Arts industry suffers as Mutua pursues clean-up

Mid last year, Dr Ezekiel Mutua, the chief executive of the Kenya Film Classification Board (KFCB), proscribed the hit song "Kwangwaru" by Tanzanian musicians Harmonize and Diamond Platnumz from being performed, sang or listened to by schoolgoing children.

Defending the move, Mutua said that the song’s lyrics would corrupt the minds of impressionable youth. As the norm with Bongo music, the song is a tightly-ciphered work.

It makes strong sex-related references, but only the keenest of fans would tell. But it also features gyrating, pouting female dancers, something that eats at Mutua’s craw.

“It will not be business as usual, foreign musicians who are coming to undermine our cultures and values, children are singing … even in schools,” a seething Mutua said.

To fans, the ban made little sense as at the time Mutua made his edict, the song had already attracted 10 million views on YouTube within a month, an unprecedented record for an East African-made video.

As expected, whenever censorship or muzzling the arts is enforced, the move by KFCB simply fanned the flame; viewership of the video on YouTube has since spiked to over 40 million.

It wasn’t the first time the combative Mutua had issued similar proclamations. Indeed, you are unlikely to find a more polarising public figure.

Ever since Mutua ascended to the apex of the film regulatory body in 2015, he has attracted as much vitriol as adulation from Kenyans.

One only needs to visit the timeline of Mutua’s social media accounts; it hardly matters what the content of his posts is. It is a war-zone.

To the free spirits, Mutua is an irritant, a curmudgeon bent on killing hard-earned creative freedom, with a style plucked from the days of the government of President Daniel Moi when even the faintest of ‘lewd’ content could send someone to a snake pit.

“I think what he (Mutua) is doing is likely to hurt the industry down the road,” says Perry Njoki, an aspiring actor and producer.

“Freedom to create and explore, these are tenets that are at the heart of the creative arts.”

But there also exists another brigade, equally vocal in their esteem of Mutua as the other side is in quelling such support.

The group includes the religious right, parents’ organisations, who are as adamant as Mutua that the airwaves are in bad need of some vacuuming.

“Look, this is a different age,” an influential TV producer who sought anonymity told me.

“Mutua and his clique can do whatever it is they consider ‘right’. But it won’t do anything to overturn what we have been working for all these years.”

He cited the controversial and heavily debated banning of the Wanuri Kahiu-directed movieRafiki. The revolutionary, controversial film explores the issue of lesbian pairings, a subject that is yet to shed the taboo tag.

“When the powers allowed it to be finally screened, (albeit with some restrictions) the film was box-office.”

From the first day he took office in October 2015, Mutua’s modus operandi seems buttressed by an evangelical vigour.

Indeed, according to Mutua, the mandate of his office goes beyond duty; it’s a calling. He is the man with the whip, cleaning out the synagogue of peddlers.

“While the board recognises the constitutional rights to free expression, we shall not allow art to be used as a vehicle to degrade our culture….” Mutua told Nairobi News, an online magazine owned by Nation Media Group.

As far as the creative arts go, especially in film, theatre and music, there is hardly better promotion and advertisement than the banning of content.

When writer David Maillu’s torrid novels were banned in the 1980s and 1990s, there was a massive inverse of the intended purposes: readers couldn’t wait to get hold of the material.

The KFCB came into force in 1963, with its mandate mainly to regulate the creation, broadcasting, possession, distribution and exhibition of films by examining them for content, imposing age restrictions.

Critics derisively refer to Mutua as a self-appointed ‘morality policeman’, while others describe him as a man removed from the reality of the times.

Additionally, Mutua has been accused, especially by players in the film industry, of overstepping his mandate.

In 2018, Communications Authority boss Francis Wangusi chided KFCB after it released guidelines on the airing of adverts.

Wangusi argued that the regulatory board could only rate aired broadcast content, but not control it.

Most recently, Mutua was on the warpath after footage of singer Esther Akoth, popularly known as Akothee, went viral.

In the video, the singer is seen dancing suggestively. The ‘dirty antics’ were unacceptable, an enraged Mutua proclaimed.

As expected, the debate took on a life of its own, with viewers combing the internet for the video. No less than Nairobi Woman Representative Esther Passaris chipped in, declaring support for the beleaguered Akothee.

“In this age, the internet age, there is little anyone can do to contain what airs online,” opined Angela Mwakali, a music critic, and a supporter of Mutua.

“What is one to do when parents have little control over what their children watch?”

Criticism of his work notwithstanding, Mutua has been credited with the successful ban of cigarette advertisements on TV, radio and billboards.

He also controversially forced the soft drink giant Coca-Cola to edit out a seemingly innocuous kissing scene on one of its adverts.

Mutua survived the wrath of the radical collective known as Kenyans on Twitter (KoT), perhaps the most vocal of voices anywhere, to earn reappointment to helm KFCB for a second term in October, 2018.

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