I really don't know which news to break first.
That the discovery channel has the " for real, for real survivor series" or that I braved it and watched the constant gardner?
Well, if you have ever had a chance to see overpampered individuals get thrown into a boondock and asked to live with nothing but real slugs, worms and slamming each other then you must have been one of the many who were awed by survivor, but today I tell that I have found something that makes survivor look like child's play.
Imagine you are a civilised westerner who decides to take a leisurely flight over the african jungle to scout your next big exploit or simply to relax.
Then the worst happens you become a victim of one of the many calamities that follow those like you in Africa. You crush into an African bush.
What would you do?
What would be worse the savages or the wrath of the savagenation?
The discovery channel will be airing the story of one man who survived it.
This folks is the latest comedy series from the discovery channel. Here I was thinking they were all about serious stuff.
Then offcourse I braved the odds and watched the constant gardener. I figured Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz have earned a reputation in my books of being the few worthy actors whose work I support.
Then there are the rave reviews from friends "watch it am telling you Karen it is deep, watch it", and again I take my buddy's opinion seriously she is the one who told me about "crash" which was in every sense of the word an amazing movie. She also told me that ,"Sometimes in April" was more potent than "Hotel Rwanda" she was right . To cut the rumble short this is someone who movie choices I respect.
However, the constant gardner was a wrong prediction. It carried with it the self righteousness that Hollywood is oh so full off never to disappoint offcourse. A fresh faced, pretty and priviledged young Brit gal comes to Africa with her diplomat husband who lets her dance around with miroz in Kibera and stick around some young miro dude who they crash state parties together with. As if such a relationship wouldn't bother any husband.
She has to be the one to break the story of how pharmaceuticals test medicines on Africans before to hasten their marketing in the west.
Are you kidding me?
How many African villages will you hear stories of some strange white man who came giving away sugar and milk if only you let him inject you and accept to go see him periodically?
Then after awhile he disappears.
That is such old news in Africa we don't even talk about it.
Who didn't read the stories in the Standard newspaper about the people who have been paralysed by the medications they were being fed?
With all its high and mighty self righteousness the movie comes to a disappointing halt, the young miss is hacked and offcourse we are left wondering if ever the pharmaceuticals programs ended ?
The only one who got some relief was the Ralph Fiennes who found out that his wife's buddy was no threat to him as he was gay.
That seemed to be the only point of relief or clarity in the movie.
Everything else was baseless and in the air.
There is no way the west will stop its exploitation of our people if our gorvernments and we act as we are depicted in that movie.
A bunch of children in grown up clothes dancing our hearts out to entertain the whites in our midst.
I would dare anyone to point to a moment where people in hell dance.
Because that is what the slum Kibera is.
It is hell on earth.
Who in there right minds is content with that kind of life?
Why is there such a need to show the world that Africans are content with their hardships?
Always waiting with their hands a begging?
Whose backs do you think those cheap slob boers that this misfit of a gorvernment hires backs ride on?
The real Africans who are convieniently left out of the picture.
No, Hollywood can't be caught dead showing that just like they westerners we too strive despite the challenges to make ends meet.
Children are educated. People make ends meet. Despite the hardships life does go on.
How many people even in that Kibera shown in that movie sit with their hands out waiting for a Rachel Weisz to come dancing?
Many are often trekking from their industrial area jobs , where there are pay paltry wages and somehow still they struggle and run a country whose govt has the audacity to hire misfits to come and take away their right to information.
The constant gardener like every other western flick is just that.
Sanctimonious at best. Pretentious and will make only the gullible find some serious issue lurking in what has been the usual image the west has kept of Africa.
The overgrown child that will never find his way home.
