate boring programmes so the idea is that you can easily ‘infotain’ them through drama and soaps.
Soaps tell a particular country’s story and the way it can help its citizens overcome their problems and challenges.

A South African soapie, generations used to air on UTV and the stories are about the way South Africans are solving their problems. That’s life Mwattu, ensitaano and other soapies and dramas can all do a related job for us. And since Africa is watching, let us reap. It is a trusted concept of country branding as well.
The soaps are a source of hope to those facing huge challenges.

Imagine a storyline of a young woman, who gets raped and contracts HIV/AIDS. How she copes in such a situation can help hundreds of people facing a similar problem. We need people to tell us about our problems and help us go through some of our emotional traumas. That is what soaps do and have proved very effective.

People identify themselves with these characters and hate the manipulative and criminal ones. It is something that improves our societies.

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});