African Television Review: In Orwell's Africa--Democracy ideals and debauchery flourish

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African Television Review

Oseloka Obaze^*

Saturday 20 October 2007

In Orwell’s Africa: Democratic ideals and debauchery flourish

In the House of Big Brother Africa 2, today Saturday 20 October is day 76 of the 98-day run. There are only 5 (the Big Five) of the original 12 contestants left. The five belong to the same clan, and having poached out the entire “Untouchable” clan, must now turn on each other. By sundown tomorrow, only four will be left. Welcome to George Orwell’s Africa. In Big Brother Africa 2, (BBA2), Africa is not divided into three parts as in Orwell’s classic, “1984”. However, the show is replete with the newspeak, groupthink, doublethink, and thought-crime that made “1984” famous and spooky. The show also offers numbing insight to a “brutalized and manipulated humanity”.

For the past two months, Africans have been continually glued to their television sets. From Cape Town to Harare and Lilongwe, from Banjul, Accra and Abuja to Dodoma, Kampala and beyond, enormous manpower and sleep hours are being expended just to keep up with the MTN-sponsored reality show, Big Brother Africa 2 (http://www.mnetafrica.com/bigbrother/) . BBA2 is an Orwellian summer fest, replete with intrigues, chicanery, and incendiary barbs. The show, is now fast winding down to the last three contestants and the eventual winner of the $100,000 prize. BBA2 is part voyeurism, part soap opera and total unrehearsed drama. It is also evidence of how intrusive and domineering television can be as a medium for psychoanalyzing human behavior under intense and unguarded scrutiny.

Last Sunday October 14 2007, the game tide turned. Finally, Kwaku of Ghana was evicted from the House of Big Brother Africa. His ousting was inevitable. He represented the last of the Mohicans on the Big Brother Africa 2 set, the so-called “Untouchables”. Africans were expected to have a say in the matter and they did. Paradoxically, what most Africans have not been able to do in their countries-vote- they have been able to do electronically, for the past two months- by exercising the right to vote out candidates they don’t like, while keeping the ones they fancy in the race. Interestingly, the Big Brother Africa voters have to pay nominal charges on their MTN cell phones to vote; and they vote in the thousands. Various electoral commissions in Africa should note the effectiveness of this novelty; it might be a fool-proof means of overcoming rigging during political elections.

Not surprisingly, current household names include Tatiana, Maureen, Ofunneka, Code, and Richard. These personalities, which are as eclectic and diverse as a mix of moon rock, sawdust, macadamia, marshmallows and humus, are respectively proud nationals of Angola, Uganda, Nigeria, Malawi, and Tanzania.

But the name of Kwaku of Ghana still resonates. He was until recently, the lone remnant of the “Untouchables”, who ironically and in contrast to their niche, had been effortlessly plucked off routinely, by their competitors who nominated them, and eventually, by the African electorate which voted them out. Before Kwaku’s exit, the last two clan members to be ousted were Bertha of Zimbabwe and Loreto of South Africa, who had successively shared Kwaku’s bed and affection.

Whereas it is doubtful that any of the contestants will concede to being an experimental guinea pig, which is hardly the intent of the show, clearly, that is exactly what they are, beyond being actors in a live and unscripted drama, where all forms of human emotions and foibles run rampant. Anyone, who has watched even one hour of the round-the-clock show, will attest to the fact that, it is awfully difficult to draw the line on where acting stops and raw human emotion and idiosyncrasies take over. Twenty-four-seven, some fifty-eight cameras are fixated on every action, including nude bathes, sleeping and extreme smooching, fights and binge drinking by the contestants. These are recorded and transmitted live and uncensored into many African living rooms, bars and restaurants. The only exception is a visit to the toilet. The show is topical and as a conversation piece, dominates every other issue, Darfur and other African ethereal problems included.

BBA2 has a surfeit on connivance, a glut of bad politics, sexual and contextual alliances, deceit, backbiting and a ticket of lies. In its totality, every conceivable machination that can be deemed Machiavellian or Orwellian is possible. The ever present drivel and uncouthness that is most entertaining to some, is clearly nauseating to others. Thus, it is understandable that the show has drawn a maelstrom of contradictory voices in praise and condemnation. To those, especially the clergy, educationists and parents, who denounce the show as being morally bankrupt, it represents at best, the diminution of African traditional values, the promotion of decadence and therefore, in its totality, is no more than a disturbing portrait of hubris and the worst possible form of the benefits information and electronic technology and the digital age.

In reality, BBA2 is not any where as audacious, graphic and depraved as some of the other reality shows, including the Survivor series that routinely play out on western television. With a 16 and above rating and caution for severe and vulgar language and nudity, the contestants are continually assessed and burdened with the subjectivity and misperception of strangers, and are only saved by the fact, that they are totally cut off from the rest of the world. Only Big Brother and his assistants talk to the contestants, but never do they have any physical contact with the outside world.

If there is one villain or an individual most viewers love to hate, it is the emotional and rambling Richard of Tanzania. As the only married contestant on the set, his constant cavorting, with actress Tatiana of Angola and presumed infidelity has drawn understandable and perhaps, well-deserved opprobrium. Yet the viewers have shown great reluctance to vote him out; some out of the belief that he is real and not play-acting and others, perhaps, out of the fear that evicting him will virtually mitigate the public’s interest in the show. Some viewers consider him the best player in the game, his shenanigan and temper tantrums notwithstanding.

As the show draws to its close, the Big Five clan remains intact, the sexual alliances - Richard-Tatiana and Code-Maureen also remain intact; but come tomorrow they must sacrifice one of their own. The only probable outcast in the lot is the lone ranger and non-aligned Ofunneka. But she is the Head of the House this week and therefore, is immune from being evicted. She has also refused to sacrifice any of the girls, obviously in the belief that she stood a better chance of wining the contest against them, than against the manipulative and beguiling Code and the effervescent and sometimes seemingly puerile and distractive Richard. For now, Code and Richard feel extremely vulnerable, but so are Maureen and Tatiana, since their respective attachment to their significant others could prove to be destabilizing in the short and longer term.

INTRIGUES AND THE UTILITY DEBATE

It is perhaps beyond the Orwellian and Freudian, that the contestants frequently refer to each other as “Dog” or “Charlie”. They have also in doublespeak, coined new monikers of certain four-letter expletives; i.e., “Flip” and “Mofo”. While they respectively aim to be the “top dog” in the end, it does not escape one’s attention that their lives in the kernel have consistently been a balancing act and indeed, mimics a dog’s life. Unendingly, they are at the beck and call of Big Brother.

Deciphering if the contestants are being themselves or if they are engaged in mind games is difficult. But those who have survived so far must be doing the right and viewer-pleasing things. In the true Orwellian fashion, ad hoc alliances on the set are effortlessly made and broken and ploys to lure allies away are consistent and unabashed. This week will prove to be the hair-splitting and alliance-breaking juncture and tipping-point for who win the contest.

The characters left behind are essentially, a set of twosomes and a lone ranger. The former comprise of cloddish Code and simpleton Maureen, whom never seem to tire of kissing and coddling. The other pair consists of precocious Tatiana and irrepressible Richard. Stuck in between, is the latter, Ofunneka, who is not so much of a beauty as she is strait-laced, home-broken and proper. She is also a real player. Last week she bonded with Kwaku, and almost convinced many viewers that she was ready to form an enduring alliance with him. They even shared Kwaku’s bed, albeit briefly. And when Kwaku was ousted, she cried for him. Kwaku may have, however, outdone himself by getting drunk and flippant.

Kwaku always saw himself as the benighted man’s man and therefore, a gift to the ladies. Viewers saw him differently and mainly as anodyne, arrogant, lazy, aloof, and an Americana wannabe. But through his infrequent postulations, he offered glimpses of a brilliant and sharp mind, who grasped the nuances of the contest. Hence, his being evicted is not so much attributable to lack of skills, but because his team had exhibited a lack of strategic grand design meant to sustain the balance of power between the two clans. They also lacked collective camaraderie. Had he succeeded in his belated effort to form and alliance with Ofunneka, he may yet have survived another round and week.

Unscripted, BBA2 ribs at and jog every notion of traditional African propriety, especially as regards public display of intimacy between opposite sexes, which is otherwise deemed to be synonymous with privacy, if not secrecy. BBA2 drips with sexuality, benign depravity and its ancillary frustrations. There is unquestionable immorality and gross debauchery, replete with nudity, vulgarity an incendiary language, both literal and physical. Though I suspect that there is a binding and undisclosed caveat on “no sex in the house”, speculations still abound as to whether Max and Lerato had sex while in the penthouse. Housemates routinely, receive all sorts of sustenance wares, but we never heard of their being availed of condoms or any other form of prophylactics.

Up close, the truth is this; regardless of who wins the contest, BBA2 has been as crowd drawing as it has been crowd displeasing. It makes sense, therefore, to consider all the participants “winners” as Berta of Zimbabwe had suggested after her eviction. Moreover, as Tatiana and Ofunneka had variously admitted, the contest was surely not all about them; they were also representing their respective countries. Conversely, all the complaint about BBA2 aside, one needs to look at the value of the show, for indeed there are several; peaceful coexistence with strangers and neighbors, dialogues, performing collective tasks, understanding the feeling and differing personalities and endurance against all odds. But there is more to this show.

One has to suspend disbelief in order to fully encounter and internalize the goings-on on the BBA2 set. However, a sampling of viewers agreed that BBA2 shows us as the 2007 Nobel Laureate Doris Lessing would have put it, “how the human animal actually behaves and thinks”. It also enables us to “reexamine attitudes”. But the scope of BBA2’s utility and added value remains debatable.

Now that Code and Richard are nominated, I expect both to be evicted in due course, staring with Code tomorrow. But Richard may yet have a reprieve, now that Tatiana, his significant other is the new Head of House for the second time. In that case, look for Maureen to be ousted next week. From all indications, the final contest will be between the titillating and effervescent Tatiana and the non-beautiful but ruggedly calm Ofunneka.

But since “well behaved women rarely make history”, Tatiana may have the slight edge. Meanwhile, the remaining 21 days promises to be equally extremely interesting and we should not expect anything less than the flourishing democratic ideals and debauchery we have witnessed thus far. Log on or stay tuned!

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Mr. Oseloka Obaze, an aspiring writer, is a founding member of the Kwenu.com Book Review Forum, which is dedicated to the promotion of books with Igbo and Afrocentric themes. He is also a supporting Member of the African Writers Endowment (AWE). From 1999 to 2005 he served on the editorial board of INYEAKA, the journal of Songhai Charities, Inc., a New Jersey community-based charity founded and run by Nigerians based in New York Tri-state area in the United States, first as its founding Publisher and later as the Editor-At-Large. He is also on the editorial board of The Amaka Gazette, the journal of the Christ the King College, Onitsha Alumni Association in America. His collection of poems, “Regarscent Past: A Collection of Poems” was among the top three finalists in the poetry category in the African Writers Endowment Publishing Grant Program for 2004. His novel, “Happy Eulogy” will be published in 2007. He reviews books and arts strictly as a hobby.