so my good friend megan – who i used to watch bad movies with (not bad as in naughty, but we used to on occasion find something that would more than likely be awful and watch it and usually have one or two classic lines that would be private joke humour and that i would occasionally sneak into a sermon in church so megan would just break into raucous laughter and everyone would think she was a crazy lady – ah good times) samessed me the other day to say let’s go watch the latest Leon Shuster movie ‘Shucks Shabalala’s Guide to um something something safety South Africa something’

now just to set the context i used to really love LS movies back in the day but ever since he started combining genuinely pranking people with a scripted movie it has never worked for me and movies like Mr Bones and so on have been incredibly painful (when he was just doing candid camera type movies they rocked but the combo always has you wondering how much is scripted) so i was not super amped but i hadn’t seen the trailer so i didn’t know quite how bad it should be expected to be being so i said yes (cos hanging with megs is always good for a laugh or laughs of the plural variety)

and so we saw it and the candid camera stuff was absolutely flippin brilliant and you should really go and see it. and the scripted stuff was absolutely painfully awfully bad and was like someone rubbing a cheese grater against a black board (if that is worse than just nails – it seems like it should be worse). It was just horrible… but fortunately the candid camera stuff (which included taking on Helen Zille, Alan Boesak and Rob van Vuuren) was top top class. getting people in to apply make-up to a dead person who turned out not to be quite so dead… just go see the movie and go pee during the two songs.

but the one part of the movie that was really horrible to watch was the intense racism. the candid camera stuff where people get scared (giant snakes, ‘dead’ bodies, out of control wheelchair-bikes, traffic cops) was fantastic. but then Shuster got dressed up in his trademark black or Indian person disguises and some of it brought out some intense racism in people. then at the end he reveals it’s him and the person laughs and they hug and it’s all good and fun and whatever… but i’m sitting there thinking ‘dood’ (in my best dj Fresh impression) – you just showed to the whole of south africa and maybe the world (cos somehow in SA this movie is going to do better than Avatar, Alice in Wonderland and Sherlock Holmes combined – ai!) what a complete and utter racist you are and a smile and hug at the end (with a guy who is not actually black) doesn’t change the fact of who you showed yourself to be

yeah it was really sad actually and i am embarrassed that people like that still exist in that way and wonder if someone could actually give them the opportunity to leave…

“it’s my way! there is no highway option” – Vin Diesl in The Pacifier