Intertextuality and memory in Yizo Yizo
Date
2006-02-02
Authors
Andersson, F. B.
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Abstract
Intertextuality is used to engage with the ‘already said’, which according to
Umberto Eco is the hallmark of postmodernism. African popular culture in 2005 is frequently created through a dialogue between multiple partners. It is heteroglossic in expression, is capable of withstanding multifocal scrutiny and is fluent in the conventions of the form it chooses. It expresses itself by allusion to the ‘already said’ and through inclusion of increasingly sophisticated popular audiences. Intertextuality is generally used as a smart tool to express and comment upon hidden narratives relating to, for example, African identities, class relations, corruption and the taboo: abuse, incest, Aids, archaic traditional law practices as well as the not-so-hidden topics of necropower, global capitalism and so on. This study looks at the various uses of intertextuality, including the way it is used as a mechanism to access political memory, in the South African youth TV drama Yizo Yizo. It is argued that a text must be read in relation to the dynamic and interaction
between the producer of the text, the text and the audiences of the text. To
understand what producers bring to the text, one must understand the universe of the producers. In trying to understand why Yizo Yizo appears to depict “violence”, one needs to understand the experiences and ideologies of the producers in the physical space known as South Africa and reproduced as memory in the chronotope occupied by Yizo Yizo. In analysing the term
“violence”, it becomes clear the word is inadequate if it is used in the singular
only. What is explored here is rather, a hierarchy of violences. Violence is
embedded in the very construct of the rainbow nation and returned as the
political memory of violence in representation. The pecking order of these
violences is identified as political violence, the relations of abuse, sexual
violence, violence silence, dialogic violence, violence towards the self, traumatic violence revisited, lifestyle violence, criminal violence and retributive and restorative violence. Yizo Yizo works with the consequences of the apartheid past in the present and forces one male character after another to take a stand against the continuing violences of their present. Two characters (Papa Action and Chester) become the archetypes of criminal violence. Another two (Thulani and Gunman) answer reactionary and victimising and criminal violence with violence intended to free those it oppresses. But the proof of the pudding is in the audience tasting. We know from Henry Jenkins that fans rewrite texts in ten different ways—by recontextualisation, expanding the series timeline, refocalisation, moral realignment, genre shifting, cross overs, character dislocation, personalisation, emotional intensification and eroticisation. Using comments by fans, focus group results and media reports, the research looks at the way these rewrites take place in relation to Yizo Yizo. Ultimately it is suggested that the producers of this particular text are able to reach their audiences because they are also fans of movie and TV and of African popular culture. Moreover, they share a country in which a multitude of violences are experienced but invisible, hence the need for the development of a language and aesthetic of violence.
Description
PHD Thesis - Arts
Keywords
intertextuality, memory, yizo