The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday Life Reporter
“To poison a nation, poison its stories. A demoralised nation tells demoralised stories to itself.”- Ben Okri
With Covid-19 locking people around the world in their homes, television (TV) has become the go to sources of entertainment for people as they wait for the deadly virus to loosen its grip on the globe.
While providers of live entertainment like football are crying foul, streaming services are breaking records. Disney’s new streaming service has almost doubled its global subscriber numbers to 50 million since the coronavirus outbreak took hold in February. Netflix has seen interest in its services increase by 148% across the world since the beginning of March.
Every day, the content on various broadcast platforms drives conversation on social media. In neighbouring South Africa, an episode of Isibaya or, more recently Gomora, is greeted with online chatter that usually pushes hashtags around these drama series to the top of trending topics on social media sites.
Social media has changed the way that people watch television. Instead of waiting for the next day to unpack a series with friends at school or with colleagues at work, nowadays productions get instant reviews on social media.
Every twist and turn are live-tweeted and those who have the misfortune of being away from their screens have to live through the agony of watching a series via other people’s tweets, WhatsApp and Facebook posts.
If television has replaced the grandmother who used to be the trusted teller of folktales, then social media has taken the place of the fire that kept everyone warm while the sharp-tongued old lady told her extraordinary tales.
Once upon a time, Zimbabweans used to congregate around their TV sets in a similar way.
This was when the country boasted drama series and comedies that were too important to miss.
Missing an episode meant one would be an outsider when lunchtime conversation switched to the latest twist in a drama series.
These days, the landscape is vastly different. With satellite dishes pinned on top of most Zimbabwean households, most of the content that dominates conversation is South African or American.
As people in various countries congregate around their favourite series and productions from their countries, Zimbabweans are not in the picture. Except for new online sensation Wadiwa Wepamoyo, there is barely nothing else that is bringing Zimbabweans together at a time when they need each other more than ever.
“Right now, it’s all about finding each other away from each other,” said arts guru Raisedon Baya.
“So, it’s all about finding things that are common to us as Zimbabweans, something that we can rally behind and discuss together. The unfortunate part is that we’re in crisis and most of the things that we find each other on are the negative things about the country.
“We find each other when we are criticising this and that but it’s rare that we find each other on a positive note. If you look at Wadiwa Wepamoyo it has resonated with a lot of people. I think the failure is not us not finding stories to tell. I think the failure has been the fact that we haven’t found a national platform that everyone feels at home on,” he said.
For Baya, the lockdown had been a good wake-up call to show the extent of the rot in the sector.
“Now you see people are trying to build these platforms on social media but for them to have a national appeal it’s going to take time. It would be easier if we had already built them over time…even in terms of news you’ll realise that we tend to focus a lot on South African news instead of Zimbabwean news.
“It’s a wake-up call. When this pandemic is over it will serve as a wake-up call. When it’s over we have to sit up as Zimbabweans and say how we can build platforms that celebrate us, platforms that allow us to come and discuss issues in this country. It’s a sad thing that we don’t have that and we really should be making loud noises on how we can create that,” he said.
For poet and actor Philani Nyoni, Zimbabweans are not connecting with local productions not because they had fallen out of love with home grown content but because of a lack of structure in the television and film industries.
“When we did Qiniso we exposed a lie that the industry has been perpetuating: that there is no appreciation for local content. We disappointed audiences and we were right to do so because there are no structures to say, for example, how much does a movie stand to make in the cinema, how much will a broadcaster take the movie for? The entire industry is devoid of structure and without credible projections we were right to spend less money on production than we could have,” he said.
It is this lack of structure and organisation that comedian and actor Clive Chigubhu believe is the stumbling block tripping the local film and television industry. Chigubhu and Nyoni have been the faces of Bulawayo Broadcasting Chambers, an online comedy show whose skits try to build awareness about Covid-19.
Despite its crisp production and witty humour, it has not been easy going for the two so far. Musician Khulekani Bhethule aka Khuxman, has also weighed in with a song on YouTube about the pandemic.
“Data prices are high and there few hotspot or promotional data packages. That on its own can limit the number of people that can be involved or watch our production and that’s the safest way to communicating currently during this lockdown. There is a lot misinformation and we could help combat that,” he said
For arts doyen Cont Mhlanga the national broadcaster, ZBC, should take a lot of lessons from this episode.
However, a diverse and open media industry has been the one of the cornerstones of President Mnangagwa’s government, with Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services Nick Mangwana announcing in February that the country will have up to 12 television stations by the end of the year.
This development might spur the growth of the country’s TV and film industry.
“Zimbabwe has great stories because it has amazing unique culture, history, heritage and it has got the level of education and talent. There is so much that can be done across the country today with so little by engaging the available resources in the country
“All that is required is a person who understands how the story telling industry and business functions and leadership creativity with support from government through the right channels and Zimbabwe will be pulling its citizens to the TV screens every evening enjoying their own Zimbabwean stories and making money above that. It is very simple,” Mhlanga said.
