The return of the ‘Trilogy Trauma’

IT MUST have been in late 1985 that my two friends and I decided to have a marathon movie night.

George Lucas’s Return of the Jedi had been released two years earlier, and by the summer of ’85, the movie was finally available on VHS, as were the first two movies of what was then a trilogy.

So we pooled some pocket money and rented the trilogy on tape. Our intention was to watch the movies one after the other, in sequence so that we could experience the entire Star Wars story at one sitting.

We met up at the agreed-upon home at around 10pm that Saturday evening, after the parents and siblings had gone to bed, so that we would not be interrupted, and with sodas in the refrigerator and snacks packed close by we slipped the first tape into the VCR.

Now, A New Hope runs for two hours, so by the time we finished the first movie – a third of the way through our intended marathon – it was midnight. We recharged our glasses with caffeine loaded soda, warmed up some pizza in the microwave oven, and took the necessary bathroom breaks while rewinding the first tape … yes, that was a thing back then.

We started watching The Empire Strikes Back at 00.45 on Sunday morning. However, even before Luke Skywalker managed to trip the AT-AT (All Terrain Armored Transport) Walker by deploying the cable from the back of his snow speeder during the attack on the rebel base on the planet Hoth, one of our friends had fallen asleep.

As it turned out, he had experienced a taxing Saturday and though he wanted to be part of the movie marathon, his batteries just ran out. We left him to sleep and decided to push through regardless. The next day I felt like a zombie. Church was a chore, visiting after church was torture, lunch was torment, and the post-lunch nap – after we had done the dishes – lasted too long.

My friends, no doubt, felt the same.

We were experiencing what today I call “Trilogy Trauma” – staying up too late one night and finding it almost impossible to catch up on the lost sleep for the rest of the week. Not to mention the irritability that goes along with having lost out on decent sleep.

This past week I again struggled with a chronic case of Trilogy Trauma, and I would venture a guess that most of the people in our suburb were similarly afflicted after Sunday’s Heritage Day celebrations at the Diamond Oval turned out to be a bit much for me to bear. The live concert went on till the wee hours of Sunday morning, and it was not pleasant.

ALSO READ: Heritage festival to be held at Diamond Oval

Personally, I have a narrow, very particular music taste, so much so that I will leave a department store if the music they are playing is not according to my liking; the music pounding into my bedroom till almost 4am on Sunday was of that flavour. I am not saying that the music was bad, but I am saying that it’s not music that I would ever listen to.

Also, having performers shouting into a microphone at the top of their lungs, with the volume being boosted by amplifiers through behemoth loudspeakers – remember, this is during the times that people in our neighbourhood usually sleep – was traumatic, to put it mildly!

It should be disturbing to the residents in the area surrounding the Diamond Oval to be reminded that that this was just the first of a minimum of three instalments of the live music extravaganza, after Northern Cape Cricket (NCC) and the Northern Cape Heritage Festival signed a three-year deal that will see at least one sleepless night in September every year until 2025 … with an option to renew.

In a recent online article, the event’s project manager Reverend Dez Fransman was quoted as saying that “the Cricket Diamond Oval is a perfect infrastructure as it matches plans of the Northern Cape Heritage Festival to give revellers a unique experience, something new and fresh never before experienced in the Northern Cape.”

ALSO READ: Cricket meets Culture: NC Cricket teams up with with NC Heritage festival

Well, the residents in Cassandra, and quite a few in Beaconsfield, had a taste of the “unique, new and fresh experience” and, to be perfectly forthright, some of us hated it!

It is understandable that NCC would want to relieve some pressure on their books, making use of the off-season period and an under-utilised stadium to tackle the company’s revenue challenges by concluding deals that will bring in some cash. But to do it at the expense of the residents’ well-being is rather selfish.

Also, according to a recent article Department of Sport, Arts and Culture spokesperson Morapedi Sekhoane said that Heritage Day coincided with the maiden Northern Cape Heritage Festival, also adding that the celebrations would focus on SA’s indigenous music.

I wonder if the performing artists are aware that this is the same group that, according to local author Sabata-mpho Mokae “grossly violated” the Copyright Act when it photocopied his novel and handed it to a book club in Jan Kempdorp recently.

ALSO READ: Dept slammed for photocopying local author’s novel

Sadly, in the end, the concept of Heritage Day has shifted in my mind. What used to be a day where South Africans were supposedly encouraged to celebrate their culture and the diversity of their beliefs and traditions, in the wider context of a nation that belongs to all its people, this past weekend made me realise that – at least at the Diamond Oval this past weekend – it was more a case of personal gratification of a few at the expense of the rest.

To the organisers it didn’t seem to matter that there were people – from babies and toddlers to geriatrics – who wanted to sleep. There were people who were hoping to rest so that they could be up early on Sunday morning, maybe to attend a worship service or leave on a long road trip.

Whatever the scenario, why people wanted to sleep, that did not matter to those who organised, performed at, and attended the Heritage Festival … in fact, the event’s Facebook page is dripping with syrupy praise for the event by those who were there.

And though the criticism levelled at the revelry may seem harsh to those who enjoyed it, a comment by associate professor of psychology at a Johannesburg university, Hugo ka Canham, in a recent article in the Mail & Guardian, screams for attention.

He writes: “As South Africa commemorates heritage, we would do well to go beyond dressing in clothing that draws attention to our cultural heritage. Perhaps we need to draw out and stretch heritage to expand our registers of care for each other. … To imbue each other with value. To rage at all injustice, instead of caring selectively.”