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Trevor Noah at Comedy Central

Tafadzwa Zimoyo : Silver screen

Happy Tuesday as always. Work for a cause, not for applause. Live life to express not to impress. Don’t strive to make your presence noticed, just make your absence felt. The above adage reminds me of the assertion that if you know you cause in life definitely you will make a difference. I remember my uncle telling me that, “may you always do what you are afraid to do . . . ”So last week I was both persecuted and praised for my article on ‘Zim Greatest Talent (ZGT) should be creative’ and ‘Empire Season 2 ends’.

Television criticism is about the evaluation of content, its context, organisation, story and characterization, style, genre and audience desire.

At first some said I was too harsh in the ZGT piece while in the Empire side, they said I divulged everything.

I must say that is part and parcel of the job, to criticize what I have seen not heard because this is much ado with television.

If I were the team from ZGT, I wouldn’t take offence but pick some lines to work with because no negative criticism can destroy an empire unless it is fabricated.

Secondly some said I did a good job because a lot needs to be dealt with and producers and filmmakers should plan first before shooting to avoid taking viewers for granted.

One thing, however, that puzzled me is the fact that not many people understand what is criticism or a column.

When it comes to television critics they play a central role in the interpretation of cultural forms, objects, and productions.

In contrast to critics in elite art worlds, the role and status of television critics are less institutionalized and less well understood.

According to research gate, “One indicator of the degree and status of the institutionalization of critics’ roles is the codification of evaluative criteria and critical practices. Our research examines whether critics in television draw upon a recognizable set of evaluation criteria, and if so, whether that repertoire of aesthetic concepts increasingly parallels criteria employed by critics in elite art worlds,”

By understanding this, it means that using multidimensional scaling to delineate television criticism over the last two decades, a period of considerable transformation in the industry; we find that television criticism attends to a core set of conventional criteria.

I later asked myself that what is the advantage of knowing how to perform television criticism if you are not going to be a professional television critic?

I also spend some time on television so that I also don’t give readers unfair judgment but act as a solution too.

Feedback is necessary in any production.

The advantage to you as a television viewer is that you will not only be able to make informed judgment about the television programmes you watch, but also you will better understand your reaction and the reactions of others who share the experience of watching.

Critical acuity enables you to move from casual enjoyment of a television programme to a fuller and richer understanding.

Back to the silver screen, a lot is happening in the television world and this time I am not blaming the producers, actors or directors but I am shifting to the cooperate world.

Why not support local productions?

A visit to Theatre in the Park has revealed a lot of plays but why not transform them and we screen it.

The main hindrance is financial constrain.

Look how Nigerians and South Africans support each other when it comes to art, yet alone we later complain they are stealing our shine.

For how long we will continue acting in our living room yet the world wants to see us.

Comedy plays an important life to many but we seem to be lacking that on ZBC TV.

We have big names of comedians who do stand up shows but why not having them on national television.

Who is to blame?

It is true that television networks, for all their solemn talking heads, emphasize comedy.

Laughter machines spice up bland, tasteless situations.

Funny movies outsell all others.

Check how our neighbors are making it with comic, yet we have dramas, soapies, still far on series and action movies but comedies are here.

Why can’t they be given space on national television?

We can applaud DSTV, as they have Comedy Central which is an American basic cable and satellite television channel owned by Viacom Music and Entertainment Group, a unit of the Viacom Media Networks division of Viacom.

Our plea is that in your Comedy Central please accommodate us Zimbabweans too as we have a great talent