What the fuck is a Tsotsi??
Well, apparently it’s a film made here in South-Africa, and it went and won an Oscar or something. I couldn’t give a fuck.
Why? Because it’s a South-African movie about South-African people and South-African problems. I get to see that every day on the news or in the paper, why would I now go and pay to watch it all over again?
And I’m not the only one. Ster-Kinekor pulled the movie from all of their Port Elizabeth cinemas due to “lack of interest”. Us South-Africans want to see other countries’ people and other countries’ problems, not our own! How on earth would your average man on the street even know of what is depicted in the film, is even remotely accurate anyway??? Usually, the average South-African is shown as a poor black guy that lives in a shack. Do you think he’s going to go watch the movie?!?! Fuck no! He doesn’t even know the movie exists. He might have built his shack out of a ripped off movie poster from the side of the highway, but he couldn’t give a shit about the movie. He wants a roof over his head, which his government has failed to deliver for the past decade and a bit.
The people that do go watch the movie are all thinking “Wow, that’s harsh. Living in South-Africa is so harsh. I’m glad I live in a mansion in Camps Bay. Oh, that reminds me, I must send the mayor another bribe to make sure those fuckers stay off my doorstep.”. And what of the assholes that gave the movie an Oscar?? They’re thinking “Yeah, that’s a pretty hard-hitting movie. It depicts the harsh reality of life in South-Africa very well. The cinematography. The acting. It brings tears to my eyes.”. WAKE UP YOU FUCKS!!! The majority of people in South-Africa are black. The majority of people in South-Africa voted for the ANC. The majority of people in South-Africa live in sub-standard housing. The rest? White, hard-working, living in houses, not shacks. Some black people have made a success of themselves. Some white people did too. They live in mansions and drive expensive cars.
No, I’m not racist. I’m all for racial equality. And I may be stereotyping a bit here, but transformation from an apartheid era to democratic, equality, doesn’t happen overnight. It will take a couple of generations. I was raised in the apartheid regime, and was taught that black people are people that work for you, and are not to be trusted. And that they are called Kaffirs. My upbringing is not something that I can change, but I’ve grown up, and I’ve learnt. If you call any black person a kaffir nowadays, not only will you get a raised eyebrow from just about anybody within earshot, you’ll most likely get beaten to a pulp by some bystanders. It’s just not done, because it’s meant as an insult, and one that was heavily used in the apartheid era. I don’t have a need to do so, I’m just saying. The new generation is being taught equality, the current/old generation still has that apartheid within them, even if it is just locked up away from the outside world. Show me an afrikaans man in his 50’s that doesn’t have racism in him, and I’ll show you a man that’s lived in a shack for the past 20 years.
So what does this all have to do with Tsotsi? Well, just that it turns out that a Tsotsi is thug, or gangster. And gangsterism is a part of daily life in South-Africa, and the film might depict some form of truth of life in South-Africa. I haven’t seen the movie, and I have no desire to do so.
