by Thinus Ferreira
DStv deliberately exploits people who are too stupid to realise and understand what's being done to them, for the sake of television. Which is why the trash TV that's Big Brother Mzansi needs to stop.
I want to highly recommend, dear reader, that you watch the two episodes of the documentary series Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action on Netflix.
Listen carefully to what the producers say they deliberately did to the people who appeared on the American trash talk TV show - why it happened, how they shamelessly manipulated people, plied them with liquor to get them to "react" better on TV, the damage it caused to people's personal lives (that they didn't care about), and how the low-class, uninformed people were duped and were just an element to get ratings.
Now watch five minutes of MultiChoice and M-Net's Big Brother Mzansi: Umlilo on either DStv channel 198 where it runs 24/7 or a highlight programmes on M-Net's Mzansi Magic (DStv 161) channel.
Long before Netflix's fictional Squid Game started on the video streaming service with a story where contestants are sacrificed (seemingly through full consent and in which participation is voluntary) inside a game-world set-up where you play for big money or pay with your life, M-Net apparently decided that Big Brother in Nigeria and South Africa will no longer be about watching contestants, but sacrificing housemates.
Here is how the "game" works: MultiChoice, M-Net's Mzansi Magic executives like Shirley Adonisi, along with Big Brother Mzansi's executive producer Natalie Bleksley and a team of Red Pepper Pictures producers put people in a camera-filled house where - season after season - things inevitably go wrong, they wash their own hands of any involvement, and shift the full responsibility for what happened to the TV victims, who are then removed.
On to the next one.
MultiChoice, M-Net and Red Pepper Pictures - like Jerry Springer's "fight, fight, fight!" TV studio stage - are the ones who create, control and stage-manage the space.
Ultimate responsibility for what happens - including to each housemate - falls on these Randburg executives and producers who create something - in this case unvarnished trash television - expressly for ratings, and also to gain new and hold existing DStv subscribers as account holders.
Sponsors like LottoStar and Unilever's Robertson Spices are seemingly fine with going along having their logos and brand names appear alongside unsavoury and cringe-worthy content.
The calculation seems to be: It doesn't matter that my brand appears and is associated with TV trash since the downmarket content has viewers.
Two weeks ago ... controversy! Two Big Brother Mzansi housemates victim-shamed another contestant who revealed that she was sexually assaulted.
But deconstruct it: To MultiChoice, M-Net and Red Pepper Pictures this is just content. It's TV. It's "perfect" Jerry Springer! In fact, it's M-Net that is "victim-gaming": Another TV participant conveniently mauled in the TV Colosseum.
"No, it doesn't have anything to do with us, surely. We told them beforehand how they should behave," the people behind-the-camera say, who then offer up "punishment" to the offenders in prime-time on DStv as a made-for-TV, dramatic moment.
Last week ... scandal! The previous week's Big Brother Mzansi victim is now last week's offender.
It's not scripted but a beautiful narrative for any producer of the Brooke-Stephanie Bold and the Beautiful story that must always evolve.
Last week's antagonist, like a "Part Two", groped a guy and touched others inappropriately.
Again, none of this is MultiChoice, M-Net or Red Pepper Pictures' "fault" whose only participation was to put a group of random people into a house with cameras.
Now the person who was victim-shamed inside the Big Brother Mzansi: Umlilo two weeks ag, has been remade as a TV victim being shamed outside of the Big Brother Mzansi: Umlilo house a week later.
Again, the makers of this voyeuristic junk displace any blame.
"It's KayB! It's KayB who's to blame! It's KayB who's bad! It's KayB who is guilty of sexual assault according to section 16 of the Big Brother Mzansi producers' rulebook!"
What does the 23-year-old Bloemfontein student actually really grasp of the manipulative nature of producing tabloid television for a 24/7 audience on DStv?
And again on Wednesday last week: Another nicely-created prime-time eviction announcement, for the sake of ratings, complete with a gasp-inducing flourish from the victim-shamed, turned TV sexual assault offender, turned TV victim-gamed contestant.
Bye, bye KayB! Maybe in May when it's all over M-Net marketing will make you a new Mzansi Magic brand ambassador.
MultiChoice, M-Net and the Big Brother Mzansi: Umlilo producers are victim-gaming at the cost of real people's lives and it needs to stop.
Similar to Jerry Springer guests and Moja Love's flood of tabloid content with little to no regard as to what happens to damaged people's lives in the wake of on-TV destruction, DStv is victim-gaming and sacrificing people on the altar of Trash TV for the pure sake of entertainment.
It's far over time for M-Net's Big Brother Mzansi and the victim-gaming to end.
