Hypocrisy killing the movie industry in Zimbabwe?

For long organisations and individuals alike have always attributed the downfall of the movie industry to political and economic reasons but ignore social reasons.

If I may be bold to claim: ours is a hypocritical society that prides in looking good during the day and going in a totally different mode at night. Growing up, we all watched Hollywood blockbusters during ‘family time’. 

Some of these Hollywood big movies had really steamy sex scenes, for instance Jean-Claude Van Damme movies had always a moment of explicit content. 

Ironically families around Zimbabwe endured these scenes even in the presence of kids, it’s the Zimbabwean films that they cannot tolerate.

This mind boggling phenomenon makes one ask certain questions like: 

1) Do audiences understand the potential of movies and film in the national economy?

2) Is the separation of a character or a character’s dramatizations in a film tolerable in Zimbabwean culture e.g. kissing, sex, consumption of drugs or other sensitive scenes?

3) Do Zimbabwean audience respect movie parental guidelines and ratings?

To put it into context, hits such as ‘Wadiwa Wepamoyo’, ‘Gringo the Troublemaker’ amongst others would have been  censored from traditional media, by that I mean ZBC TV and other few television stations that have recently popped up in the Zimbabwean media landscape.

If these productions contained such scenes aforementioned, it is not a secret that such dramatization would pull huge audiences.

Another examples unfolds next door in South Africa where TV shows such as MTV Shuga and the new series ‘Shaka’ which have grown in popularity in Zimbabwe despite their explicit nature raising questions whether we are honest with ourselves. Anyways what do I know, I’m just a Gweru kid…

Remember to follow me on Twitter and Instagram @panashedave