Madam & Eve: The Politics of Race and Postcolonial Television in South Africa

The situation comedy Madam & Eve (2000-2005) debuted on e.tv, a free-to-air South African television channel, and emerged as one of the most popular local shows, even winning international recognition. Raising pertinent issues of race, class, and gender within the context of domestic service in postcolonial South Africa, Madam & Eve follows the interconnected lives of Gwen Anderson, a well-to-do, white Madam, and Eve, a younger, working-class, and black Maid. Although directly confronting inequalities of race and class by integrating the perspectives of the maid and the employer, and undermining hierarchies of power through the unruliness of mimicry, the comedy confines racial resolution to the individual. By scapegoating individuals for their discriminatory attitudes, and effectively quelling the motivation for collective resistance, the show embodies the larger industrial trend of promoting profitability at the expense of progressive politics.