[The Media Blog] “Serious Banta” is boring, and that’s the least of its problems

Serious Banta

In the third episode of Serious Banta, the rambunctious, youth-centric talk show from Arcadia TV, the disclosure of body count becomes more than just a contentious topic but also a revealer of the unsurprising sexism and misogyny that its male cast members harbour. The 37-minute long episode is fraught with outdated notions of women and sex, and, it’s quite scary when I think of the fact that these are the same ideas that most men have nurtured their whole lives.

“In Nigeria, it’s a bad thing for a woman to want sex, love sex, and enjoy sex,” says TV host and footwear designer Tajé Prest in her diary session. Tajé makes up the show’s co-hosting bloc and imbues the screen with a burnished, glossy aspect. But when the camera pans back to the full room of rowdy co-hosts, the beauty cracks and turns ugly. I deliberately decided to watch the third episode because of the nature of the topic, in which the show’s opening credits introduces every cast member in ceremonious, pop-arty fashion. Ten of them, five men and five women, thrown into the harsh white glare of studio lights and questionable furniture.

I’m almost certain that Demilade Roberts, Adegboyega Adekoya and Akinola Fatowora sat on a bare bench, and maybe Seyitan Atigarin on a stool? And let’s talk about the sexist Tope Ajileye, who triggers a comic explosion orchestrated by Demilade during the middle of the episode. It’s a funny moment, if I’m honest, because Demilade literally shoves himself to the floor as he laughs hard with the others joining him. On the topic, Demilade’s perspective is refreshingly contrarian, saying lines like “women have been suppressed for generations since the dawn of time” to the camera and rubbishing the obnoxious double standard that favours male sexual behaviour than it does for women.

Fashion designer Papa Omisore tows this line in his opinions. But I can’t remember what was said by Jossie O, Adefolake Otudeko and Debomi Bankole, hence the show’s crowd problem that doesn’t look like it will be dealt anytime soon, considering that production for its debut season has wrapped up and episodes are now released weekly. “Arcadia TV’s new web series Serious Banta starts off addressing the recycled topic of cheating and how women react to it,” writes Taisha Masako for Culture Custodian, “Some ladies agreed but it seemed like a lot of the gents would rather make sure the ladies got evidence of alleged cheating.”

Put bluntly, I was bored with the treatment of the cheating topic. It felt too linear and binary and I was almost tempted to yell why must everything be about men and women? To say Serious Banta also has a nuance problem will be making an exceedingly obvious point, and this acute observation can be extended to other web talk shows like Accelerate TV’s The Wrap Up and Things Men Say on Box TV, the latter grounded in mild, anti-female banter.

Gidi Bants, with a reasonably smaller cast and runtimes that are mercifully short, puts radio microphones as a way of upgrading physical aesthetics, as opposed to the white, bland space Serious Banta uses as backdrop. But Gidi Bants is hollow and unimaginative, and will most likely wither and die on the web, alone and undiscovered. Serious Banta is not good, and it’s boring, but if Demilade can create that kind of spontaneous comic magic on demand, then maybe they should consider taking him out of the show and giving him his own thing.

Watch the Episode 3, here.

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

cool good eh love2 cute confused notgood numb disgusting fail