An intense story telling of family values, gangs, crime, drugs and community. Each of the eight episodes are worth every minute of storytelling. Throughout the series you feel every emotion of the 17-year-old Ethan. The story told in his lens mirrors society values, character moral dilemmas, and creative youth. The work of Joachim Landau and Benjamin Hoffman on the Showmax Canal+ series Spinners is a production youth gem and a unique storytelling of the extreme motor sport of spinning. Beyond the exceptional talent of the production team, a bigger debate arises as this series shot in Cape Town uniquely mirrors the diagnosis of South African societies. Throughout this piece the diagnosis is my backdrop, but the bigger debates that arises are that of gangs in society and consciousness of film.
Above all, I approach the subject of gangs with epistemic humility and aware of my limitation in the experience on the subject. However, what I aim to bring to the discussion table is the matter of gazing gangs or perhaps the perspectives in which we normally converse on gangs. Films are shaped perspective of creatives who build them to suggest reality. The consciousness then one can draw from films is the appreciation of suggested reality and how they mirror the status quo of society.
The series has won multiple international awards including the Best Foreign TV Series award at the 29th Shanghai TV Festival’s Magnolia Awards in China. It is also the first African series to be selected for the international CanneSeries festival. It would be interesting to watch a season two of the series, especially how the life of Ethan turns and he’s dark gang history. There is difficulty thou in watching this series. The morality dilemmas of characters like retiring detective Nazeem provoke further societal value questions which lead to a complex web of man history. Throughout the series I sometimes paused to question these dilemmas, and the extreme violence presented in the series; to what extent did it represent reality in South African societies.
Gangs in Society
A prevailing conception of gangs which you find in everyday conversations embeds a negative connotation. In the ordinary, a gang is a group of persons or family members, with a structure of clear leadership and membership, who engage in unlawful activities. This conception seems befitting given what we have seen in Cape Town gang wars, and construction mafias mostly in KwaZulu-Natal. In the series, this conception at glance also seems befitting. However, after interrogating the ambiguities of Ethan’s life and his relationship with his gang soon somehow you feel the insights of being a gang member. You feel what the protection means, you feel what it means as economic support, and you realize the reasons that might build to a decision of joining a gang.
Juxta-positing the prevailing conception of gangs which embeds a negative connotation, I would like to offer a more in-depth conception of gangs. Gangs are more of isolated void persons, who search for the fulfilment of an innate human trait of belonging, and usually economically disadvantaged given their median age and skills. This conception in a South African context has taken two factors to consider. First, what forms a gang and what brings the members together to form the gang? Second, how do we explain the extreme violence perpetrated by gangs in their activities of crime?
Part of the long-lasting effects of colonialism and apartheid in SA is that it disfigured many families particularly by removing the male figure to be a mine exploited worker. In extreme cases, families were further disfigured by also taking away the female figure to serve the white establishments. This sunk mostly black families and created a hostile environment for the cognitive development of black children. Their experience growing up is bearing neglect from the mother and father, and from the system at large. The sense of belonging therefore in many black youths is void and search for it usually lands them in friends and gangs. Being part of a gang which somehow goes to equate to the people you would call family fulfils the human void trait of belonging.
The economic exclusion experienced by gangs in America and SA are the most easily explained as they relate to a deeper subject of racism, slavery, and economic exploitation. However, the sense I employed here to explain the reactive behaviour of exclusion is that of the 1939 Frustration-aggression theory. Frustration builds when a goal is being blocked and this often leads to an aggressive behaviour. Post the formation of a gang where a sense of belonging is fulfilled, questions of survival arise for members. Beyond the statistics, it is young people who find themselves in gangs. This makes sense as this is usually the economically deprived black youth from disfigured families, who in the wider spectrum, are also offered limited opportunities to economically progress. The aggressive behaviour explains the extreme violence sometimes depicting the severeness of exclusion. Moreover, the extreme violence perpetrated can find roots on the generationally shared traumatic experiences of black people in SA.
Spinners reveals the void feeling of belonging and the neglect through Ethan. The elements of poverty, economic vulnerability, and settlement are evident in the series, and they are all an appreciation of the harsh reality and present tense brought about history. The wider portray of gangs in society in the series is the crux of matter in shaping and branding a new conception of gangs in the viewer’s mind.
Consciousness of film
In its simplest form, I believe film or images are expressions of thoughts and beliefs which are documented and shared. These expressions of thoughts and beliefs are made up or find grounds on the education provided by society. Therefore, an interaction with film is basically an interaction with someone’s belief or thought. To some extent also, film can serve as medium of communication to raise awareness about society values and difficulties.
Spinners while telling a creative story of spinning cars and gangs, it goes further to mirror the diagnosis of societies in SA. This I find to be the valuable gem of the production which mimic the legacies of country’s past and how strongly are they being felt by society. Using spinners as a point if departure, you can interrogate the intricate difficulties in general conceptions of gangs in society and transformation policy failures. The series is not very far from reality and this is the power of consciousness brought forward by film.
Bringing it all in, film possess power. Power for discourse and interrogation. It can shape how we see and think towards a subject. Spinners interrogates the conception of gangs, and how far has transformation failed or progressed. The safe assertion therefore is that Spinners is a work of art both as entertainment and film discourse.
–MediaHouse150
Very brilliant piece, got me interested in watching what this series is about and love the way you broke it down in detail to give us a deeper insight of what’s happening.