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‘Yoh safa’ – SA reacts to e.tv showing Anaconda 25 years later
On Thursday, e.tv announced that Anaconda would be Saturday night's big movie after promising to let go of it eight years ago.
1997 film Anaconda | Picture: IMDB
South African television channel e.tv is known for a few things: news, softcore pornography, wrestling and the 1997 classic Anaconda.
While the channel has had to let go of a few of those things, it’s holding on tightly to that last one.
On Thursday, the channel’s Twitter account posted a tweet telling viewers of Saturday night’s big movie which will air in the 8pm slot and it is none other than Anaconda – the 25-year-old film starring Ice Cube, Jennifer Lopez and John Voight. A movie the channel said they would be letting go of eight years ago.
Considering the fact that e.tv’s penchant for showing the film has been a running joke for years, South African Twitter users had a humorous response to the news.
Some social media users joked that they have flash drives that they were willing to “borrow” the channel if they needed new movies to air, while others hinted at the return of the Emmanuel porn movies since e.tv seemed to be in the mood to bring back old things.
ALSO READ: e-TV finally says goodbye to Anaconda
And then there were those who remembered how old they were when e.tv first aired Anaconda – the first in a series of films that revolves around giant man-eating anacondas and the efforts of various groups of people to capture or destroy the creatures.
Even celebrities found themselves annoyed at the announcement and shared their thoughts.
The first Anaconda film follows a documentary crew as they travel through the Amazon jungle. The crew picks up a stranded man, unaware that he has a life-long dream of capturing the giant Anaconda snake, and plans to continue targeting it on their boat.
When the film came out, actress Jennifer Lopez was 28, as was rapper Ice Cube, they will both be 53 this year. Jon Voight was 59 at the time, he is now 83 years old.
Although people tried to make light of the situation with some jokes, many feel as though the situation is indicative of the dire state of South Africa’s entertainment industry relies on airing old American content which is cheaper to license as opposed to funding an entirely new and original local production.
e.tv does have a number of channels airing original, local content, however, this content has not received nearly as much attention as their Anaconda announcement has.
