M-Net's new Wife Swap-type show Culture Shock premiered on Sunday (16 February, 2007 at 17h00) and it lived up to its shocker promises big time.
The composition of the pictures wasn't great, but the show had a tightly-structured narrative and both families expressed themselves honestly - which resulted in it how gobsmacking it was.
The episode featured The Mabizela family from Pimville, Soweto swapping with the Oosthuizen family from Brackendowns, Alberton and within moments of their two family members moving into each other's homes they were beyond
too much to cope with.
They all spent the
entire time stereotyping both each other as well as themselves according to them being black and white, to the extent that nothing else came even close to being important to them.
These nastily judgemental attitudes had an impact on every single thing they said and did right up until their reflections at the very end of the episode.
The kids were fine 'cos of how innocent kids are to *bleep!* in general, but the adults had at least a million horrific issues between them.
Jacques Oosthuizen arrived in Soweto and immediately changed his accent into a mix of Afrikaans and "black" South African, delivered with a condescending tone - which got even more offensive in week two when it was his turn to implement the rules.
Over in Brackendowns Lungi and Nhlanhla Mabizela went on and on about white and black people, comparing them, while Nhlanhla repeated the highly offensive word ka**ir over and over, mimicking what he believed were the attitudes of the white people in the area.
The most shocking thing was a party that Lungi and Nhlanhla went to with Erika Oosthuizen at what seemed to be a local Brackendowns watering hole, where the decor included the old South African flag.
That all the regulars had no problems with.
WTF?! I've always wondered who those people are that carry that abomination to sports matches - and clearly the people at that pub are them.
It was seriously mind-bending stuff seeing all these attitudes being lived out and it's left me stumped. What I want to know is just how representative the two familes are - I refuse to believe that they represent the majority of us.
Is this really what South Africans are like?