From YouTube, here.
I was just looking around YouTube and I came across this old ad - remember it? From SABC 1. I remember watching it for the first time and feeling that something was odd about it, but being unable to put my finger on it. Until the scene where a lady in a car looks at the main actor walking past and locks her car door. And then I realised what was going on!
If you are not from South Africa and need a bit of an explanation:
Mzansi means South, so South Afrika would be Mzansi Afrika, Mzansi for short. The ad ends with "Take another look at Mzansi." Take another look at South Africa.
The "another look" the ad is taking is just reversing the roles of the races. So in the ad its a white guy waking up in a township (poor, traditionally black, neighbourhood), walking to catch public transport. Passing black tourists on "Township Tours," smiling at the antics of white streetkids. Passing middle class black neighbourhoods where black children are cared for by white domestic workers. Being hassled by a suspicious black shop owner who mistakes him for a criminal, because all white people look the same...
Its clever because its unnerving. It exposes the part of us that watches it thinking "something is wrong here."
And its also clever because it brings the truth home in an almost sneaky way. That leads you to look at a person of another race and think - that could be me. I could be in the same situation as he is in. We're not so different.
It reminds me of the Chris Rice song, Face of Christ.
....
See you had no choice which day you would be born
Or the color of your skin, or what planet you’d be on
Would your mind be strong, would your eyes be blue or brown
Whether daddy would be rich, or if momma stuck around at all
....
How did I find myself in a better place
I can’t look down on the frown on the other guy’s face
‘Cause when I stoop down low, look him square in the eye
I get a funny feeling, I just might be dealing
With the face of Christ
....
6 comments:
Insightful for 5:14 am?
I think this is your best yet. If everyone took the trouble to put themselves in the other guy's place, we would finally ALL live in a better place.
Watching that ad brought back soo many memories of 2003. I could especially relate to the township tours part, I used to hate( I still do) The concept of a township tour mainly because tourists don't interact with the locals they stay in the tour bus taking pictures of township people like they are in a safari or something i remember one time when a tourist tried to take a picture of me and I flipped him the bird, i don't regret doing that and If it where to happen again I would do the same( Just kidding, I'm older and wiser now)
^ I can't believe things like that really happen. Like safaris, like you say. Sheesh thats so bad.
Do they still happen?
^^ You know what, I just discovered my own hypocrisy!
I am in the US and I went to by lunch and its "big game" day here today - their big college football game. So the streets and resturants are just packed with people all wearing bright orange (their team colours). Old people young people children. Orange everything, big band rah rah music blering out over speakers. I saw one old old man show off his psychadelic orange socks to someone. *crazy*
Anyway, my hypocrisy was in that I *really* wanted to take some photos of them so I could show people the craziness. Then I thought that would be no better than township tour people taking pics of you!! So I resisted the urge and didn't.
But the urge was there!!
No, it's not the same!
Township tourists taking pics from a bus are viewing the people on the streets like wildlife - a different species in a different landscape. Taking pics of locals going to a sports game is a view of people like you, doing something a different way. So take the pics and show us back home, and my guess is you'll probably find Springbok supporters that do exactly the same!
Do they still happen?
^^^They do sometimes but not as often as they were when i was still in primary
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