Big Brother Doubles Up Africa’s 7th
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- Category: Television
- Published on Tuesday, 21 February 2012 19:00
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 51
Bits of it play out like a televised brothel. Most of it mirrors the real life Big Brother omnipresence of the political machinery in Africa’s banana republics. Moralists deride it as a corruptor of African values. But if there is any attribute Big Brother Africa has beyond being a human zoo experience, then it is the glaring mockery of those half-a-century old borders the fleeing colonialists bequeathed to us at independence. The televised show that returns for a seventh edition in 2012 could provide a “global village” case study if we cared to look beyond the grainy [night vision camera] footage of alleged trysts between the sheets.
Since its 2003 debut, Big Brother Africa has pushed the envelope on the programme format that has traditionally brought together 12 “strangers” under one roof with no contact with the outside world, all for a hefty cash prize taken by the last contestant standing. BBA, as it is fondly called on the continent went one better by bringing together 12 contestants from 12 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds and sequestering them in a plush house. Editions in other lands often stuck with contestants from the same country. There was no better way to scoff at the balkanisation of Africa in as much as the hopefuls only represented a fifth of Africa’s “colonial partitions”.
Sadly for this rare case study in cultural/ social anthropology, the show has mostly elicited buzz around the shenanigans of the contestants, its quasi-entertainment value and the exhibitionism. There was Uganda’s Gaetano’s alleged tryst with South Africa’s Abby in Season I, Tanzania’s Richard mocking his marital vows after falling for Angolan vixen Tatiana, the infamous “fingergate” scandal involving Nigeria’s Ofuneka in a tasteless ménage-a-trois all in 2007’s season II. After Season III’s Tawana (Botswana) having sex with two younger male contestants (Angola’s Ricco and Zimbabwe’s Munya) within hours of each other, the show became rather toned down and tame. The moralists seemed to have won from then on while the “Peeping Toms” cried fowl at formerly freebie prime time viewing a la “shower hour” and “BBA Uncut” being restricted to an online video service, one that could only be accessed via a credit card payment, never mind that most of the continent’s one billion strong population is averse to “plasticised” money.
So will Season 7 be all about “Big Brother” issuing out commands, dangling carrots and wielding his stick yet again? Or shall we see the makings of sub-Saharan spring in which housemates stand-up to Big Brother? After all much like some of our banana republics, his punishments have not always matched the crime. Uganda’s Hannington Kavuma was the victim of a no-appeals decision that resulted in expulsion from the show in 2010 for allegedly assaulting South Africa’s Lerato, that chatty slob and fish woman. So much for Biggie pandering to the [misplaced] domestic violence crusaders.
Season 7, with it’s emphasis on doubling up in which contestants have to enter this edition as a pair, will only give us yet another bloated house of 28 contestants drawn from 14 countries including debutants Liberia and Sierra Leone. There will be no mini-Tahrir Square here. Only a bunch of impressionable housemates sucking up to Biggie in a bid to win Brownie points with continental viewers in 42 countries in a quest for the grand $300,000 cash prize.
Maybe the show could sow seeds of better electoral democracy. But then again, where are the “observers” every time a dapper lady or gentleman from the audit firm that tallies the enveloped viewer votes walks over to the show host (hopefully it will not be the wooden IK again) with the results. Zimbabwe’s Wendel winning last year’s $200,000 continues to be a hard sell. Perhaps it was meant to appease the Zimbabweans over Munya’s prize loss to Nigeria’s Uti in 2010’s All-Stars’ edition. Or maybe it was meant to draw attention away from Nigeria’s hat trick at scooping the bounty three times in a row.
Any picketing of BBA should be over “the winner taking it all”. But like ABBA sang, that is one rule Big Brother diligently obeys to the letter. So the hope here will be that this year’s winner(s) will be the kind that can spur an entrepreneurial legacy on the continent. Past winners have mostly succumbed to hedonism and later fading into the sunset after crispness of their dollar winnings wore off. Of course it is the winner’s prerogative on how they spend their money. And with the backstabbing and scheming that plays out over the show’s three months, finding anyone with a trait of entrepreneurial philanthropy would be a tall order. The call for new contestants ends Monday February 27, 2012. Hopefuls can download entry forms from www.mnetafrica.com/bigbrother or from their local Multichoice office.
MOSES SERUGO ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. )
PHOTOGRAPHS: Multichoice Uganda
Whitney Grammy tribute live on Channel O
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- Category: Television
- Published on Sunday, 12 February 2012 12:32
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 248
While much of the global music fraternity wonders if UK chanteuse Adele will be able to sing through post-throat surgery at the 2012 Grammys, fans of Whitney Elizabeth Houston (RIP) are guaranteed a tribute to the power ballad wonder when the 54th Grammys air live on Channel O, Monday morning at 4am Ugandan time. Former American Idol hopeful and Dreamgirls star Jennifer Hudson will sing the tribute in honour of the fallen star who handed Hudson her first Grammy. For those that cannot wake up in the wee hours, there will be a delayed telecast on Monday night at 10pm on the same channel. Whitney passed away on Saturday, February 11, 2012 on the eve of the Grammys.
Inspiring an Entrepreneurial Africa
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- Category: Television
- Published on Saturday, 07 January 2012 10:16
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 725
Ugandan TV viewers can now partake of a show that doesn’t decimate their sets into idiot boxes notorious for spewing out cheap telenovelas and a dust cloud of news bulletins; you know the ones that thrive on an orgy of death and the bizarre.
Inspire Africa aims to tap into the entrepreneurial potential of East Africa by pitting 24 contestants in a winner-take-it-all battle to clinching $50,000 as start up capital for a business venture. Hopefully the show will be less of a narrative on its creator Nelson Tugume.
Comedy Club Live in Kampala on M-Net
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- Category: Television
- Published on Monday, 02 January 2012 11:25
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 338
The Top 3 Ugandan comedians from 2009’s M-Net Stand-Up Uganda talent search will get a new lease on their funny man lives on another TV platform Comedy Club Live in Kampala. Kenneth Kimulu a.k.a. Pablo, Patrick “Salvador” Idringi and Daniel Omara will feature in a 13-episode season that debuts on Monday January 2, 2012 on M-Net at 9pm local time and will air weekly after that. Pablo won the contest's $10,000 while runners-up Idringi and Omara got $2,000 each.
African beauties with no winning purpose
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- Category: Television
- Published on Tuesday, 08 November 2011 09:32
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 564
The pre-finale hype surrounding the exploits of our Miss World contestant Sylvia Namugenyi came to nought at the London Sunday November 6 finale. Only a handful of the beauties from 113 countries, the 30 that made it onto the leader board, stood a chance at winning the jewelled tiara crown. Miss Uganda Sylvia Namugenyi was nowhere amongst listed as ace hopefuls in the new marking scheme. Contestants had to aggregate points from a number of pre-finale events that included athletics, swimming and a talent show.
Namugenyi’s Facebook cheerleaders had created the impression that our girl was racking up valuable points to getting a shot at the crown. But the leader board revealed otherwise initially getting all the 113 beauties compete for a Top 30 slot after which these were whittled down to the Top 15 and later the Top 7 from whom the Top 3 were announced to yield the ravishing but non-English-speaking Miss Venezuela Ivian Sarcos as the eventual winner of the crown. Miss Phillipines, arguably the one with the loudest in-house cheerleaders was first runner while Miss Puerto Rico came third.
Namugenyi’s visibility at the Earls Court glitzy event, which had a delayed screening on Citizen TV, was reduced to two fleeting headshots. There was the introductory one at the start when all the contestants’ are revealed according to their nationalities, and a random one after the winner had been announced. The fact that “U” is one of the last letters in the alphabet guaranteed her “front row” visibility. Contestants from the “T-Z” countries were introduced last thereby guaranteeing that they stand at the front every time the 113 beauties appeared at a go.
But it was token participation from Africa yet again in a contest that seems to prefer fairer girls to darker complexioned ones. Angola, Botswana, Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Sudan, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe had contestants at Miss World 2011.
Only South Africa and Zimbabwe managed Top 15 slots. Miss South Africa was the lone African amongst the Top 7 who made it Q&A segment as part of the 2011 Miss World crème de la crème. Miss Ghana also came away from the contest with tangible results after her “Beauty with a Purpose” project to start an education initiative for Accra’s slum-dweller toddlers got a thumbs-up.
Otherwise for the most part of the two-hour show, it was fairer faces over darker-complexioned ones, something that seemed to lend credence to Miss Uganda 1996 winner Sheba Kerere’s gripe about “racism” at the now 60-year-old beauty showcase. One couldn’t help but notice the cameras seemed to prefer the “white” contestants over the “black” ones even during the highlights cutaways. The isolated moments where the camera locked onto a black contestant, the screen “captions” revealing her nationality were deliberately left out.
Nigeria’s Agbani Darego is the lone Black African to have won Miss World in 2001. She was also the only black person amongst the judging panel at this year’s Diamond Jubilee event. For Miss Uganda, Sylvia Namugenyi, it is either a [post-Miss World] life of oblivion like most of her predecessors or one with a sense of purpose where like Miss Kenya last year she could bring attention to herself by inviting Miss World 2011 over to officiate at an event that celebrates Beauty with a Purpose. Miss Kenya 2010 already beat us to turning jigger eradication into the next celebrity international pastime.
MOSES SERUGO
53 Extra: imitation fails to flatter
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- Category: Television
- Published on Thursday, 20 October 2011 10:16
- Written by Moses Serugo
- Hits: 469
It is rather odd that DStv can decimate what was initially a continental show into a showbiz PR piece for one country. Studio 53 started off as a showcase of the positive attributes of the African continent beyond the stereotypical clichés of poverty, ignorance and disease. The show, which has since morphed into 53 Extra, now aggressively pushes DStv’s “Naija-cked” agenda where Nigerian cultural imperialism is being pushed down the throats of the rest of the continent.
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