Friday, 5 June 2009

Askies, SABC, but just how dumb do you think we are?

Askies is an Afrikaans/Zulu sitcom on SABC2, Friday nights. It is directed by Andre Odendaal and Josh Rous. It is the worst waste of money the SABC has ever perpetrated.

 I just watched it and I must say I've never felt so insulted before in my life. It is the worst piece of crap I have ever seen on South African TV, bar none, and I've seen some serious bullshit, including CCTV9 in China.
Where in God's name do these people learn how to act? Have they ever watched their own show after it had been taped? Do they understand how stupid their over-acting makes this country look? Do they think we are retarded? Does ANYBODY in the world think that kind of thing is funny? How many rhetorical questions laced with exasperation can I string together?
The premise of the show is that they want to do something in all eleven official languages. Holy shit. The only nearly realistic thing they can do then is write a speech for Jacob Zuma. No-one in this country EVER hears all eleven languages in a month, unless, of course, you try to hear all eleven official languages in a month. Can be done, but just isn't.
So there's a bunch of young people living together (I assume) and someone slightly older seems to be teaching them Zulu. This happens to be a white woman, and that's pretty cool, but ultimately when is this show actually entertaining... and as I watched it I also got a very strong feeling of helplessness: what can we do about this kind of crap?
It just struck me that with DSTV everywhere, SABC is just out there floating in a space of zero-feedback. No-one gives a toss about SABC anymore. And when there's something so utterly talentless and weak on TV, SABC has almost no way of knowing it. The only people who'd give feedback are the very ones busy making the next piece of shit. 
I truly need to know who made the decision to air this show. I presume someone had to watch a pilot episode, or read a script at the very least, before making a decision. Who was that moron? And how can so many people work on something and NOT see that it is completely devoid of any merit?
And the fucking typical South African theatre-trained over-the-top pretentious acting! The kind where you can see a mile away that this next bit I'm going to say now is going to be a joke, and then when they've said it they make sure somehow that the audience knows the bit they've just said WAS the joke, BY LAUGHING AT THE JOKE. And with joke, I mean, seriously, people say "Hey, howsit", and they play the goddamn laugh track.
My mother taught me long ago that swearing is bad and people only do it when they've run out of argument. Well, I have run out of argument. I am ashamed and embarrassed by the SABC, and by these brainless freaks who somehow rise to the top in the SA entertainment industry and presume to entertain us with their infantile falling about. Even fart jokes seem sophisticated compared to "Askies".
I don't agree with my mother about the swearing, though. When I swear I'm substituting a generalised emotion for what could have been a truly personal insult. It's the difference between shaking my fist at the sky and throwing a brick through your window.
So instead of doing the latter, I can only reiterate: you fuckers who made Askies, you are pathetic, brainless idiots. Unless you know perfectly well how bad your show is, but is just doing it because you know you can sell it to the brainless zombies who run the SABC and you're milking the cash cow for all it's worth to beef up your CVs before you bugger-off to England. In that case, good on ya mates.
In the mean time, what can we do to get standards up to scratch again in this country? The talent and the facilities exist... why can't we get it right?

1 comment:

  1. Oh wow Marius...

    I worked on that Sitcom some years ago. Apologies it offended you so much...

    KB

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