UCT's Official Student Newspaper

Real(?)ity TV

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:15

Written by Tanya Wagner

The tribe has spoken, so please pack your knives and go, as you have been eliminated from the race.  Auf Wiedersehen.
Chances are you know at least one of these, right? Love it or hate it, reality television is here, and hopefully to stay. May there be more years of watching people put themselves out there for love, adventure, weight loss or the career of their dreams. It has nothing to do with money or fame, of course.

Facebook: Welcome to Google+

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:13

Written by Stephanie Venter

I like Facebook. Having never really known Myspace (who wants to pick their own background ,really?), I’ve always been quite content with Facebook.

Pill Poppin'

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:11

Written by Tiffany Mugo

“Baby, are you on the pill?”

In Your Honest Opinion

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:11

Written by Berndt Hannweg

“Too often we enjoy the comfort of opinion without the comfort of thought,” said John F. Kennedy, and, as the winner of the biggest popularity contest in the free world, he would know.

Electric Free Speech: For and Against

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Published on Wednesday, 12 October 2011 10:10

Written by Caterina Aldera & Nyasha Kandadara

Government and employers should be allowed to regulate what we sayon social media.

Real or TV?

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Published on Monday, 10 October 2011 13:23

Written by Tanya Wagner

The tribe has spoken, so please pack your knives and go, as you have been eliminated from the race.  Auf Wiedersehen.

Chances are you know at least one of these, right? Love it or hate it, reality television is here, and hopefully to stay. May there be more years of watching people put themselves out there for love, adventure, weight loss or the career of their dreams. It has nothing to do with money or fame, of course.
Now, as big a fan as I am, I am willing to admit that there is a major cheese factor involved. Firstly, we are being conned by the name alone.  There is nothing real about being stranded Crusoe-style on an island replete with camera crew and host with dimples up to his ears. Keeping up with the Kardashians couldn’t be more contrived.  

The tag lines are mocked in everything from movies and TV shows, to stand up comedy and cartoons. “You’ll still have your wedding, it just won’t be perfect.” Come on, are you kidding me?  That’s just begging to be mocked.  

There are occasions where it’s too embarrassing to even mention. It’s okay to admit you watch the usual Emmy-nominated stuff like Survivor, Project Runway or the Amazing Race, but talk about The Bachelor, Bridalplasty or The Biggest Loser and it’s... Actually, I don’t think you do talk about it!
Instead, you just sit there quietly and eat a huge helping of your favourite snack while watching the ladies in their tights and tank tops nervously approach the scale to determine their fate.

And this could be the very reason we love it. Or love to hate it. I think that the allure of reality TV is simple: we want to see what happens next, and whether we were right about
the outcome.  

Will the Top Chef season two contestant, Otto, get disqualified for not paying for the ingredient at the store?  Will Coach be able to make it through the entire season 18 of Survivor and not tell one single lie?  Will Trista be second time lucky on The Bachelorette season one?  

That sense of anticipation never really ceases and has us coming back for more.  

Watching reality TV gets a lot of flak, and is accused of dumbing down our generation.  You know the drill: “So you know when Kim Kardashian’s wedding is, but what do you know about the Secrecy Bill?”  
I don’t believe that we are really the first generation to obsess over trivialities rather than serious issues. Did the youth in the 1950s pay more attention to the implications of Fidel Castro coming to power in Cuba than to Elvis?  Methinks not.

There will always to be trivial, mindless, yet fun distractions on life.  However, I am a firm believer that you can have it both ways.  You can know that Kim K wore three wedding dresses, all which were beautiful/ugly/classy/tacky (take your pick), and know the purpose and importance of Cop17.

Radio Babel

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Published on Monday, 10 October 2011 13:21

Written by Aimee Dyamond

It’s nearly 1am. While most have retired from the nine-to-five rat race, the graveyard shift is very much alive. As security guards keep watch in surveillance rooms, their eyelids grow heavier.  It’s nearly time for the hourly news update with Mark Esterhuysen on Talk Radio 702.

In the small hours of Tuesday, September 27, the Eyewitness News anchor gave insomniacs and night-shift workers far more than they had bargained for. The station’s regular bulletin was quickly upstaged when Esterhuysenlaunched a tirade condemning capitalism and Julius Malema.

And no, none of this was in the script. Mark Esterhuysen has no use for politically-correct monologues. He writes what he likes. Esterhuysen’s rant contained a baker’s dozen of “f-words” – that’s 13 of them in just 41 seconds, one for every human failure in the last century or so. Fascism, the State, ecocide – Mark Esterhuysen has a choice word for them all. 

EWN hastened to apologize for the incident, buttoning up its reputation with some dignity and announcing the anchor’s immediate dismissal. Mark may be a disgrace in eyes of media broadcasting, but to his midnight audience (and those who heard about the incident after sun-up) he is nothing short of a hero.

He may also have lost friends over the stunt, but these were probably just the “liberal middle class white folk” he has since decided to unfollow on Twitter. Yes, even acts of anarchy can be hash-tagged these days.

As dawn broke, Mark Esterhuysen was already fast asleep, basking in his sweet, sweet victory. Some hours later, Mark would emerge refreshed and blissfully unemployed. He would even have time to update his Twitter status. Again. And again. For Mark Esterhuysen, anger is truth.

His blog, Looking at the World from a Distance, quotes prominent men of science and political activism. Some believe Mark is a brave man. He’s all about freedom of expression, so it’s not surprising that he used radio to voice his closet radicalism.

But the producers at EWN would have none of that. Editor-in-Chief Katy Katopodis labelled him a publicity-seeker. The controllers at the studio could only stare, agape, until one of them managed to cut short Esterhuysen’s outbursts just as he began to advertise his Twitter feed.

 In truth, Mark Esterhuysen is young. He is angry. And he probably has the right to be. Reciting the news during the graveyard shift for peanut pay would drive any revolutionary nuts. Abandoning all prospect of a coveted prime-time slot, Mark succumbed to his anarchist tendencies. For once, the newsreader had his say.

Maybe he’s just an arrogant punk or an AM frequency terrorist of the witching hour. But in a country where racial slur takes the form of a championing musical, why should other public forms of expression be suppressed? What Esterhuysen’s rant lacked in rhythm, it made up for in audacity.

 “Life is so much more fun when you’re not a wage slave for a corporation,” he tweeted with a smile. “My regular sleep cycle should be normal again soon.”

Food for thought

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Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 10:44

Written by Michael Williams

In the “Farewell message of 2011 SRC President,” Amanda Ngwenya states that in 2011 the SRC saw to it that residence students received “improved catering services” in addition to “a fairer deal for meal vouchers”. These changes have certainly occurred, but there is little to no evidence to suggest that the SRC played any role in securing them. 

Letter: Support Palestinian September

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Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 09:48

Written by Daniel Mackintosh

In September 2011, the UN Security Council will vote to decide on recognition of a Palestinian State in all of the land occupied in the 1967 war. The immediate result would be that Israel is occupying land belonging to a fellow UN member, opening up legal and moral-political avenues to Palestinians to advance their fight for freedom.

Letter: In response to centrespread “A rainbow nation of education” (13 Sept)

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Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 09:47

Written by Elizabeth Triegaardt Assoc-Prof: UCT School of Dance

I again register my strong objection to the publishing of a picture of two “models” pretending to be ballet dancers in the centrespread of your publication of 13 September. The spread gives the impression that it is portraying the performing arts as taught at UCT, and includes a quote from one of the dancers in our department. The implication is that the “models” are from the UCT School of Dance, and that this is the standard of classical dancer trained in the dept. This is misrepresentation and irresponsible journalism.

Perhaps your photographer could have taken the trouble to visit the Dept and record dancers of which UCT could be proud.

The pursuit of culture(dness)

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Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 09:47

Written by Kevin Minofu

On a cold and uneventful night in Johannesburg,  during my cold and uneventful holiday, I sat down to watch an episode of the BBC’s Who Do You Think You Are? During the episode in which a celebrity had to have “that awkward moment” when someone tells you that your great-grandmother died of syphilis, I decided to do my own share of family tree construction, ideally devoid of any venereal diseases. 

Gareth Cliff in trouble for sexist comment

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Published on Tuesday, 27 September 2011 09:46

Written by Danielle Barnes

5FM DJ Gareth Cliff is notorious for his controversial on-air comments and always makes for interesting conversations and debates, but Cliff’s latest comment, that “22-year-old girls do nothing but lie on their backs with their legs open,” is pushing the boundaries of freedom of speech a little too far.