Abstract
This article examines the presentation of mediated reconciliation on the South African reality television show Forgive and Forget (e.tv, 2007–2012). The show features a representation of Black South African masculinity that is located in the domestic realm and associated with care and emotion. This differs from the prominent figuring of Black masculinity in terms of the gangster trope in South African media. The national discourse on reconciliation and nation-building associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission foregrounds certain political figures as fathers to the nation. On Forgive and Forget, this narrative is relocated in the domestic sphere with regard to representations of fathers and their children. While on its surface the programme retells a familiar narrative of national reconciliation through family stories, there is an evident tension between a somewhat contrived reconciliation and the many contextual, economic and social complexities of each forgiveness story. These tensions themselves provide a productive space for reflecting on reconciliation through the lens of the family.
Trawling through local broadcast channels on a regular night of home-viewing, I happened upon the South African reality series Forgive and Forget (e.tv, 2007–2012) in the middle of an emotionally excessive scene. Sydney, an elderly man, watches a videotape of his estranged stepson Sthembiso, who begs him for forgiveness for lashing out at Sydney and stealing from him (Season 1, Episode 15). A split frame shows the viewer both Sthembiso’s apology and Sydney’s face as he responds to the words spoken. The unrelenting camera captures the involuntary quivers of emotion registered on the father’s face and the wetness of tears rolling down his cheeks. At once overcome by emotions and visibly ashamed of his on-camera outburst, Sydney puts his head into his hands. This is a typical moment of emotional breakdown on Forgive and Forget, a show which works to elicit such pained emotional confrontations and admissions of guilt on a weekly basis. The split screen and the use of a filmed apology showcase the role of the show itself in mediating the exchange between Sthembiso and Sydney.
Emotional outbursts and tears are, of course, not uncommon on reality television. However, this moment struck me for the way it marks a convergence between reality television values of immediacy, emotional exposure and mediated truth with the discourses of reconciliation and forgiveness associated with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings. The TRC was a nationally resonant mode of figuring self-revelation amid a public arena characterised by tears and emotional excess. At the same time, where representations of South African Black men have typically been discussed through the highly pervasive trope of the gangster (Haupt, 2008; Marx, 2010; Stadler, 2008), this moment also offers a strikingly emotive counter-example to dominant models of black masculinity by figuring a Black South African man as a caring figure. It is worth noting that Forgive and Forget strongly features women, but this article will focus specifically on the intersection between Black masculinity and the domestic sphere as it is presented on South African reality television.
Globally, reality television has been associated with ‘confessional culture’ in which ‘the key attraction is the revelation of “true” emotions’ (Aslama and Pantti, 2006: 168). The combination of reality television’s emotionalism and exposure of the subject with the national resonance of televised confession and reconciliation in South Africa enabled by the TRC creates an alternative space for representing Black masculine identity in relation to domesticity and care. This article will consider the way in which fatherhood is mobilised on this South African reality television show as a trope for national discourses around reconciliation and nation-building. The article will also consider how the participants featured on this show negotiate the tensions and elisions of context emerging from a discourse of televisually mediated forgiveness. While South African filmic content is dominated by representations of Black men as gangster figures, theorists have been slow to consider the television texts in which we see more representations of men as carers and fathers, possibly because these texts are aimed at a local audience, positioned as low-brow and generally targeted at women in low-income domestic environments. An exhaustive study of fatherhood and care on South African television is beyond the scope of this article. Rather, I hope to add to this discussion through a focus on just one undertheorised space of representation for Black masculinity, the South African reality television show.
South African broadcasting, e.tv and ‘emo-tainment’
South African audiences have access to a range of reality fare, consisting largely of international shows and local reworkings of global franchises such as Big Brother South Africa (M-Net, 2001–2002) and, more recently, Big Brother Mzansi (Mzansi Magic, 2014–present) and Survivor South Africa (M-Net, 2006– present). Forgive and Forget is an example of a more locally specific manifestation of reality programming. The show is broadcast on e.tv, a free-to-air channel, and is directly targeted towards the interests of a local, low-income and primarily Black audience. The channel is accessible to approximately 10.7 million South African households (IOL News – SAPA, 2012). E.tv emerged as a fourth South African channel in 1998 – 4 years after South Africa’s first democratic elections. Following South Africa’s transition to democracy, local television, particularly the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), had a distinct ‘nation-building’ and integrating role (Barnett, 1999; Ives, 2007; Orgeret, 2008). As Barnett (1999) writes,
In South Africa understandings of democracy have been tied closely to the rhetoric of nation-building. The role of the mass media since 1994 in the democratisation process has been seen primarily in symbolic terms, as disseminating appropriate representations of national togetherness which adequately reflect South Africa’s cultural diversity. (p. 287)
E.tv, as a commercial channel, is less bound to this ‘nation-building’ mandate than the SABC. The channel screens commercial television from the United States such as WWE wrestling formats and tabloid-style programmes like Totally Outrageous Behaviour Caught on Tape (Fox, 2003–2005). However, South African broadcasting regulations still require commercial channels to meet certain public service targets. E.tv is tasked with ‘ensuring diversity of culture and language; as well as reflecting South African society’ in its programmes (Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA), 2007: 25). E.tv must offer 19 hours a week of public service–oriented ‘information programming’ (ICASA, 2010: 7). This content should consist of ‘social documentary, informal knowledge-building and regular current affairs’ (ICASA, 2007: 26).
Emerging from this dual attachment to commercial imperatives and public service is a type of programming that e.tv producers describe as ‘emo-tainment’ (Griffiths and Ryall, 2008: 43). This word is used to designate reality shows with a responsible social message. As explained in e.tv’s 10-year anniversary retrospective,
Ever eager to connect with their audience, management identified a need to produce weekly television shows that touched people and showed how e.tv could make a real difference for those in need. (Griffiths and Ryall, 2008: 43)
Emo-tainment fits within the ‘informal knowledge-building’ aspects of e.tv’s mandate to inform as well as offer indigenous language programming with a focus on South African society. At the same time, using the formula of reality television, these programmes maintain a degree of commercial appeal.
Forgive and Forget invites the South African public to write letters asking the show to facilitate a reunion with estranged loved ones. The show draws from the formula of another South African show, Khumbul’ekhaya (Remember home), which began broadcasting on SABC 1 in 2006. In this show, the public is also invited to write letters to the producers, and the show works to find missing relatives and resolve feuds. Both programmes combine political discourses of forgiveness with reality television’s interventionist approach to filmed ‘reality’, but Forgive and Forget is particularly aligned with reality television values because of the constructed and formulaic way in which it intervenes in participants’ lives. While early reality television featured emergency content and docusoap ‘fly-on-the-wall’ material, a current shift in the format has meant that most reality television features ‘the observation of contrived situations’ (Mast, 2009: 231).
In a typical episode of Forgive and Forget, the programme producers help the person seeking forgiveness to record a video apology to the loved one they have wronged. The ‘forgiveness van’ then pulls up at the home of the person from whom forgiveness is sought. This person is shepherded inside the van with the host and briefly counselled before the filmed apology is screened for them. Meanwhile, the wrongdoer stands outside the van waiting to meet their estranged loved one. If the wronged person decides to forgive their loved one, they open the door of the van and confront them. If they decide not to forgive, then the van drives off, leaving the offending party alone on the side of the road. This does happen in one or two episodes (e.g. Season 1, Episode 13, in which a woman refuses to reconcile with her controlling ex-boyfriend), but the show largely concludes with forgiveness and reconciliation.
As an ‘emo-tainment’ programme, Forgive and Forget features reality television values such as access, emotional exposure and intimacy, but this is paired with a community service message. Unlike most global reality television, South African ‘emo-tainment’ features low-income families in unglamorous local settings. The action takes place either in the ‘forgiveness van’ or in the domestic environments inhabited by the participants. Whereas in much Western reality television the makeover or transformation comes in the form of beauty regimens, goods acquisition and sometimes plastic surgery, in the context of these South African programmes the transformation inherent to the makeover comes in the form of social improvement and community-building. Finally, Forgive and Forget ties itself quite explicitly to relevant national political discourses in South Africa, unlike international makeover formats which, although arguably underpinned by discourses around nationhood, are not directly political in their content.
Narratives of reconciliation
E.tv is unabashed about announcing the similarities between Forgive and Forget and the TRC hearings, describing the show as ‘a weekly truth and reconciliation commission at community level’ (Griffiths and Ryall, 2008: 43). The TRC hearings were extensively broadcast after South Africa’s transition to democracy. While few South Africans watched the TRC live, the material was recorded and compiled into a documentary special edition, Truth Commission: Special Report (SABC 1996–1998). This report was screened weekly and covered 2 years of the commission’s 5-year run. For many South Africans, post-apartheid negotiations with guilt, loss, trauma and memory were mediated through these televised emotional displays of people narrating their suffering on television.
Forgive and Forget wholeheartedly adopts the notion of facilitated and filmed reconciliation, but abandons the specific context and political framing of the TRC in favour of a focus on the emotions of forgiveness and reconciliation in the private and personal sphere. In Forgive and Forget, the concept of ‘truth’ in the acronym TRC is translated into the drive for ‘reality’ or authenticity typical of reality television, and the process of mediated ‘truth’ is reflected in the probing questions of the host. Furthermore, in Forgive and Forget, the TRC’s concern with nation-building is brought to bear in the sphere of the family. Thabisani Ndlovu (2013) groups Forgive and Forget alongside Khumbul’ekhaya and the talk show Relate (SABC1), arguing that all three of these shows ‘offer “the nation” or “Mzansi” a chance to re-examine itself through the prism of the family or the intimate’ (p. 380). As Ndlovu (2013) explains,
The use of televisual space to repair private hurts through public means was not popularised by talk shows in South Africa. Instead it was through the extensive media coverage, especially television, of the TRC that the ‘disclosure of traumatic family histories’ (Bystrom, 2010: 139) happened at an unprecedented scale. (p. 384)
In a cross-comparative study of transitional democracy in Argentina and South Africa, Kerry Bystrom (2010) notes the centrality of family structures in shaping ‘emerging democratic public spheres’ (p. 143). She calls this entanglement of public and private in emerging democracies ‘the public private sphere’ (Bystrom, 2010: 139). In these newly established democracies, family structures – and particularly the reconstruction of family histories and genealogies – operate as broader metaphors for the nation. Fictions emerging in this context present ‘the act of piecing the family story together as a way to construct a “new” democratic public, envisioned at once as the “new” national community’ (Bystrom, 2010: 143).
In the case of Forgive and Forget, pre-existing political narratives of healing through reconciliation and forgiveness, as the cornerstone of ‘nation-building’, are co-opted into a reality television formula for mediated forgiveness. Forgive and Forget reproduces a national political discourse around the TRC but stages it in the domestic, arguably depoliticised (or at least not overtly political) and emotionally excessive space of reality television.
Fathering the nation
In the intersection between the political arena and this domestic, family space, narratives of children and parenting become one way of telling the story of a new nation. South Africa’s most resonant father figure is quite obviously Nelson Mandela. Indeed, Mandela is often referred to by the word ‘tata’ – the isiXhosa word for father. Graham Lindegger (2006) suggests that we might understand Mandela as fulfilling the role of an ‘archetypal father’ for the South African nation, ‘facilitating the transitional development of a new nation-child’ (p. 126). Another important national ‘father figure’ is Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who was responsible for heading the TRC. Tutu famously broke down and cried on the second day of the TRC hearings. The Sunday Times Heritage Project (2006) describes Tutu’s role on that famous second day thus: ‘The humanity and compassion with which Tutu led the TRC are nowhere more evident than in the patient emotional investment and engagement he brought to the proceedings’ (par. 1). In the examples set by both Mandela and Tutu, rather than in a hardened masculinity, we find that reconciliation, emotionalism and care are combined in a version of paternal care.
Absent, missing or murdered fathers, husbands and sons were a particularly important focus of the mourning represented in the TRC special report. The first episode of the TRC report, which featured the famous testimony of the widows of the Pebco Three and Cradock Four, offers a good example of this. ‘The Pebco Three’ were activists within Port Elizabeth Black Civic Organisation (PEBCO), a secret arm of the African National Congress (ANC) who were abducted and later tortured and murdered by the South African Security Police in 1985. The Cradock Four were also activists later named after the town of Cradock where they were intercepted by the South African security police. Their burned remains were later found in the wreckage of the car they were travelling in. This episode of the TRC hearings featured harrowing footage of their families’ and widows’ accounts of pain and responses to the perpetrators. In the forum of the TRC, masculinity was understood in relation to sacrifice, dignity and the fathering of a future nation. These ideas, however problematic in terms of the heteronormative configuring of nationhood around fathering and reproduction, are still resonant in the South African imaginary.
The models of fatherhood offered in this political arena resonate with more traditional notions of the African father as patriarch. Desmond Lesejane (2006) explains that in southern African tradition, the father figure has historically been a highly respected figure who is seen as active in his children’s lives and also a community leader (p. 173). This figure is ‘somebody who cares for, nurtures, leads, guides and is a role model in the family and community’ (p. 179). This model of benign patriarchy, in which fatherhood and community responsibility are aligned, emerges frequently in discussions of fatherhood in Forgive and Forget.
Since the pre-colonial times, from which this model of fatherhood emerges, sociocultural and political changes have eroded the role and status of the father in relation to the family and broader community (Lesejane, 2006: 173). The apartheid system denied Black men political agency and strictly limited Black people’s access to public spaces and platforms. At the same time, the migrant labour policy which underpinned the capitalist exploitation of Black labour forced young men to leave their families in rural areas and migrate back and forth between major cities and their rural homes. They were allowed to work in the city but not to settle with their families who were forced to remain in rural locations. As Mamphela Ramphele and Linda Richter (2006) point out, ‘The migrant labour system disrupted all aspects of family’ (p. 74). The system meant that working men spent all but 1 month of the year away from home, in urban areas. Mothers were left responsible for childcare and domestic life (Ramphele and Richter, 2006: 74). Men were thus essentially exiled from domestic life and the traditional homestead. The legacy of this system is still very much in place in South Africa. According to Francis Wilson (2006), one of the key issues defining experiences of men’s engagement in the domestic sphere in South Africa ‘is the sense to which poverty in South Africa at the beginning of the 21st century goes hand in hand with a dislocated social structure’ (p. 30). For Lesejane (2006), despite the gender imbalances and possibility of abuse associated with patriarchy, in the context of post-apartheid South Africa, this more traditional image of African fathers as ‘providers and protectors’ has the potential to be ‘restorative’ (p. 173). Lesejane (2006) also sees this kind of benign patriarchy as essential to nation-building in South Africa, describing ‘[t]he challenge of promoting fatherhood’ as ‘a nation-building initiative that seeks to promote men’s involvement in the care and protection of children’ (p. 174). This vision of African fatherhood thus places fathering as a central part of the project of transformation.
Marginal identity and the ‘tsotsi’
The image of Black masculinity defined by Lesejane is rarely upheld by South Africa’s most prominent films and television shows. Rather, a range of theorists have pointed out that the ‘gangster’ or ‘tsotsi’ (South African word for gangster) is the primary figure through which Black men have been represented in South African media (Haupt, 2008; Marx, 2010; Stadler, 2008). This figure defines contemporary Black identity in terms of a dislocation from both public and domestic space. Lesley Marx (2010) explains that the gangster film has historically been the ideal medium to deal with ‘themes of economic iniquity and class stratification and to explore the possibilities of violence both to transform and to destroy’ (p. 261). It is thus not surprising that the gangster would be an ideal trope through which to discuss the disaffection and marginality of Black men resulting from the apartheid legacy.
While the Oscar-winning Tsotsi (Hood, 2005) is arguably the most famous example of the gangster identity in film, it draws ‘from a rich network of cultural products which handle masculinity through the figure of the gangster’ (Haupt, 2008). It is also preceded by other key local gangster films such as Mapantsula (Schmitz, 1988) and Hijack Stories (Schmitz, 2001) while looking forward to more recent films like Jerusalema (Ziman, 2008). On television, the teen character Papa Action, from the gritty township high school drama Yizo Yizo (1999–2004), became a highly resonant representation of Black male youth. Adam Haupt (2008) argues that the tsotsi figure is pervasive for its market appeal and is linked to the broader commodification of violent Black masculinity both in South African and global media. The result of this figure’s popularity is a mediascape which offers ‘limited subject positions for black subjects’ (Haupt, 2008: 378). However, there is a body of less high-profile television texts that present some alternatives to the violent image of Black masculinity. This is perhaps because of the domestic positioning of television as well as the fact that this television is made for South African audiences rather than a global film market. As Jeanne Prinsloo notes, ‘fathers are significantly invisible in most media forms’, but she suggests that representations of fathers are more present in family sitcoms. She adds that ‘[t]his applies equally to those under-researched South African popular soaps such as Generations or Isidingo, and Madame and Eve type sitcoms’ (Prinsloo, 2006: 139). I would add other family-oriented domestic television forms such as talk shows and reality programming to this list of programmes likely to foreground fathers.
The emergence of this version of Black masculinity on television as responsible, caring fatherhood is a largely positive alternative to the tough, violent gangster image we see in South African media. The role of the forgiving father is tied in this format to the broader state-sanctioned discourse of ‘nation-building’. However, the polymorphous quality of reality television is such that despite the overt didacticism of the show’s message, the behaviour of participants and the contradictions and tensions featured on the show come to complicate the discourse of nation-building through which the show is framed.
Reality formats and the reconciliation narrative
Partly because of the pressure placed on the participants in reality television to make personal decisions according to the formula of the show, Forgive and Forget works to resolve family issues in a somewhat superficial and instantaneous way. However, at the same time, a tension often becomes evident between the superficial modes of the reconciliation and healing offered by the mechanisms of reality television and the participants’ expressed desire to find a more lasting way to deal with the complexity of the problems underlying a loved one’s bad behaviour. Forgive and Forget is fraught with many contradictions, inconsistencies and contextual situations, in which the promise of change does not seem authentic or entirely possible.
Misha Kavka’s (2008) discussion of what she terms the ‘queering impulse’ of reality television offers some ways of theorising this tension between the overt discourse of a show and the surprising, excessive and emotional responses of participants (p. xiii). Kavka’s discussion is focussed primarily on tensions around a dominant heteronormative script, but elements of this thinking are applicable to a broader consideration of reality television’s relation to normative discourse. Kavka (2008) argues that despite the normative scripts that structure reality television and due to the unpredictability built into the format, reality programming offers moments of rupture and discomfort which destabilise the dominant discourse (p. xiii). She comments,
The core unpredictability produced by the potent mix of non-actors, heightened situations and especially the lack of a set verbal script generates what I will call reality television’s ability to ‘queer the pitch’ of heteronormativity. (p. 134)
Because of the nation-building focus of the show, the tensions which potentially offer moments of rupture on Forgive and Forget operate less around heteronormative discourse than they do around dominant scripts of nationhood. However, Kavka’s argument about the ‘particularising function’ of reality television and its potential to ‘trouble’ is a useful way of understanding the show.
Forgive and Forget narrates a dominant (though still contested and emerging) script of South African nation-building through the figure of forgiving father. However, because of the ‘particularising’ operations of reality television, we are also shown some of the complexities and difficulties of the forgiveness process as we watch particular fathers grappling with decisions about their children’s ability to change and make meaningful restitution. My case studies will examine how the idea of the father as both a leader and a transformative figure is troubled by the particular lived experience of the fathers on the show who are struggling with the pressures of paternal responsibility and the need to maintain their dignity in relation to a given role in the community.
I will turn now to an analysis of examples from Forgive and Forget. I do so to illustrate how the show offers alternative ways of representing Black masculinity but also to show how the programme reproduces a state-sanctioned discourse of nation-building through the exchange between a caring father and an errant child. At the same time, it offers moments when these scripts appear unable to contain the messy complexity of post-apartheid family life. I have chosen to focus my discussion through two stories of a child apologising to a father.
Paulina and Henry
Forgive and Forget’s host, Mpho Sono, introduces this episode (Season 1, Episode 12) by bringing the words of a political figure to bear upon an emotional issue. Standing in a public park outside the home of the featured family, she says, ‘The great Mahatma Gandhi said that “forgiveness is choosing to love” and when a child has wronged their parents or elders it becomes all the more important to find that forgiveness …’ The mirroring of political and personal is set up from the beginning of the episode as Sono’s statement draws together ideas about parenting with reference to a leader involved in South Africa’s struggle. It might be read as significant that the producers have chosen a female presenter to reframe this political discourse in relation to the home and an attitude of care. It is through the interlocution of women (as the group traditionally associated with the work of care) that the male subjects on the show are encouraged to open up to emotional and caring discussions.
Through an interview set-up in the family home, we learn of Paulina Nonne’s fraught relationship with her father, Henry. Paulina explains that her father became upset with her after she went to stay with her mother without his permission. Paulina’s mother left them when she was young, and for much of Paulina’s childhood, her father raised her. This is one of many Forgive and Forget episodes which deal with fractured family structures, a pervasive feature of post-apartheid family life. In the context of a show that sets itself up within national discourses of reconciliation, these family conflicts resonate with the divided condition of post-apartheid South African nationhood.
Paulina admits to Sono that she has hurt her father a great deal ‘because he’s taken care of me for all these years and I thank him by saying I want to go and live with my mother’ (translated from Sotho). Additionally, Paulina admits to insulting her father in front of other people from the community in a humiliating way. Before he has appeared onscreen, Tata Henry is introduced as a figure of care, standing in for an absent mother. Paulina’s mention of his embarrassment also is a desired role as a figure of respect in the community. This is a far cry from the marginalised, violent placement of the gangster figure as a trope for Black masculinity.
Forgive and Forget helps Paulina record a video of herself cleaning the house and preparing a meal for her father during his lunch break. This footage is accompanied by Sono’s voice-over as she explains Paulina’s actions as a demonstration of her willingness to change. Through the filmed act of contrition, forgiveness is forged on the show, not through a mere apology but through the mediation of that apology. Restitution is figured as something performed by Paulina for both her father and the viewing public at home.
When Henry comes home, there is a surprise meal waiting for him. Hidden camera footage shows Henry gleefully eating the lunch. Overlaid text indicating ‘hidden camera’ and ‘rec’ in red flaunt for the viewer the ‘fly-on-the-wall’ dimensions of reality television realism at the same time as foregrounding the mechanisms of the programme in facilitating this moment.
In the next scene, Sono surprises Henry at his home and ushers him into the ‘forgiveness van’. Here, Henry’s presentation of himself as a responsible and concerned father figure is much in line with the version of African patriarchy described by Lesejane. Sono refers to him respectfully as Tata Henry (father Henry). The camera frames him tightly as she asks him to explain his relationship with his daughter. He responds with hesitation, his face and reluctant gestures betraying a well of feeling that is masked behind the words: ‘Our relationship is not well-balanced’. Henry explains that while in his culture he sees himself as needing to command his daughter’s respect, she does not listen to him. Here, he is able to speak emotionally by contextualising his shame in relation to traditional African models of patriarchy. Whereas, in other media forms, Black masculinity is associated with a toughness that excludes such frank emotional disclosure, here the intimate nature of the host’s questioning requires Henry to frame his experience in emotional terms. The set-up is intimate and the camera is invasively close, further emphasising the revelation of Henry’s inner feelings.
Henry is asked to look at the monitor as Paulina addresses him via a taped recording. As is typical on the show, a split screen allows the viewer to witness both Paulina’s apology and Henry’s response. The taped apology becomes the sign of the veracity of Paulina’s apology – the fact of the statement’s mediation is aligned with truth. That is, because the apology is not made privately but through the mediation of reality television, it operates as a public expression of contrition before a national audience, and it is suggested that the apology is more real or, at least, more binding. Here, reality television’s capacity to merge private and public space operates as a way of making restitution somehow more meaningful – by collapsing the private realm of family with a national viewing public who stand as witnesses. At the same time, Henry’s emotional response to the tape is offered as a form of affective confirmation that reconciliation is in process. There are echoes here of the TRC which was premised on the idea of a televisually mediated and affectively excessive forum for issuing apologies before the nation.
Sono explains the show’s procedure to Henry – either they knock on the window and drive away or she opens the door for him to reunite with Paulina. Henry is deeply concerned by this news. His distress deepens as he realises that he will have to leave Paulina alone on the side of the road if he does not agree to forgive her. Henry explains that this is a difficult decision as this is not just one incident, but that he is experienced and fathered Paulina through years of difficult behaviour. Here, we see a tension emerging between the affective dimensions of Paulina’s apology as potentially eliciting an instantaneous feeling of forgiveness from her father and a more ongoing concern about Paulina’s capacity to change. Indeed, much of his conversation with Sono seems to focus on the ongoing, long-term problems of his parenting of Paulina. He frequently evidences frustration at the show’s somewhat forced and superficial attempts at resolution. As Henry struggles with his decision, scratching his head and squirming at the choice before him, tense music begins to play on the soundtrack, heightening the dramatic tension around Henry’s decision. The moment of forgiveness seems to stand in for the ‘reveal’ typical of the climax for makeover programming – except that what is promised (and potentially threatened at the climactic point) is a heart-warming display of reconciliation instead of spectacular revelation. Finally, they come to the agreement that he will forgive Paulina but ‘on conditions’. We see a shot of Paulina and then the van from the outside as the door slides open. Tata Henry emerges.
Outside Paulina repeats her apology and request for forgiveness. Henry is still hesitant. He sees this moment as an opportunity to father or guide Paulina and, to some extent, resists the ecstatic moment of reconciliation seemingly aimed for by the programmers. The pair is framed in a medium shot, facing each other on either side of the screen – a set-up emphasising the moment of communication. ‘All those things that you have done’, Henry notes, ‘I understand only on the condition that it is not to please me’. Rather, he explains, his concern is about Paulina’s future and he will only forgive her if she takes this seriously and commits to change: ‘It’s all about your life. I’m concerned about your future’. In the context the show’s explicit appeal to sentiments related to the TRC, the discussion of Paulina’s future might be read as mirroring broader anxieties about the future of the nation and places both patriarchal responsibility and reconciliation as essential to future prosperity. Finally, Henry lays down his authority by saying that she must listen to his rules; otherwise, ‘there is no forgiveness’. Paulina agrees and they walk off together. Upbeat music plays and we cut to a slow-motion shot of the two from the front, walking towards the camera and laughing. The slow-motion appears intended to freeze or slow a particularly warm and memorable moment, crystallising it as the summation of the show’s narrative of mediated forgiveness. But there is something uneasy about this moment, as it also seems to reveal the sheer effort of containing the history and the future of this relationship in one moment of reconciliation.
The figure of Tata Henry is an example of Forgive and Forget’s tendency to feature Black South African men in domestic roles and as carers. Henry’s positioning as the forgiving patriarch echoes broader discourses of the TRC in which the emotionalism and care of a patriarch become a restorative vehicle for reconciliation. But Henry’s discussion with Sono indicates a tension between the show’s impulse to produce reconciliation as an end goal and the actual complexities of Paulina and Henry’s relationship over time. As much as the show borrows from and reproduces the discourses of the TRC, it also reflects back upon this historical process, allowing viewers to engage with a domestic and intimate exploration of some of the difficulties of reconciling, forgetting and moving forward which haunt South Africa’s national consciousness.
Solly and Sandi
My second case study is an episode featuring a young man called Solly Umcathi, who has disappointed his father by becoming involved in drugs and theft (Season 1, Episode 9). This episode offers another example of a caring father and, once again, figures a nationally resonant discourse of forgiveness in a story of an errant child and forgiving parent. Solly and Sandi’s story also betrays the stumbling blocks to reality television shows’ mediation of fatherly forgiveness.
Mpho Sono interviews Solly at the construction site where he works and he tells the story of his betrayal of his father: ‘I used to do all kinds of bad things, things that hurt my father and I would ask him for forgiveness but I would go and do it again’ (translated from Zulu). He admits to disappointing his father by hiding stolen goods in the church where his father is pastor. At the end of the interview, Solly tells Sono, ‘I would like you to bring back what I had with my father. That friendliness at home, so people can also see that I have changed’. Here, Solly locates his relationship with his father in the domestic sphere, offering an example of a relationship among Black South African men who are centred in the home. Solly’s wish is both for the return of his father’s affections and for forgiveness from his immediate community along with a nation of viewers. Throughout this story, the figure of the African father as community leader and protector appears clearly in the presentation of Sandi, and the show echoes the TRC’s foregrounding of fatherly forgiveness in relation to the community and nation. But this discourse is transferred into the sphere of family bonds.
The viewer is shown a montage of Solly’s efforts to make amends to his father. Sono’s voice-over explains that Solly has set out to create a contract for his father ‘detailing how he intends to change and make up for what he has done’. A close-up is shown of the contract printed beneath a Forgive and Forget letterhead. Here, the show finds another way to position itself as official mediator in the politics of the family, placing itself as a form of ‘government’ or ‘leadership’, but only in the familial sphere. This is an example of the interventionist elements of reality television converging with ideas about political processes. Once again the video footage of the participant making amends is offered by the show as a form of proof of the veracity of the apology. Solly is filmed working on repairs at his father’s church, and in the next shot, ‘hidden camera footage’ is shown as Solly’s dad arrives at the church, allowing the viewer to witness Sandi’s apparently unrehearsed surprise at the repairs. The surveillance capacities of the show are foregrounded here as a means of capturing Sandi’s emotional response.
Once inside the forgiveness van, Sandi begins questioning Sono about her intentions. Sandi is a commanding character and ‘turns’ the interview on Sono to some extent – albeit in a comical way. He teasingly questions her motives and says to her, ‘You don’t want to tell me what I’m doing here’. His tone is of a stern patriarch, but he is ‘putting on’ the parental act and Sono laughs along with him as he comically interrogates her. This moment demonstrates Sandi’s awareness of his performance of a ‘role’ for the reality television series. It also highlights the degree to which both fatherhood and forgiveness are performed on this show.
After a detailed discussion of Solly’s behaviour and Sandi’s steps to deal with his son, Sono asks Sandi to watch Solly’s taped apology. Once again, we see a split screen featuring both Sandi’s face reacting and Solly reading an apology letter to his father. This time Sandi’s expression is serious rather than amused. Solly shows the camera, and thus his father, the contract he has drawn up and asks his father to sign the contract if he has forgiven him. Video technology is presented here self-consciously as a mediator of both affect and forgiveness.
After a commercial break, we return to the ‘forgiveness van’ and Sono explains to Sandi that he now needs to make a decision. He readily agrees to forgive Solly, but once he gets out of the van it is clear that Sandi is not content with just an apology. He embraces this moment of filmed reconciliation to put his son to work. He tells Solly, pointing towards the film crew, ‘You are embarrassing me in front of the world when you do these things, being a preacher’s child’. Here, Sandi is adopting the idea of televised witnessing as a way of trying to ensure that his son stays true to his statements. Invoking the broader television audience, he states, ‘You did some work here on the church in front of the nation and you were seen here working. Don’t stop. Carry on with it’.
Finally, the show presents an amusing epilogue during the credit sequence as Sandi instructs Solly on all the work he has to do on the building. Solly’s face betrays shock and worry as Sandi lists jobs that need doing. Once Sandi has finished listing his demands, the camera lingers just a little too long on Solly as he looks anxiously around the church and contemplates the consequences of the reconciliation deal he has made.
Sandi is another example of a caring father on Forgive and Forget who is placed as a vehicle for reconciliation. Here, we also see a reframing of the forgiving father of South African political discourse in relation to domestic life. The interventionist mechanisms of the reality show are foregrounded as a means of fostering mediated reconciliation within the family. In this case, there is also a great deal of emphasis on community, perhaps in line with the public service message of the show. Once again this personal story allows for a reflection on what reconciliation entails. It indicates that reconciliation might take place ‘in the moment’ but that the agreements, contracts and negotiations that result from it have consequences. The epilogue sequence seems to suggest a cautionary note that Solly may not be able to handle the results of his negotiated forgiveness.
In the episodes above and in the show more generally, it appears that broader social issues of inequality and fractured family structures are not directly tackled or resolved outside of the personal apologies featured on the show. The ravages of South Africa’s painful past are apparent in the stories, in the evident presence of crime, drugs and economic hardship as well as in tense family relations and the patriarch’s struggles to fill the role of carer and patriarch. But the pain expressed on the show is only ever rectified through the benevolent forgiveness of a loved one. There is a muteness with regard to questions of race and class identity. Almost all the participants are from low-income families, but there is little discussion about class and its intersections with race. Rather, the show foregrounds its own mechanisms in a display of the value of mediated reconciliation and foregrounds an emotional resolution to social issues.
Like Forgive and Forget, in the TRC hearings, an excess of emotional exposure, shame, and honesty are offered as a palliative to the personal wounds inflicted by the apartheid state, although this is not matched with any hope that the material and systemic causes of ongoing suffering can or will be restored. Despite the show’s tendency to contain and resolve issues, Forgive and Forget throws up ruptures and tensions within the reconciliation script. In the moments when a father cannot go through with the mechanisms of the show because he is frozen and unable to make the decision to forgive upon which the ‘reveal’ moment relies (as in Henry’s case), or when another father recognises the role he is expected to perform and ironises it (as we see with Sandi), or when a son, once forgiven, realises that the consequences of reaching a reconciliation deal go beyond what he was expecting (as with Solly), we have an example of reality television’s uncontained and ‘particularising’ tendencies. In the case of Forgive and Forget, the narrative of mediated reconciliation and the ‘fathering’ of the nation is simultaneously reinforced by the narrative of the episode and undermined by the emotional resistance of participants.
Conclusion
The example of Forgive and Forget suggests the presence of a fertile and underexplored area of study when it comes to the format’s role in representing transitional societies. While I hope that this study has made some small inroad into the discussion, there is a need to think more generally about the significance of the ways in which reality television tropes such as revelation, constructed scenarios and the mediation of private emotional turmoil can be adapted to work through discourses circulating in emerging nations and transitional democracies. This case study highlights the importance of articulations of family in reality television for understanding the tensions and anxieties circulating around an emergent nation. By adapting a nationally resonant discourse of reconciliation to the intimacy and domesticity of the reality television format, Forgive and Forget allows the space for an alternative representation of black masculinity in which the father is placed as both a carer and a transformative figure.
However, the idea of ‘forgiving’ and ‘forgetting’ suggests an attempt to contain the complexity of the family histories and social conditions that frame these stories. In the orgy of forgiveness that almost always frames the show, there lingers a haunting set of questions about South African society. While on the surface Forgive and Forget foregrounds a fairly didactic national agenda associated with fatherhood, the future and nation-building, the personal stories themselves are more complex and contradictory than the dominant discourse of nation-building through ‘truth and reconciliation’ allows for. These very tensions mark Forgive and Forget as a productive televisual site where meaning around nationhood and mediated reconciliation is performed and negotiated.
Footnotes
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.