Not all good art should be encouraged.
Let us revisit a song I like so much – ‘Ca ne va pas’ by Gomez.
The director did a marvelous job with the shots and the song lyrics tell a wonderful story. But the bigger picture is just horrible to enjoy. I cringe at the thought of what it presents as a viable way out to a failed relationship.
Storyline:
A lady finds her man exchanging body fluids with another lady, and quits the relationship. The cheat becomes sad that he was caught and then threatens to unalive himself by leaping off a building.
Then comes the reporter who makes it exciting and lets us know they will be taking only one shot of the gory act and so we need to be attentive. It eventually happens as first responders and emergency staff remained helpless.
And then we see the lady who quit the relationship wailing. Problem solved.
Man caught cheating decides to unalive himself and it is the loss of the lady on whom he cheated. No consequences for him.
Basically that’s what the storyline says.
And then when you think it could not get any worse, the song closes with the lady getting ‘removed’ from life by an over-speeding automobile.
Get cheated on, get filled with guilt for the unaliving of your cheating partner and then getting sent to the unphysical realm in the most brutal of ways just because you were being a good girl.
Double tragedy.
These things look shallow until you take a second look and understand the types of narratives we imbibe through our art.
Our media space has been flooded recently with cases of people unaliving themselves and many have been quick to point accusing fingers elsewhere. We as content creators, entertainers and opinion leaders have an introspection to make and be more intentional about our art.
And even when we tell compelling stories (which must be told by the way), we should remain conscious of how much could go wrong even if we had the right intentions.
Giyo Ndzi