Subliminal messages

A friend of mine was relaying yesterday's episode of Generations to me when I suddenly thought to myself "I'm going to be one of those parents who are selective about what they allow their children to watch on TV because if this kind of junk programming still exists by the time I have kids, which it probably still will, I do not want them anywhere near it".

In this episode Grace, a young student living with her father, throws constant tantrums because her divorcee father has found new love. Grace's behaviour borders on absolute insolence and make one wonder whether there actually are children who behave in this manner out there.

Somewhere else in Generations Bridget, who is a conniving piece of work, is poisoning her supposed friend simply because she suspects that her husband is having an affair with this friend. Her husband finds out about her schemes and decides to move into a hotel while he files for divorce. So Bridget decides to take the same poison she fed her friend in order to get her husband's attention.

Then there is Kenneth Mashaba, Grace's rich uncle and the bane of Paul's (Grace's father) existence. He is the villain and uses any opportunity he gets to show himself better than his brother, catering for Grace's every whim. You can sense from his actions and the manner in which he speaks about his brother, that he is trying to win Grace over completely- she just sees a doting uncle who cares for her.

As my friend spoke, I milled over these different scenarios in my mind and thought to myself that the messages which are being relayed in this soapie are not edifying nor good for the building of relationships.

Grace is basically saying to all 20-year olds out there that it is okay to be utterly disrespectful towards your parent/s. It is okay to stand in the way of your divorced parent getting into a new relationship and ruining all their prospects of finding love that lasts. And that it is fair to give parents unfair ultimatums.

Bridget is teaching all married women out there the art of suspicion. The kinds of things she becomes suspicious of about her husband are so inane. Bridget's actions may seem crazy to any viewer but imagine the weaker audiences that actually relate soapies to their lives and surroundings? What kind of damage is this senselessness doing to them?

Kenneth Mashaba is condoning family disunity. His character is evil personified and the fact that Grace is so vulnerable to him while seeing him as her stand-in dad, is worse.

Soapies are a powerful medium drawing thousands of audiences into the junk subliminal messages which they perpetuate. The challenge lies with the audience - do you sit and lap up everything that you are fed through this media or do you take what you need and discard the rest?