Puleng Mash-Spies so dominates the proceedings, she may just as well have had her own show, writes Paul Eksteen.
|||There used to be a show about nothing. It was called Seinfeld. It was funny, dramatic and insightful. It poked fun at the absurdity of taking oneself too seriously, at relationships and family, at our society at large.
There is a new show about nothing. It’s called Divas of Jozi. It isn’t particularly funny, the drama is neither here nor there, and the only thing in sight is a commerical break.
But there’s promise: the cast take themselves too seriously, society at large is judging them, and their relationships are so scripted and wooden, someone is bound to crack. Potential reality TV gold, in short.
Divas of Jozi is described as a “one hour uncensored reality TV show”, a glimpse into a life most of us can only dream about. It stars six women who are living large, chasing their business dreams, playing dress-up and accesorising with rich husbands.
READ: #DivsOfJozi: The claws are out
It copped a fair bit of flak after it’s debut episode, with some viewers claiming that it promoted the odious “blesser” culture that has been gaining steam in our society. We’ll get to that sore point (and it is a sore point) in a bit, but let’s first deal with what Divas of Jozi isn’t.
Firstly, where are the divas? A diva is a haughty, demanding woman – prone to tantrums when things aren’t as she demands it. She is Naomi Campbell, phone in hand, staring down a grovelling assistant. She is Mariah Carey, three hours late, smiling wistfully at her own insolence. She is not working in a boutique clothing store, nor is she tucking into a hotel’s breakfast buffet. These things should be beneath her.
Secondly, where is Jozi? Most of last night’s episode seemed to take place in Durban. But wow!!!, does Sorisha Naidoo have a plush pad or what, with the kind of gold accented thrones (chairs, to us common folk) crafted specifically for pampered posteriors. And so, considering the billionaire setting, and the fact that everything seems to happen in Durban these days, perhaps it’s understandable that Jozi’s “divas” would find themselves at the coast. Not the beach, mind you. If you lived in a mansion as luxurious as this, why would you ever leave the home? Perhaps, this is why Sorisha is so pale.
It is here, at the gilded chez la Naidoo, that we sight the first stirrings of scripted brouhaha. Sorisha and clothing store owner Aimee bond over, well, not being with the other “divas”. It’s a “vrou-mance” of sorts, borne of a shared personality trait: they are both so reserved. But as a plot device, this concept is so heavily flawed. Being blah does not a reality TV show make.
— Divas Of Jozi (@DivasOfJozi) July 1, 2016
Also, the other divas are largely the same. So, setting these two apart from the rest makes little sense. Where’s the spice, the tears and the fights? Where’s Puleng?
Without the ghetto superstar that is Mrs Mash-Spies, Divas of Jozi simply isn’t worth the effort. The self-proclaimed Queen of Dainfern so dominates the proceedings here, she may just as well have had her own show. The other characters (although I’m holding thumbs for take-charge Nazley) are merely props, stage acroutement one can use to fill the gaps in Puleng’s train of thought.
Last night she: refused to give back the chips comped to her at a casino, at least until Sorisha placated her with an expensive pair of boots; unveiled the kind of cleavage that could mess with the moon’s gravitational pull and overshadowed Sorisha’s fashion show debut in the process, bought gifts for her castmates, but only a selected few (sorry Stevie) and waterboarded the agents of racism and hateration with her tears.
Clearly, the vitriol directed at Puleng because of her much older, white husband has taken its toll. She tore into her detractors, claiming “ People say you (as in her) are with him for his money. When you fall in love, you don’t see the colour or whatever. Whether he was white, or green, I don’t care.”
Interesting selection of colours there, considering people have accused her of being a gold digger. But we’ve not time to consider the merits of that slander because those tears are now a flood, carrying us off to a land where this show is all about Puleng.
Attempting to calm her down, someone says (I think it was Aimee): “Where is the township Puleng?”
Huh? It’s the kind of faux pas that should keep us interested in an episode three.
For your information, we are nowhere near a township. We are in the court of the Queen of Dainfern, and her whim is your cue to say stupid s**t. Like Stevie, who joins the others in an attempt to stem the waterworks and refers to it later as a “one-on-one”.
Looks like we have a show on our hands after all.