A former director on the SABC's Top Billing has revealed that the opulent magazine show doesn't like vagina.
In a funny anecdote, Pamela Power, a TV scriptwriter and script editor, shared a funny anecdote with talk show host Anele Mdoda on SABC3's Real Talk with Anele, saying she was once responsible for doing an insert on the play "The Vagina Monologues" but was ordered not to use the word "vagina" anywhere in the insert for the SABC3 show produced by Tswelopele Productions.
In another insert she wanted to do for Top Billing - South Africa's longest running uninterrupted local programme on South African television and that focuses on the lives of the rich and famous - she wanted to film homeless people for the show because she says "I was so much more Special Assignment".
Special Assignment is SABC3's weekly investigative magazine show strand.
The director who has worked on TV shows ranging from Top Billing and SABC1's Generations and Uzalo to Mzansi Magic's Rockville and who is currently a script editor at SABC2's Muvhango, didn't know how she was supposed to tell a story about "The Vagina Monologues" without using the word "vagina".
"I was the worst director ever and I think they were so happy to wave me goodbye," said Pamela Power who authored the books Ms Conception, Things Unseen and Delilah Now Trending.
"The Vagina Monologues, I was supposed to film that and without ever having the word 'V' mentioned," explained Pamela Power.
"So I didn't film any of the show. And then I got back and they were like: 'But you haven't filmed any of the show, you just did everything in the background".
"I said [its] because you didn't want me to mention the word!" said Pamela Power.
