How the mainstream media destroys local arts & culture

I find myself obliged by conscience to break the silence and to take a public stand against the media’s violent war on local arts, culture and heritage. The considerations, which have led me to this painful decision, are a casual look at the content of both the print and broadcasting media. Indeed, what the media mirrors is NOT who we are. Instead, its reflections reveal an unacceptable level of self hate and lack of clarity on what it means to put “South Africa arts first.” What makes matters worse is that the media’s war on local arts and culture has intensified.

The impact on our collective vision and mission to “preserve, protect and promote South African arts, culture and heritage” is even more destructive. But before one lists some of the crimes the media commits against local arts and culture, we need to clear a common misunderstanding.

There is a misguided tendency to divorce the media from the arts sector itself. People who think the media is something “out there” cut off from intuitive connection to the creative industries are making a big mistake. The media is the heart and soul of the creative industry. In fact, media practitioners are artists themselves.

Deejays, music and programme compilers, presenters, new readers, make-up artists, producers, scriptwriters, directors, camera men, sound men, journalists, columnists, editors, subs, news readers, lay-out artists, photographers and a host of other media professionals are, essentially, artists.

In a letter to Business Day and the Sunday Times, recently, I made my opposition to the Cope’s Mfundi Vundla’s idea that the government, especially the Minister of Arts & Culture Dr Z. Pallo Jordan is entirely to blame for the sorry state of the arts in the country.

“The artists have themselves to blame for everything that happens to them,” I insisted. “Artists in this country are their own worst enemies. Nothing will get into shape until they put their own divided house in order.”

You see, the problem begins with the confusion that the arts and media don’t mix; they are wrongly perceived to be two separate things. Frankly, I am saddened by this poor understanding of the structure and politics of the media and its central position in the arts. Indeed, anybody who does not see the media as an outward expression of the creative industry clearly does not understand the arts, culture and heritage sector and how this industry works.

I will always be perplexed by anyone who does not consider Glen Lewis, Masechaba Moshoeshoe, Edward Tsumele, Tebogo Alexander, Gugu Sibiya, Ike Tladi, Alex Jay, Matthew Krause, Richard Nwamba, Greg Maloka and Adrienne Sichel, to name a few, as artists. We need to, first, understand that the media comprises people who themselves are artists. It is only when we have a clear understanding of that concept that we can begin to come up with a collective solution to the problem of the Americanisation of our society, for instance.

I wish people like Mfundi Vundla or Mzwakhe Mbuli and others would understand that it is NOT, necessarily, the government that is responsible for the poor profile of local content in the media. Perhaps there is a need to examine the role that is played by people we know in both the print and broadcast media.

While many of them may want us to believe that they are only implementing strategies adopted by bean counters, we have to ask ourselves why they do not take principled stands to oppose the black out on South African arts and culture, including theatre and dance, for instance.

Our contemporary experience and history is an eloquent testimony to the fact that it is South African artists themselves who are responsible for the Americanisation of our society.

Without the approval and collaboration of local artists, there is no way that local talent and artists can be so undermined.

I suppose there is an urgent need for us to bring this problem to public consciousness. Yes, there is a very obvious and almost facile connection between the promotion of foreign arts and culture and the death and poor promotion of local artistic works. In the early 1990s there was a shining moment in the struggle to “open the doors of learning and CULTURE.” Artists were all united, black and white, young and old, poor and rich, in the hope that freedom and democracy would find them doing the right thing to help themselves. But something happened that saw media professionals see themselves as NOT being part of the arts and culture sector.

Some of them were beginning to earn R50 000 per month. As a result we watched the vision and mission to promote and protect local arts and culture broken into small, individual pieces. The most important that seemed to preoccupy most people minds was “money, money, and money.” Thus our arts and culture became an idle plaything that was considered as NOT COMMERCIALLY VIABLE.

I knew then that for that to happen, the artists themselves would, first, have to turn into their own worst enemies.

Today, foreign music, theatre, dance, fashion, cuisine, movies and visual arts continue to be the biggest money drawers from the local market. Our artists in the media have been sucked into the demoniacal destructive vacuum cleaner whose primary agenda is to marginalise local arts and culture by condemning it into the fringes of society. This war against our own heritage would not be possible if our own fellow artists in the media did not allow themselves to be bought out. Think about it?

Perhaps a more tragic recognition of this reality easily takes place when you consider the movies we watch on TV, the books that are sold at our shops, the stories we listen to on the radio, the languages that we speak, the music that we play on our radio, the clothes that we wear on our back.

This has got a lot to do with marketing, advertising and editorial content that is to be found in the media.

Yes, artists in the media seem to be our worst enemies.

It is time to do something. It does help.