Tuesday 25 January 2011

No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
(2008)

RATING: 80%

Caucasian World-View

Engaging drama that uses well worn detective conceits to both parody detective fiction and to breathe some new life into it, by placing the action in (for wet-weather Brits, at least) an exotic location and having female detectives. This last fact is fully exploited in the stories since the proprietrix uses her intuition and empathy to get to the bottom of most cases rather than relying only on a hard-headed reliance on facts - a la the more masculine Sherlock Holmes.

An independent woman not needing to rely on men is the basic theme here. The actresses convey their roles well and, as the series progresses, we come to know them and to realize that they are usually right - even when they are stretching things too far, ethically.

After the first few episodes, the too prefect diction in which Tswanas appear to speak English and the Runyonesque lack of contractions begins to grate on ones nerves - despite their comic effect - and some leavening of foreign accents might have helped here.

The other problem with the series is that because it is a male creation, the condescending author's Western male view of women is always lurking under the surface. This leads to a greater focus on cases that reflect so called women's issues; there being little serious crime here. A related issue is one of a warm, vibrant culture; lending itself to being essentially a foreigner's investigation of a quintessentially-foreign (to the author, anyway) culture - favorably compared to the crime-ridden West. This is not so much about Botswana but more about a White man's fascination for it - albeit written with some wit and not a little insight.


Copyright © 2011 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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