Why is 7de laan so successful

In post-apartheid South Africa, for example, identities are destabilised and white South Africans, like the rest, have to reconceptualise how they fit into the broader South African community. Due to apartheid, whiteness and the connotations inherent to the construct remain contentious issues and race discourses are pertinent to the politics of belonging.

Whiteness remains implicitly prevalent, however, especially in the "us" versus "them" dichotomy created by the tension between what Vanhaesebrouck calls a "pristine Flemish cultural identity" and the inherent diversity of the Flemish nation. Secondly, only soap operas created and distributed for and by the public broadcaster of each particular region were included.

Challenges in dealing with diversity have, in both the South African and Flemish contexts, led to a restructuring of PSB mandates on representation and diversity policies. In both cases, the resultant production policies put pressure on texts produced for Public Service Television to be more representative of diversity. In South Africa, for example, the Broadcasting Act of explicitly outlines its nation building project and the VRT has similar policies meant to guide the representation of the nation on Flemish television Marx Knoetze and Dhoest The fact that PSB programmes in both contexts are mandated to reflect the societies in which they are produced, and the fact that both soap operas claim to do so, made both texts relevant for my analysis.

Another contributing factor was language. Even though white South Africans are not the only mother-tongue speakers of Afrikaans, in the early s it was re-conceptualised as a "white man's language".

Moreover, since the Afrikaans debate is often driven by white Afrikaner cultural organisations, there is a tendency to confuse Afrikaans as "belonging to" white Afrikaners.

Moreover, the palpable link between Afrikaans and Flemish situates the two soap operas favourably in terms of comparison. In addition to the similarities mentioned above, both soap operas can be classified as community soap operas as defined by Liebes and Livingstone Finally, both texts can be classified as successful since they have been on the air for more than a decade and consistently score some of the highest audience ratings in their particular contexts.

The methodological paradigm applicable to this project is qualitative and the method is a textual-visual, controlled case comparison of purposive samples from 7de Laan and Thuis. A comparative analysis provides the opportunity to look beyond the usual national framework applied to context-specific research. It denaturalises the media and reduces the risk of assuming certain aspects of media representations to be "natural" Hallin and Mancini 2.

I conducted a comparison of how the settings and communities, language use and representation of diversity in the two soap operas construct the imagined communities of each context by analysing six months' worth of episodes from season 17 of Thuis broadcast from January to May , and a similar sample of 7de Laan episodes broadcast from January to May Comparing a soap opera from an established media economy to one from an emerging media economy afforded me an opportunity to highlight the consistencies in the ideological patterning of representations of whiteness, across seemingly unrelated domains, to illustrate its pervasiveness.

The imagined communities depicted in these popular soap operas are close-knit and consist of ordinary characters from different generations living together in harmonious neighbourhoods. Although 7de Laan 's setting is more urban owing to its connotations with Johannesburg , both Hillside and the fictional village in which Thuis is set connote small town living, neighbourliness and a focus on the everyday.

All of the above, in conjunction with the fictional, yet familiar, nature of both settings as represented through recognisable activities and personae, make it possible for viewers to identify with the inherent "Flemishness" of Thuis or a utopian version of the South African rainbow nation ideal in 7de Laan.

All the action is centralised in these unified, closed communities and all the characters are depicted as sharing similar ideals related to conservative middle-class values and the nuclear family. Characters participate in the same cultural practices and rarely venture outside the closed space of the community. Examples of these cultural practices in the available sample include Bingo and wine tasting in 7de Laan and searching for hidden coins in the "Driekoningen taart" Three kings' tart in Thuis.

Cultural practices perceived as being outside of the homogeneous culture are marked as different. In 7de Laan, Hilda's "Ikebana" classes are a case in point. Oubaas describes the practice of Ikebana as "volksvreemd" foreign , thus explicitly rejecting a practice he perceives to be foreign to his "volk" people.

While closed settings are congenital to soap operas, in this case these settings are used as rhetorical devices which create a visual metaphor for the normative behaviour outlined above. These normative constructions can be read as presenting a specific take on the politics of belonging within the represented South African and Flemish communities. Hence belonging to the imagined community of 7de Laan or Thuis requires the practice of normative behaviour, represented as the utopian ideal for the societies these soaps depict.

Favell defines the politics of belonging as the "dirty work of boundary maintenance" Yuval-Davis 3 , and Chidester refers to representations such as the above as a "boundary under patrol". In both cases the invisible boundary of the utopian soap opera setting protects insiders against any perceived threats to their physical solidarity and cultural unity. These closed settings create a sense of purity and internal homogeneity which is cosseted against outsiders by regulating contact with anyone perceived as Other, thus affording insiders the opportunity to deflect any guilt about societal wrongs.

An example of the patrolled boundaries in these texts is the conversion of public spaces to private ones. Oppikoffie a local coffee shop featured in 7de Laan or the Zus and Zo a restaurant and guesthouse in Thuis , for example, are both public places, which also function as settings in which the private lives of the characters play out and within which mainly characters from the casts interact.

These public, yet private, spaces contribute to the creation of a boundary between the soap opera world and the world "out there", minimising the danger of interaction with the Other, even in public spaces.

When it is not possible to deflect guilt or difference on to an outsider, Otherness is created internally in the form of the "bad white body" Foster The eternal "super-bitch" is one such example. Gita McGregor, in 7de Laan, is an example par excellence of the evil female protagonist. She is the bad character against which all other characters' goodness can be opposed.

Her vulgar and inappropriate behaviour constructs her as marginal "white trash" and functions as confirmation of the centrality of "normal whiteness". Neither character, however, is depicted as absolutely bad.

Both are represented as three-dimensional characters where their good characteristics are also highlighted, ensuring their access to the in-group. The possibility of reform and re-integration into the utopian ideal is always imminent, and the homogeneous equilibrium is therefore constantly restored. This homogeneous construction of both imagined communities displays the characteristics which Foster 30 links to whiteness as a location of structural advantage.

Foster 23 identifies heteroperformativity, homogeneity, bravery, the nuclear family, rationality, class and civilisation as characteristics or discourses of whiteness.

By this logic, both communities are depicted as essentially "white". Moreover, seen against the background of what Steyn "Ignorance" calls the "ignorance contract", it seems that both soap operas present a homogeneous "feel good" community, which enables viewers to continue believing in the viability of such an amended reality and, in so doing, perpetuates ignorance.

These tendencies are also identifiable in the application of language in the chosen texts. Both Afrikaans and Dutch are particularly salient as markers of identity in their respective contexts. In Thuis, Flemish Dutch is the uncontested primary language. Despite its multilingualism, all the characters in 7de Laan ostensibly accept Afrikaans to be the primary language.

While there are some characters, such as Marco and Aggie, who speak English and other African languages, it happens infrequently, and everybody switches to Afrikaans seamlessly and without hesitation when an Afrikaans-speaking person enters the conversation. In conjunction with the construction of the community outlined above, language thus functions as a unifying factor in both texts and contributes to the creation of a homogeneous in-group.

Not only the choice of languages, but also their applications are significant to the politics of belonging and the negotiation of power. Even though both soaps use a standardised version of their primary language, Thuis incorporates different dialects as an indication of the class differences of the characters.

In 7de Laan, however, the sole use of standard Afrikaans is classified by milton "Local" as "deterritorialisa-tion" and the lack of intralinguistic diversity ultimately contributes to a homogeneous construction of Afrikaans-speaking South Africans, which is contrary to the actual diversity of its speakers.

The fact that the casts of both soap operas share a primary language might be read, on the one hand, as language fulfilling a transformative and unifying role. Moreover, hosting Afrikaans and Flemish programmes are in line with the language policies of both PSBs.

On the other hand, however, particularly in the South African case, it could also be read as a sort of escapism, where one particular language is used free from the guilt of excluding or dominating other languages.

The language choice in the two texts also differs in that, in Thuis, the primary language, Flemish Dutch, is linked to the construction of a subnational identity, while the Afrikaans used in 7de Laan is specific to only two language communities in the country. Although it is not my intention to read prejudice into a text that is specifically created until recently at least in Afrikaans, for a predominantly Afrikaans audience, the fact remains that Afrikaans is an ideologically loaded language.

Odendaal's comments are an indication of 7de Laan 's ideological positioning. The connection he makes between Afrikaans and whiteness is telling, since brown people are the predominant speakers of the Afrikaans language in South Africa. Read in the context of Odendaal's comments, Afrikaans' history as the "language of the oppressor" and the use of English as the second most prominent language in 7de Laan, one cannot help but notice the underlying white ideology of the text.

Thus, the construction of an almost completely Afrikaans community as representative of South Africa remains problematic. Regarding Thuis, even though the use of Flemish Dutch is in line with the public broadcaster's primary audience, and some degree of regional variation is included, its sole use is indicative of the homogeneous construction of the Flemish nation and the stringent integration policies which oppose the diversity the public broadcaster aims to represent.

In both cases, language is used to patrol the boundaries of the closed communities and belonging is constructed linguistically. In contrast to the above, both soap operas attempt-at first glance-to represent diversity in terms of class, gender and race or ethnicity. Viewers are presented with a utopian ideal of everyone living together in one community without fear of victimisation, discrimination or prejudice.

The South African society is represented as a non-racialised rainbow community and the Flemish society as a homogeneous community into which ethnic minorities are successfully integrated. Both soap operas present heteronormative gender and sexual roles as the standard and class differences, although present, are depicted as easily bridged.

In line with the characteristics of the genre, both texts present liberating, strong female roles as well as giving the males feminine traits such as a predilection for talk and emotion. Characters representative of different social strata are part of each of the communities. Both soap operas are, however, aspirational in the sense that class differences are not presented as problematic to upward mobility.

A case in point would be Errol in 7de Laan, a brown orphan, who went from being homeless to becoming an award-winning journalist.

Class-related problems are resolved quite effortlessly, perpetuating the homogeneous nature of the community. Despite the relative ease with which class differences can be overcome, as well as the fact that it is never referred to as a race issue, however, it is telling that in 7de Laan, all the whites are upper or middle class, and only black or brown characters are depicted as coming from a lower class.

Linked to this, during the period of analysis attempts were made in 7de Laan to depict interracial relationships, but only between brown and white characters such as Felicity and Herman , never between white and black or brown and black characters.

Concerning class, it was mainly brown characters that were presented as upwardly mobile. As far as representing racially specific cultural practices, one traditional black wedding was featured in 7de Laan a number of years ago.

However, when issues such as these were screened, it was always in the form of a "themed" issue, specifically dealing with race matters, and not depicted as part of the everyday life of the community.

It is arguable that such "themed" issues emphasise these practices, giving them more prominence, but at the same time these are constructed in such a way that they fall outside of the daily lives of the main characters-a "cultural experience" as it were.

During season 17, no such representations were featured in the narratives of Thuis. Race and matters relating to race or ethnicity fall mostly outside the purview of both soap operas. Even though both soap operas, but 7de Laan in particular, include characters from various races or ethnicities, the behaviour of these characters is rarely marked as race specific and, consequently, they all display normative behaviour, perpetuating white ideology as "no-Culture" Frankenberg It is arguable that these homogeneous presentations are created in order to provide an ideal for a self-evidently diverse society, but, in contrast to such an argument, the fact remains that presence is not enough to begin to reflect the actual racial diversity of both societies.

The verbal silence on race-related issues, furthermore, contributes to the construction of internal homogeneity. In Thuis in particular, despite the integration of some ethnic-cultural diversity for example Lynn, a Moroccan law student with white adoptive parents , race remains largely invisible and definitively unspoken.

This could be read as a reaction against the critique that ethnic-cultural minorities are mostly represented as tied to their cultural background and the problems associated with it in, for example, the news.

However, as a consequence, cultural diversity is effaced, and the problems related to the co-existence of people with different cultural backgrounds are side-stepped. Even though both texts avoid any explicit claims to race or the centrality of a particular race, their perpetual silence creates fertile ground for whiteness to thrive uncontested as dominant ideology.

A significant difference between the two texts is their levels of engagement with issues of gender diversity. Gender diversity and sexual identities are depicted in more depth in Thuis, as evidenced in, for example, the gay and lesbian couples and their prominent roles in the narrative. This situation mirrors tendencies in society at large since it is arguable that, in Belgium, homosexuality has been incorporated into the norm and LGBT rights have become part of the "national" imagined com-munity.

In contrast, in 7de Laan, the only reference within the scope of the analysed period was a stereotypical camp performance when Diederik was hypnotised and ordered to "act"gay with the purpose of comic relief, or arguably, ridicule. While entertainment remains the primary purpose of both texts, the reluctance to address gender-related issues in 7de Laan is also indicative of the more conservative nature of South African society and, to some extent, this is reminiscent of patriarchal, apartheid society where certain issues were taboo.

Croucher writes in this regard that "[s]ame-sex sexualities are foreign to, and inconsistent with, true Afrikaner identity". Stokes views heterosexuality and whiteness as normative co-partners in the construction of power. Linked to this, and central to both soap operas, is the prominence of the nuclear family even as a myth.

Despite the crumbling of the family structure in various narratives, the myth of the nuclear family is still propagated as the ideal in both soap operas.

Heteronormative performances of marriage and parenthood are also considered to be well-performed whiteness. In both soap operas, such performances are presented as well-performed citizenship and considered the behaviour accepted and promoted by the in-group. Because difference cannot be completely avoided, some less extreme performances of differences are appropriated into the dominant group.

Examples of these appropriations are "acceptable" performances of homosexuality and class or racial difference. Maikey refers to this as "homonationalism", which is defined as "the normalization and integration of certain 'more acceptable' queers into the nationalist ideal", a strategy which is relevant in Thuis, but still falls outside the purview of the analysed representations in 7de Laan. Visual racial diversity in 7de Laan, and to a lesser extent in Thuis, is similarly assimilated into the norm.

The same applies to class. Class difference is not presented as an enduring threat but rather glossed over or used for comic relief, and consequently tolerated or absorbed into the homogeneous in-group. Through homogenisation both cases, to a certain extent, mirror national patterns of lack of dealing with issues of difference. While Thuis deals with issues of gender and sexual diversity in a more nuanced way than 7de Laan, the narratives of both soap operas support the construction and maintenance of white hegemony.

It is arguable that 7de Laan represents "pro new South Africa" discourses, but these instances offer little more than superficial support and exert no tangible influence on the status quo. Similarly, despite being awarded the "integration prize", the relatively homogeneous nature of the Thuis cast mirrors the general reluctance towards integration in Flanders.

Furthermore, the presence of difference alone does not guarantee nuanced depictions, and even the depiction of same-sex relationships in Thuis still runs the risk of reiterating heteronormative values due to their focus on the nuclear family Dhaenens The characteristics identified by Foster 23 as linked to whiteness also intersects with other discourses of privilege such as patriarchy and these discourses thus mutually reinforce each other.

This is just next level disrespect. This is absolute nonsense! Where do i sign the petition?! He took a moment before saying his acceptance speech. Nylon fibers can absorb moisture without causing skin irritation.

Greeff has seven of them. Covid SA Coronavirus. Most American soapies if not all, are about as exciting as watching onions pickle and probably take longer to get the point then onions take to pickle. Sewende laan has got pace, is natural and realistic but doesn't take itself too seriously and they don't stare in SA we know its rude to stare - above all else its wholesome even educational- there's no almighty villain or saintly lead characters everybody has a 'bad day' now and then.

Sure its simple and sketch-like sometimes but its always sensible escapism-thats its appeal, its like theatre TV. For a glimpse into the "new" South Africa The show combines broad slapstick with melodrama with lashings of musical comedy and guest appearances by major South African writers Andre Brink inter alia and musical artists Karen Zoid inter alia.

The only time I can remember the show touched upon tragedy was when the character Aubrey was killed off. As the audience was well aware, the actor playing Aubrey, Randall de Jager, had been killed senselessly during a break in at fellow actor's Helene Lombard's house which he had been house sitting. This calamity provided a rare social realistic aspect to 7delaan. For the most part, 7delaan steers clear of race issues and concentrates on the diverse cultural lives of its characters to reflect the rich diversity of South African life.

The leading hunk is the congenial Nico Panagiotopoulos, a swarthy Greek. Much is made in the scripts of inter racial socializing but which rarely occurs in broad South African society; inter racial dating remains off limits. Now the punch : the show is nominally performed in Afrikaans, the lingua franca of much of South Africa but only spoken as a home language by a fraction of South Africa's population. Yet it is sub titled in English which has paved the way for the show to be popular among all language groups.

Even the occasional English dialogue is subtitled in English, making this show accessible to the hard of hearing, in a country yet to realise the need for closed captioning. Initially the producers were reluctant to show black characters in other than an upwardly mobile light, casting them as entrepreneurs and professional people.

A long standing running joke was the invisibility of Evelina the oft referred to but never seen domestic worker of the Terreblanches. More recently, the show has introduced more socially realistic characters in the form of domestic workers Maria Themsi Times and Aggie Mimi Mahlasela. Together with a low paid white shop assistant, Marko Greyling played by Francois Lemsley, they often indulge in exclusively Basotho conversation for which even the Afrikaners watching need to resort to reading the English sub titles.

Most of the younger cast members speak in a mixed English Afrikaans patois. Only older members of the cast strive to keep their Afrikaans language "pure". At any one time, there will generally be one cast member delivering their lines in English whilst others in the conversation speak Afrikaans. There will be other times when the English speaking world intrudes and the normally Afrikaans speaking actor will display their chops in English, with unpredictable results.

Whilst the younger actors tend to be cast for their looks, particularly the men, the women are generally cast for acting ability. There is an emphasis on not showing large bosoms, with an exception for comedic effect. Flat chested actresses may apply. There is a tendency to cast professional musicians. There are world class talents in the cast. Anna Mart v.

Merwe who has appeared as Christelle is the "go to" actress on the South African stage. When not directing episodes,as part of a 4 member team, actors Chris Vorster and Pierre van Pletzen are clearly brilliant in their acting. Vorster tends to underplay, whilst van Pletzen is a wonderfully gifted comedic actor whose physical comedy skills are best seen in his stage work.

Van Pletzen never breaks character as the geriatric Oubass. Probably responsible for the best dramatic moments in the series is Wilna Snyman playing matriarch Madel Terreblanche. Snyman has remarkable dramatic timing and control. Vinette Ebrahim is another wonderful talent and provides leadership to the young er actors working with her. The recurring guest star Terrence Bridgett would be a star in any country. Only 7delaan could manage to have the outrageously camp character Jerome establish his "boudoir" under the kitchen table in church elder's Oubass apartment.

The old and new South Africa in a head on crash. Also worth applauding is the director Henry Mylne, known for keeping his actors moving. Good television yvonne-e 1 February Even children can watch it without "learning". It is also based on ordinary people, and ordinary days.