y Brutal Awards!

WHAT A BRILLIANT title for a telenovela! Now, you know I only like dealing with the pertinent issues of life, therefore, I’ve never been particularly bothered with what this minister or that minister says as I don’t think it makes much impact – change for the better - on the daily drudgery that most of us have to go through.

When I returned back to London from Havana, many of my friends were surprised that I had survived – and enjoyed - living in a communist country, and frequently, I heard horrendous stories of what people were apparently suffering under that regime – though the US embargo didn’t help matters much. Of course, all they said might have been true for those embroiled in the political shenanigans of that country, but for the average Joe Public, the daily mundane issues – the real politics - were what impacted most. This is true the world over.

Now, it may have escaped your notice, but the telenovelas that litter our screens have given many the relief of escapism and the opportunity to forget the countless uncontrollable HIPC issues that govern their daily lives, as they immerse themselves in the love antics and intrigues of those from another time and place.

‘Juana la Virgen,’ entertainingly pronounced as ‘ver-hen,’ has finally ended its run, much to the disapproval of its legions of fans, who could be found discussing and rehashing the very full and interesting roller coaster lives of those inhabiting the world of Juana. The fans feel deceived with how the whole thing climaxed and then flopped like a bad joke, leaving many confused as to what TV3 was trying to do to them.

Not being a television owner - as the boring telenovela of my television and the repairman’s many excuses continues (lasting nearly as long as, if not longer than ‘Cuando Seas Mia,’ the never ending telenovela) – I was only able to catch a snippet here and an episode there, but my best friend religiously kept me abreast of the issues that plagued the lives of Juana, Mauricio, Carlota and co, and I became equally embroiled in the escapist antics. I salivated just like Pavlov’s dogs in anticipation of the next exciting instalment, though not enough – obviously – to park myself in front of a television from Friday to Sunday to experience it first hand.

For a few months after arriving in Ghana, I regularly browsed the Internet to find out what was happening in ‘Coronation Street’ and ‘Eastenders,’ - my favourite soap operas – during my absence, but quickly lost interest when new characters were introduced and I could no longer follow the plots.

One of the many interesting things I’ve notice about Ghanaians is that they don’t like to be surprised. They tend to like hearing all the details of a film before they see it and many times I have been irritated by someone asking to be told what was going to happen next or another who had already seen a film insisting on telling me what was going to happen next, not to say that you need too many neurons to decipher how most African movies would conclude after watching for only five minutes.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the love of telenovelas and the interest in knowing what was going to happen before it happened, led some enterprising sparks to produce booklets telling the whole story – information gleaned from the Internet - that could be found in display cases in stationery kiosks across the nation and paraded through every trotro station. And how the fans lapped it up.
That’s how I found out the Rogelio was supposed to be Juana’s father, though that part of the intrigue and the fallout of that shocking fact was never shown.

An empty hole had suddenly materialised in the fans lives, and even though TV3 promised more intrigue and love palaver the following week in ‘The Promise,’ many, including my best friend have not been placated by the promise of ‘the promise.’ Rumbles of discontent could be felt in the area.

This morning I visited my friend, only to arrive in the middle of yet another ‘how can TV3 do this to us’ heated conversation. This was serious business and the fervour with which the women were discussing the unimpressive manner in which ‘Juana la Virgen’ had ended gave me the impression that if they hadn’t had more pressing issues to deal with, they would have organised some sort of wahala demonstration and marched off to TV3 to officially register their disapproval.
Unfortunately, the issues of where the next meal is coming from, how to pay the school fees, the utility bills, the lack of water, the electricity fluctuations, lights on and off, the road works, the mosquitoes, etcetera, etcetera were a reality that no amount of escapism could get them away from.

As the seriousness of the complaints mounted, I tuned out while still managing at the same time to look appropriately concerned to what sounded like a national disaster. I was jerked back to reality when one of the women remarked that instead of the newspapers printing uninteresting stories, they should make a fuss about the TV3 faux pas over the Juana saga. My friend said, ‘Alba, write about this. What TV3 is doing is not good, people are complaining.’ Another interjected, ‘Eh, it’s true-o! The way people like Juana, hwε, people like it pa-pa. Hmmm, love!’ The others teased her and did their version of, ‘solo a tu lado quiero vivir,’ followed by the telling each other of their favourite episodes and what happened. It didn’t seem to matter that they had all watched it and knew what had happened and had probably rehashed it many times before. On their faces I could see that their daily reality worries had been compartmentalised elsewhere as they were transported into the dream world of Juana and Mauricio’s love. Pure escapism.

‘Okay, so what’s the problem,’ I asked. However, not to bore you with too many details, this is the best-abridged reconstruction of what they felt had gone wrong. Those of you who didn’t enter the world of Juana may be a little confused, but please, bear with me.

On Friday’s episode, Ramon Perez was buried. Carlota was packed off to a psychiatric hospital. Desiree was nowhere to be found. Enriqueta had left her job (which she loved) and gone on holiday much to Manolito’s dismay and Juana had found the pictures that would free Mauricio and put Rogelio (the villain) in jail, where he deserved to be.

On Saturday, Juana took the pictures to court leading to Mauricio being freed, Mauricio immediately collapsed and was rushed to hospital and Juana took her baby and suitcase and joined him. Rogelio kidnapped Desiree and threw her into the sea; he immediately got a call (from where? Who knows.) about Juana’s photos incriminating him in Francisco’s death and while trying to make his escape in a boat, was suddenly surrounded by police with pointed gun and the next thing you knew, he was behind bars. Desiree’s body was found washed up on the shore and Manolito met the suddenly reappeared Enriqueta at the beach somewhere.

A stench of deception had many fans wrinkling their noses and the murmurs of discontent increased.

The final episode on Sunday broke the floodgates of complaints. All of a sudden, Juana informed all the major players of her pending wedding to Mauricio – no exciting build up of wedding preparations. Ana Maria was eight months pregnant; Brandi and Enriqueta were three months pregnant (though no explanation of where Enriqueta went and how or why she came back). Manolito, who had only ever fixed an iron during the whole telenovela suddenly had money and had opened up a studio (we don’t know what kind) with Enriqueta helping him (so what had happened to her job at the magazine?). Carlota, freed from the psychiatric hospital apologised to Mauricio for the trouble she had caused and was on her way to Columbia, effectively leaving the way clear for true love to win through. She also did Mauricio the favour of wanting to divorce him.

All of a sudden it was fifty years later – the much awaited marriage and quick inserts of what had happened to everyone (most of them were dead) - and the now geriatric Mauricio and Juana were hobbling along on a beach. What a downer!

Thank you for watching ‘Juana la Virgen,’ followed by an advertisement for the next fantastic telenovela to be aired – ‘The Promise.’

My people were not pleased. The built up climax had been burst without so much as an iota of consideration as to the effect it would have on the legions of fans. There were too many loose ends for comfort. So what happened to Rafaelito? Why wasn’t Rogelio’s downfall played out for all effect? What happened to the magazine around which this whole saga revolved? Why wasn’t it revealed that Rogelio was Juana’s father and Carlota’s sister? And the list of questions went on. The Juana fan club moaned and moaned, wondering for the umpteenth time, why TV3 had done them such a disservice. ‘TV3, you didn’t try, koraa!’

To make matter worse, the fans were further irritated by having to endure a repeat of the ‘un-thirst quenching’ deceptive finale episodes of Juana. Of course, no one forced them to endure the repeats, but hey, we all need a little soap opera in our lives. ‘The promise’ promised did not materialize.

As I said, I didn’t follow the intrigues of Juana’s world closely and so the only guess I could hazard, was that in the rush to get the next telenovela on our screens, Juana had to be butchered – in some circles, it’s called editing - and a whole year of love and intrigue had been hurriedly packed into a couple of episodes just to make way for the new kid on the block.

The fans were not impressed, but still they searched for a silver lining on the cloudy ending of Juana.
As most of these telenovelas are re-aired in the daytime, the fans are hoping that the second time around, time would be found for all the loose end to be tied up properly and the thirst of the fans properly quenched.

Though you may giggle at the seeming banality of the Juana complaints, you have to admit that these telenovelas play an important social role in helping to ease, however superficial, the hardships that many face. The proverbial soothing balm on an aching tooth. After a hard day of not achieving much, some escapist joy – if only for an hour - is brought into the lives of many as they are allowed to temporarily forget their woes and immerse themselves in the fantasy lives of others.

You may think this is a whole load of rubbish, but, as I said earlier, these are some of the pertinent issues of modern life, and these telenovelas – proverbial safety valves - are providing a calming national service and should not be taken so lightly.

DURING THE EVENINGS, my work colleagues in Nigeria love watching good old ‘Cuando Seas Mia,’ the telenovela that refuses to end. I lost interest a long long time ago, but when all the gang rush to gather around the television, I join them just to be around company and though I’m embarrassed to admit it, find myself enjoying the programme. In Ghana we are way ahead of them, so I become centre of attention as they demand to know what is coming next.

I still can’t get over this West African thing of wanting to know the plots of programmes and films before watching it. For me, knowing the plot beforehand takes a lot of the pleasure away, but as they say, ‘different strokes for different folks,’ and I’m constantly badgered to tell them what is going to happen next.

Now, I had managed to fool myself into believing that I knew next to nothing about the telenovela and would humbug it at all given opportunities, but as soon as they ask me questions about what is going to happen next, I suddenly find myself the fount of information and happily rattle off, with ease, the intrigue and drama waiting to be played out in future episodes. Shame on me!

In fact, my ‘Cuando Seas Mia’ knowledge fame has spread and I am now sought by people in the neighbourhood wanting to know future details. One evening, as I narrated future storylines to an enthralled audience at a nearby mobile to mobile communication centre, I took an outer body experience and watched how absurd we all looked, especially me. It was so daft, so I won’t talk about it anymore. Enough said!

So, one day, we were all gathered around the television watching the telenovela, when they cut to a commercial break. The commercial was for a headache tablet, whose name I forget. The star of the commercial was Boy Alinco from the popular programme ‘Papa Ajasco’. To say that the advert is horrendous is an understatement of monumental proportions. It was jaw droppingly bad awful and overstayed its welcome by a good thirty seconds.

The advert starts with Boy Alinco arriving on a huge motorbike, with a babe at the back, clinging on tightly. He screeches to a halt and suddenly grabs his head as if in dire pain, his face contorting as if he were in danger of morphing into some horrible beast from a bad horror movie.

From nowhere, as they do, appears salvation in the form of the man who walks around with a bag full of headache tablets for no reason at all. Boy Alinco theatrically tosses one of the tablets down with the glass of water that also appears from nowhere and before you can say, ‘hey presto,’ the headache has vanish in a puff of smoke. Boy Alinco jumps off the bike – by this time the babe has also vanished – and does a little supposedly comical dance. He thrusts his hand towards camera, in which a handy packet of the wonderful headache tablets is attached and proclaims with an overkill of dramatics that it is the best headache tablet in the world. Of course, he has to repeat the name several times so that the audience don’t forget. The thirty seconds of terror ends with a pack shot and a payoff line which I promptly forget ten seconds after the advert is over.

As we all groaned, my friend Nwanyinma turned to me and said, “I bet you don’t have adverts as terrible as this in Ghana!” Oh, how little she knows.

As usual, like most Nigerians, she is of the impression that Ghana is a paradise; the same way many Ghanaians consider the USA to be a paradise. I had to burst her bubble. Amazingly, she was shocked. “So you have bad adverts in Ghana too?” Yes, we do. Oh yes, we do!

In another article I commented about the Areeba advert currently running on television. You know the one - ‘Some will listen to it on radio; some will watch it on TV, but you could be right there’ – though the focus wasn’t on the production value of the advert. However, after I mailed the article, plus my friend Nwanyinma’s comment, I remembered my ‘εyε Brutal’ article where I hypothesized a top ten worst advert awards list, imagining the merriment of it being aired as a counterpoint to the ‘Gong-Gong’ awards. Wouldn’t it be pant wettingly hilarious if an advert that won a ‘Gong-Gong’ award also won an ‘εyε Brutal’ award? I’d pay to see that!

Thankfully, though I doubt it had anything to do with my comments, I have noted that the majority of the adverts that made my ‘εyε Brutal’ awards list have vanished from our screens. Unfortunately, the die hard advert for Angel Capsules is clinging on with a vengeance, just like the never ending telenovela. You know the one where husband is blasted for non performance and scary friend pops up waving the handy packet of marriage saving tablets, then giving the thumbs up from behind a bush when the tablets do the trick? Yes, that one!

Of course, just because many of those bad adverts have vanished doesn’t mean that they have not been replaced by other equally terrible adverts. But . . . but, I do have to say that each time I come back to Ghana, I notice that the adverts have gone through a positive chance phase and are getting better and better. I particularly love the mobile phone company adverts, though the ‘Tigo’ advert where happy dancers wearing ‘Buzz’ T-shirts transform into happy dancers wearing ‘Tigo’ T-shirts had me confused. It took me a long time to realise that ‘Tigo’ wasn’t the name of a new mobile phone. This goes to show that I was missing the point by at least a mile. As for the ‘Alice’ advert . . . no comment, though at least one of them would make it onto this year’s ‘εyε Brutal’ top ten list, if there were one. But, this is not part two of ‘εyε Brutal.’

How often have you heard Ghanaians utter the statement, “Ghanaians are not serious!” I bet you’ve said it yourself when you find yourself playing an unwanted role in the many absurd situations that you can’t help but trip over each day. Let’s face it, Ghanaians are comical and yet we take ourselves so seriously. The more seriously we take ourselves, the more comical we become and yet we don’t ever see it. Ever. We are great at poking fun at each other but are so unwilling to ever laugh at ourselves. People, we are a funny people and we should celebrate that fact.

As you all know, there is a host of reality programmes surfacing on our television screens. Currently, we are in the phase of singing competition programmes and as you can well imagine, I have been missing ‘Mentor’ – the cross between ‘Idol’ and ‘Big Brother’ - like hell. I especially miss the looks of horror on Rama Brew’s face as contestants crucify songs. Darn, I’m missing out!

Years ago, when I was in England, Chris Tarrant, a television personality used to host a programme to showcase the worst of adverts from around the world. The show paid ₤250.00 (about 450 Cedis) to the sender of each side-splitting advert aired.
Each time I’m accosted by one of those adverts that fall into the ‘very bad’ category, I have flashbacks and wish I knew what I know now. I would have made a whopping load of money.

I wish some smart aleck would jump on this style of bandwagon, or give me the money to do it. After all, isn’t jumping on bandwagons our speciality? I mean, if there is a bandwagon, we will jump on it and if there isn’t one, we will invent one and jump on it.
Look at the beauty pageants and current singing contents devouring airtime, look at ‘Mentor’. But as usual, we only want to look at ‘the best of’ – not to say that I agree that they are the best. How about looking at ‘the worst of’ for a change? There would be no end of entertainment, especially, in these hard times. I mean, there is no end of readily available material to air at least ten awards ceremonies for bad adverts, television programmes and films.

I was watching an awards programme on cable television and tuned in just as Halle Berry was receiving a worst actress award for her role as ‘Cat Woman.’ She threw herself totally into the swing of things and personally went to collect her award, clutching the Oscar she won for best actress in the film ‘Monster’s Ball’ in one hand, and the worst actress award in the other as she thanked the organisers for bestowing on her that honour. That’s the spirit, isn’t it?

Obviously, not everyone has that great sense of humour, but for the viewing audience, seeing the miserable faced others who take themselves seriously should provide a laugh or two.
I know we take ourselves seriously, but we need to lighten up a bit, hence this big hint, once again – I hope someone will listen to me this time – for a ‘Raspberry Awards’ style programme.

Hey, bandwagon hoppers, this is a new bandwagon and it’s begging, pleading, supplicating and waiting to be jumped upon. Please, give it some attention!