Strictly Come Dancing Announces Contestant ... The Redundancy Continues!!
Thursday evening SABC3 announced its lineup of the new celebrity contestants for the new season of the popular Strictly Come Dancing show. While some of the names on the line up were a refreshing addition to our TV viewing, two names left a slight sense of redundancy in the proceeding. Boity Thulo and Khanyi Mbau will make up the lineup for the show.
South African producers need a huge reality check. This industry will never reach Hollywood status if our producers never get to be daring or get out of this fascination they have with this so called "it girls".
Every channel, every show, there are these girls... Our industry can not grow on the attention of only 5 girls.
The day we get that, that is when we can have a viable and competitive industry that has credible stars.
These girls have already infiltrated the sports shows as well now. What's next? Are they gonna read the news bulletin ? Don't be surprised if you tune in to your news at 7 and there is Minnie or Bonang reading the news.
As a media consultant it is always such an embarrassment when you in a meeting with clients and they ask you who the biggest celebrities are. Thanks to our groupie media, you have no choice but to mention Khanyi Mbau, Boity Thulo, Pearl Thusi, Minnie Dlamini and Bonang Matheba.
Unfortunately, businesses deal with numbers so the next question is always; what are their numbers?
Sadly beside Twitter, you can not really claim that these girls have any huge numbers. In reality, with the exception of Pearl Thusi, none of these girls have ever been on a TV show that is watched by more than 2 million people. On top of that some of them have never even been a tv show with a million viewers.
How then are they considered big stars?
There just is no correlation between these "it girls" attention and the numbers that would warrant their superstar statuses in Mzansi, but that is the country we live in... Perception far outweighs reality in Mzansi.
With that, it is no surprise that the producers of Strictly Come Dancing decided to add Boity and Khanyi on their show. It certainly will get them the media attention they seek but will do nothing to boost the credibility of the show.
I was actually shocked few weeks back when I got wind of the fact that Endemol Production was actually considering or have signed Boity as one of their new celebrities on the new season of Reality Check which is coming back to Etv soon.
The redundancy is this industry is discouraging for anyone who wants to be part of this business. Total lack of faith in the abundant talent in this industry to be stars is disconcerting.
These are lovely girls. Boity is just a sweet soul that is always polite, Pearl is that girl when you meet that will just act like she has known you for years, Bonang is reserved and gurded but has a heart of gold, Khanyi is just always friendly and Minnie... well... she has her people! This is not some attack on the girls' god fortunes. I like these women but I love the industry more and would love to see it grow beyond the attention and overexposure of just 5 women.
Having a diverse A-list pull benefits everyone... magazines will have more stories to pull from, TV shows will be more competitive, channels will be forced to commission more content, etc
At this rate, calling any of these girls the best at anything, is like she being the only person who sells oranges in a village and claiming to be the best seller of oranges in that village. You can not be the best if you are the only one getting the opportunities to do that job.
Once again we congratulate Khayi and Boity, as we wait to see what is new that they will bring to the show.
