In the days of my youth, I used to work with young artistic youth in Bulawayo. I had this dream of having a talent agency of a new excellent standard. The ideas were there and the people were there but practical menial labourers were not. Anyway, that project got overtaken by other initiatives that grabbed my attention. But, during my time at Khura Arts, I realised the strangest thing. Girls could do modelling in still pictures but doing videos was unheard of. Not only music videos but adverts, skits, basically anything moving picture they weren’t for that even for decent pay.
The struggle has always been trying to get promoters to make use of local girls for their event posters. The trouble with this is, when you look at the girls that are downloaded from Google they are always looking like they are in the final stages of getting ready to take a bath. This has become the unwritten standard that naked girls are crowd pullers. I don’t understand the reasoning behind this, asii uncles think the girl on the poster will be at the event? Or is the naked girl a luring focal point that arouses interest…amongst other things?
Pulane’s features featuring in L-Tido’s video
From this perspective I completely understand why girls won’t jump at this opportunity well except Cyclone Ree (Bulawayo’s first topless DJ.) But how about starring in music videos. You don’t have to be naked in all of them. For example @Pulane248 featured in L-Tido’s Dlala ka Yona music video Twitter people have renamed the song Pulane feat L-Tido. She went from zero to hundred overnight. For a follow up she had nudes on the timeline cause the first act was so tough to beat.
The term ‘video vixen’ has a stigma attached to it now. The first thing I think of is Amber Rose and that’s a good example of a bad one. What people don’t realise is that being a video model isn’t that bad. @MboMahocs was in @IAmCal_Vin’s video and it’s awesome. She can look back at it one day and not have a single regret. If we were in a different country she could even negotiate for royalties for everytime that music video gets played. My advice is, don’t turn down the opportunity before you’ve even heard it. Negotiate your terms beforehand. Let them know what you can and cannot do.
