Spitting image was a satirical puppet skit television program that played on ITV from 1984 to 1996. The show routinely made jokes addressing political hot topics. This song is one of the singles released by Spitting Image. It was released during Apartheid.
In the video a traveling man is telling a bartender about his wild experiences through song. At the chorus the man says, "but I've never met a nice South African." Then a group of white South African men are seen carrying guns while riding through the desert in a jeep.
It is the South African men who make the derogatory statements. they call themselves "arrogant bastards who hate black people, "talentless murderers who smell like baboons", and "ignorant loudmouth". As the song progresses and the scene goes back to those men the pile of dead animals on their car gets bigger.
The only nice South African turns out to be a Breyten Breytenbach who after speaking out against apartheid was exiled to France only to come back to South Africa and be imprisoned. He was in prison at the time of this song's release.
Due to the nature of this song it almost has to be overtly stereotypical but it still perpetrates the misconceptions that people in the UK have towards South Africans. Whether that
can be ignored since the song was attempting to tackle a bigger issue is debatable.
Tracie,
ReplyDeleteThis is a very cheeky video, one with a very clear message. I'm wondering who the intended audience was and what the response was by the public? For your next few posts, I'd like to see you find media mentions that are more current so that you can see what is happening in this community today.