I came across the Nickleodeon AFRICA website and well…I just wasn’t happy with what I saw. I looked at their character/show list for the continent. There wasn’t one bit of African representation in the shows. Not one! I knew things were bad but not this bad! When I saw this I went to Cartoon Network Africa to see if they were any different but unfortunately not. The networks aren’t even the problem in my opinion. It’s wider and more complex. All the stakeholders in this are all responsible to a degree in my opinion. That’s we the viewers, broadcasting networks, content producers, series commissioners and the list goes on. What do you think?
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Adamu:
It is a shame. But think of it, why do we as Africans expect other people to have our interest at heart? We need to wake up.
Agreed. I’ve never worked out why on a national level as Africans we get lazy and expect other people/countries to do things for us without getting our houses in order. But on an individual level we can be the hardest working, smartest , entrepreneurial, proudest people on the planet.
Hey. I think they’re just planting seeds. Take it as a sign that they are beginning to see Africa as a market and not trying to create African animation. It would take them too much money (with no short term guarantee of return) to set up shop and be the ones driving the content creation process.
I pretty much agree with your viewpoint.
I think you are absolutely right. It’s up to us, the artists to create content that will fix this problem, and represent the people. But it is also up to the networks, and the people to support us in doing so.
To that end what do you think of a Bino and Fino children’s book or comic book? I am well skilled in the production of both if you are interested.
Thanks for stopping by. Where are you based? I took a quick look at your blog. Really good work. We intend to do a book and comic in the future. We were going to do it in house though.
Thank you for the compliment. I’m currently based in the united states. I’m open to relocation for the right job though. Is there an e-mail address where I can contact you to talk further on the matter? You can reach me at ianclementjr@gmail.com