Rewriting the stories that shape us

Where Hollywood prescribes rescue, imbali offers rooting

- BUSISIWE MADIKIZELA-THEU

THIS Heritage Month, I find myself reflecting not only on the traditions we celebrate, but also on the stories we inherit, the narratives that shape how we see ourselves, how we love, and how we belong. I write this as a former Tran-skei-an homeland girl who was swept into the rainbow euphoria of the 1990s.

We celebrated wide-eyed, believing that democracy meant belonging. But that very euphoria, real and intoxicating as it was also carried a cost. It almost entirely whitewashed my identity, my history, and my heritage.

Back then, caught up in the rainbow moment, I consumed glossy love stories from Hollywood. I watched films like Pretty Woman and believed them. What I did not read then were African stories, the textured, resistant narratives of Chinua Achebe, Ngiigi wa Thiongo, our own African voices whose work could have anchored me in dignity and rootedness. Instead, I was trained to aspire to romance, rescue, and assimilation. That imbalance shaped my imagination, my expectations, and my sense of self.

Take Pretty Woman. For decades it was sold as a fairy tale. A wealthy businessman “rescues” a sex worker, lifting her into luxury and eventually into his heart. To a rainbow nation child like me, it glittered as hope. But beneath the sparkle, it is a story of power masquerading as love.

There are moments that still knot my stomach. Edward telling Vivian to “stop fidgeting”; disciplining her nervousness instead of respecting her discomfort. Exposing her at the polo match as a sex worker to humiliate her for daring to speak to another man. Pressing for a kiss even after she had set that as her one boundary. And most disturbing, his lawyer Phillip Stuckey attempting to assault her, stopped only when Edward intervenes. That scene is framed as tension, but it reveals what the story really thinks of Vivian's dignity: it is conditional, always at risk.

These are not moments of love. They are moments of domination.