 A historical irony in the posh suburbs of Johannesburg: Whites queuing to watch the Hollywood version of Nelson Mandela |
Esa Salminen
Translated by Linus Atarah
South Africa’s musicians are celebrating over the World cup tournament in football; meanwhile the film sector is rebelling against Hollywood. The interest organization representing creative workers, CWUSA is fighting on behalf of artists.
Oupa Legobo arrives at the corridor of South Africa’s Central Trade Congress (COSATU) Johannesburg quite late, apologetic and rushing.
Managing Director Legobo has reason to be in a rush and feeling pleased. He has reached an agreement with music giant Sony that as the Football World Cup tournament is to be held in South Africa all music related to the tournament – performances, recordings advertisements technical issues – at least 75 per cent would be African.
Legobo heads the union representing creative workers in South Africa, Creative Workers’ Union of South Africa (CWUSA). Even though members of the union are mainly South African, it is important to Legobo that the agreement with Sony includes the whole continent.
“These competitions are African. Already now artists in Ghana Togo, Nigeria and Senegal are working on their collection records and when they get the logo of the tournament they have to be definitely accepted by Fifa”.
In practice the interpretation of the agreement is still disturbing for CWUSA. The percentage is not on per concert basis and in the worse case African artistes are left to the role of warm up performances.
Sony marketed the music on offer as African but CWUSA was disappointed when the list of performers in the opening ceremony concert to be organized in the Orlando Stadium was released in March: only half of the performers are African and of the 12 performers only three from South Africa.
Individual South African musicians are considering a shadow concert if the show’s main performers are not updated to include more South Africans. Control Room, which is responsible for organizing the concert, has announced that more names will be announced later.
Jennifer Hudson ruined holidays
Football is not the only issue that has caused the artists' trade union to arch its back.
According to Legobo, for instance, musicians from the countryside, some of whom cannot even read, need attention. They need status and possibilities. A big struggle is also going on over whether artists are workers. Legobo laughs at that irony that even though taxes are high, in the eyes of the state artistes are still seasonal workers without pension, insurance or possibilities to acquire bank loans.
Oupa Legobo’s annual leave was ruined by Oscar-award winning actress Jennifer Hudson who publicly announced that she was coming to Africa to shoot a movie starring Winnie Madikizela-Mandela, former wife of Nelson Mandela in a leading role.
The nerves of South Africa’s film sector got frayed.
“Who has decided that” asks agitated Legobo.
“Don’t we have actors who would have played that role? And that happens time and time again. It happened to Mandela, it happened to Steve Biko. It has to stop”.
Blacks in Johannesburg, whites in Capetown
At that point where Legobo was prepared to accept Hudson into South Africa, if she would share her skills in an actors’ workshop, his trade union colleague Tomas Dimakatswe, is more hard-lined: a couple of workshops is not sufficient.
According to Dimakatswe, Hollywood stars often say they are helping local film folk but in practice the benefits are piled on the whites and coloured (Asians) elites of Capetown.
“It is like a game of monopoly. The same people in power are now benefiting as representatives of Africans”.
In South Africa there are only two markets in this sector: Johannesburg and Capetown. In Johannesburg blacks produce local films, television and a little of advertisement. The international market is in Capetown, explains Dimakatswe.
Plenty of film groups visit Capetown. There are terrains and sceneries available an South Africa is comparatively an easy and less country expensive to film.
“They speak beautifully about empowerment but it is not true. Not before we get the laws in place so that young, hungry and black film makers can have their possibilities. If something comes to Capetown we have a feeling that it is not for us, it is for the whites and the coloured people”.
According to Dimakatse, the culture sector has been thrown to the dogs long time ago, because no regulations have been for the sector unlike what pertains in other countries. Now he has an impression that through the film sector western countries want to colonise African culture.
“Western countries have developed on the expense of African natural resources. Why can’t they now invest something back and allow us to our part. That will ensure that the stories are told correctly.”
Does anyone own narratives?
In the name of freedom of speech it can be claimed that anyone could be allowed to make a film about anything. Legobo and Dimakatswe in principle are of the same opinion but when Hollywood comes to South Africa, they are not pleased with the picture that big money producers paint of the country.
“I remember once when I was script writer in a television drama and we had an episode where a youngster came from the countryside to the city to look for his childhood girlfriend”, explains Dimakatswe.
"In conveying reality, in African frame of reference, a woman is not allowed to ask an African young man 'make love to me'. That just doesn’t just happen. We had a big fight with a white writer because to him, it was important from the perspective of drama, the characters hadn’t seen each other in a long time, and so on.”
According to Dimakatswe it is important not to mislead viewers to imagine that Africa is something else than it is, with its culture, problems and success. Stories of the breakup of apartheid, Mandela’s prison years and the birth of the rainbow state are about people who are still alive – and they very important to the people of South Africa”.
“White people want to take advantage of situation and tell African stories. And they screw up because they don’t include as in writing and producing the stories.
And what what does Dimakatswe think about the highly popular movie Invictus where Morgan Freeman plays the role of Nelson Mandela?
“We are very disappointed with it”, he says right away.
“When someone else other an African tells stories of African culture, it should be very precise because it really irritates and offends the feeling of African people”.
Solution lies in co-operation
Oupa Legobo is vice-president of international musicians union and Tomas Dimakatswe has done a lot of co-operation with SASK and Finnish Theatre and Media Employees in Finland. According to them international co-operation and networking are the key in creating fair rules and practices.
“Joint productions are very important so that we can learn how others make films. Last year we had a cultural exchange with Finland, and we also held a mini film festival. It was a nice experience to learn about Finnish culture, produce films and tell stories”, recalls Dimakatswe.
“It always possible to have joint productions and tell stories together in a right way”, says Dimakatswe.
