Jimmy Gait Wept: On Patriarchal Disciplining and the Justification of Sponsorship

In this era of Live Facebooking, spontaneous tweeting and automatic Instagramming, moments of reflection and second thought have become rare. This has made it extremely difficult to go against the tide of social hysteria that often accompanies trending social media news. I believe a momentary pause to reflect on something is invaluable because it allows you to think about an issue with a cool head by avoiding the blinding effect of emotions. The second reason is that by pausing, you give yourself a chance to get a better interpretation of a subject as you come across new information. Now, I’m going to dig-up an issue that, in the fast-moving social media world of tap and share, has become fossilized. Jimmy Gait wept. The cause, a song of his titled Yesu Ndie Sponsor, was deemed crappy. However, this reason is superficial. In the following post, I’m going to show how the weeping was the result of patriarchal disciplining because the artist dared to undermine a long established mutually beneficial social phenomenon known as sponsorship in Kenyan society.

In all honesty, the attack on Jimmy Gait was dubious. A majority of his critics could not tell the difference between a minim and a d, so the criticism was not because of poor harmony or the lack of melodic eloquence and clarity. The issue was something else entirely, and it had nothing to do with Gait’s musicianship. Jimmy Gait has been in the music industry for a long time, and his current woes are not a result of faux pas. Through those years, he had acquired a style that had proven successful up to that particular moment when he released Yesu Ndie Sponsor.  The style and inspiration under which he penned this ‘blasphemous’ song were the same that helped him write some of his most successful ones such as Huratiti and Muhadhara. These three songs are pretty similar in style and theme, but the last two were popular and successful. Why?

In Huratiti, the artist speaks of being in financial troubles, and how God came through for him. The message of the song is God will help you get anything you want be it money, a house, a car, a wife, a husband, etc. In one line Jimmy Gait asserts “Wacha nikukumbushe, unapokosa pesa, Mungu hakosi pesa…”1  Why an omnipotent deity would need money did not stand in the way of the song’s popularity. Huratiti was not considered blasphemous despite its overt materialism, which is unequivocally condemned in the Bible (See Ecclesiastes 5:15, Matthew 6:19-20; 19:21, Luke 12:15, 1 Timothy 6:9, etc.). Muhadhara was also another popular tune by Gait, so popular that we had it in the playlist of our high school percussion band in 2009 for class 940J. We got to the nationals that year. In this song, Jimmy Gait talks of how he narrowly escapes from the snares of a rich MILF BBW. In the chorus, he sings “Tuwachungee, sweeti mamas tondu nima Nomagutirie x2”2 . In essence, this song tackles the same theme as Yesu Ndie Sponsor, except in the case of Muhadhara, the roles are reversed. The former attacks sponsors who are mainly males who prey on broke young girls, while the latter attacks sugar-mummies, who prey on broke young men. However, one was well received while the other was hysterically condemned. Weird!

We live in a patriarchal society, so anything that bruises the male ego is a no-no. For this, we have patriarchal disciplining, which takes many forms, some nuanced, and others extreme. On the nuanced side, we can take makeup application as an example, where most girls view this as an improvement of self rather than self-disciplining to fit the definition of beauty in a male dominated society. On the extreme side, we all remember the public stripping of women for allegedly wearing overtly sexual clothing that gave men erections in public. Back to Jimmy Gait, the patriarchs of this society could not handle the idea that they won’t be in heaven. It was okay for Gait to condemn “sweetie mamas,” and warn young men against them, but it was blasphemy when he condemned sponsors, a majority of whom are financially stable old men who buy themselves into the post-pubescent female fountain of eternal youth. The backlash against Jimmy Gait was not because he equated Jesus to a sponsor, he had already done that in Huratiti where he showed how God/Jesus can sort you out financially and romantically. Gait was attacked because he undermined a long established social arrangement.

Sponsorship is not a 21^st-century phenomenon. In fact, this phenomenon is a product of years and years of social and biological evolution. Studies have shown that mate choice is complicated and decisions are made after the analysis of some variables that do not include “love.” Two of these variables are the most important .i.e. fertility and resources. Men give priority to fertility cues. Physical attractiveness in a female mate is “a necessity and not a luxury” (Geary, Vigil and Craven). This attractiveness includes facial features, waist-to-hip ratio (this has been measured, and a 0.7 WHR is universally considered attractive by men), and breast symmetry (Geary, Vigil and Craven). Age is also an important cue to fertility. The WHR explains the fascination with women who have big butts, natural or otherwise, from Sarah Baartman to Kim Kardashian. On the other hand, women give priority to social status and resources cues, especially when looking for a long-term mate. In a study on marriage patterns of the Kipsigis, it was discovered that access to land and cattle was the major factor that determined the sexual attractiveness of a man, and his fitness as a marriage partner (Geary, Vigil and Craven). In a study by Borgerhoff Mulder that lasted for 18 years, it was observed that two male participants who offered the most land or had the most cattle were chosen as mates by 13 out of 29 potential brides (Borgerhoff Mulder). It was also observed that “either one or both of these men got married in 11 of the 15 years in which one or more marriages occurred” (Geary, Vigil and Craven) Participants who had less land and cattle to offer were chosen as mates in “only 1 of these 15 years” (Geary, Vigil and Craven). So, having a sponsor is very pragmatic and advantageous for women. It is not a matter of morality, but survival. The resource endowed males have a chance to copy and re-copy their genes, and the females get access to the much-needed resources to take care of any copies of said genes. A sponsor has the status and the resources, and that makes him sexually attractive. Hell,  patriarchs even made polygamy legal in the country. The advantages of the Marriage Act 2014 are not for the poor males, or the females advanced in age.

It has taken both men and women thousands of years of trial and error to narrow down on mate traits that will guarantee their offspring a healthy future. A musician with claims to divine inspiration won’t change that. The stability of societies is often built on phenomenon such as the one described above. Attacking such arrangements is often seen as an affront to society as a whole. Gait had to be disciplined, not because his song was blasphemous, but because he attacked what is, in essence, a win-win social arrangement. That’s just the way I see it.

References

Geary, David C., Jacob Vigil and Jennifer Byrd Craven. "Evolution of Human Mate Choice." The Journal of Sex Research (2004): 27-42. PDF.

Borgerhoff Mulder, M. "Kipsigis women’s preferences for wealthy men: Evidence for female choice in mammals? ." Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology (1990): 255-264. PDF.

 

Atrocious Ads

I am not a fan of TV for one main reason, the number of ads that they shove down your throat. I have noticed that on average, adverts are given two 15 minutes segments or sometimes three 10 minutes segments every hour. So, if you are watching a program that supposedly runs for an hour, half of it will be dedicated to ads at an interval of about 10 minutes. The minutes devoted to commercials is bound to increase as time progresses, which means your television will become less entertaining and educative. But that is not the worst part. As people become more benumbed by incessant ads, the pressure on advertisers decreases. The quality of ads on Kenyan television is evidence of this.

I am rarely in front of one of these boxes, but the ads I have seen in those rare moments have appalled me by their lack of creativity and sense. Two of the dumbest ones come to mind, but I’m only going to give their gist (I don’t want to be sued, you know). One of them is a skin care product. Its plot goes something like this; a student is taken back to school by her mother, the Principal is furious because she is accompanied by someone who appears to be her sister because of her young soft skin. He later learns that she is indeed her mother, and since her skin is so soft, her daughter is hurriedly told to go back to class, and leave the two adults to take care of business. The Principal attempts what can only be defined as sexual harassment by a sane person. The daughter eavesdrops on what the two adults are doing and goes to class giggling. She too will probably start using the same skin care product that her mother uses because, you know, it will “open doors” for her. This ad is misogynistic, plain and simple.

The second dumb ad belongs to one of these many betting sites. We have a group of friends discussing the odds of the teams they are going to bet on, past match outcomes, etc. A supposedly experienced lady (Her being female is not by accident. Apparently women are more trustworthy than men, and trustworthiness is one of the many criteria used to select faces you see on ads) overhears this discussion and kindly invites these “amateurs” over with this line “Come I educate you.” She then makes the following statement “You don’t have to know all these things.” I mean, WHAT THE FUCK? Didn’t the writers notice the contradiction while working on the script? How can you educate by being an advocate of ignorance? This commercial is one of the dumbest on air.

The above examples are evidence that the marketing graduates who create these ads do not think through and review what they create. Worse still, people buy whatever these ads are selling. The complacency of consumers has taken the pressure off advertisers who are no longer obliged to make convincing arguments why their products are superior to all others in the market. The problem with these ads is that they are examples of the mediocre use of anecdotes. Advertisers use stories to trick us into buying stuff. We are more likely to relate to the story of the high-school girl or the betting amateurs than to statistics showing us who uses this particular product or how often people win bets by letting the "system" do it for them. Advertisements are not going anywhere, but Kenyan ad creators should pull up their socks and think through whatever commercials they create.