ARNOLD: Storytelling acts as a powerful catalyst for social change. What we have found with our audience is that everyone identifies with at least one of the characters or one of the character’s storylines. Kids talk about the show, with their friends online through social media, but also really importantly, with their parents and grandparents. We’ve seen that time and time again. Cross-generational viewings of Shuga allow parents and grandparents to bring up—and open up about—topics like sex and others that are hard issues to raise.
FAPSON: I agree. It’s entertainment that’s educational at the same time. It raises issues not being discussed between young people and adults—issues that people kind of shy away from and causes discussion about them. A lot of people relate deeply to the characters; people might see Sophie in themselves or they might see someone they know in Sophie. It helps to build an essential bridge between fiction and reality when the audience identifies so closely with the characters.
SAFE: Dorcas, delivering public health messages through popular media allows Shuga to make an essential bridge between medical facts and how they get applied in reality. Anyone can sit in the doctor’s office or at school and be told what they should and shouldn’t do from a health perspective, but the real world often introduces situations not covered in medical or educational settings. Shuga shows how people navigate their health and safety in the real world. Often that road is bumpy. The storylines in Shuga suggest you can correct your course—you can have a scare and then change your behavior. Your character Sophie evolves over the course of several episodes. What does the audience learn from her journey?
FAPSON: In the beginning of the show, Sophie was very promiscuous… she engaged in a lot of transactional sex and her sugar daddy paid for her hair, etc. That is something that is very common across the world. A lot of women have men support them and have sex with them in return. I don’t think a lot of people think about the risks they’re taking when they do that. Sophie had a HIV scare because she had sex with someone who had HIV. She wasn’t thinking, “Oh, this person might have HIV.” She was just focused on getting materialistic goods from it. I think a lot of people are like that; they’re just very careless and I think that that’s why people identify with her. As she’s grown up, she’s matured and she’s got her head back on straight. The choices she makes this season show that regardless of how you were, you can learn from your mistakes. You don’t have to live that life, you can change. In this season, Sophie’s working; she’s not sneaking around, she’s got her head back on straight. She’s very careful with her sex life because she’s learned from her mistakes. I think that people relate to that a lot.
SAFE: Dorcas, as a young person, were you aware of HIV/AIDS growing up? Was it on your radar?
FAPSON: I was definitely aware of it, but I wasn’t educated about it. I knew it was a disease. I didn’t know how it was contracted. I didn’t know how it affected people. I didn’t know how or where it came from actually. I didn’t have a clue until I started working on the show.
SAFE: Georgia, much headway has been made against AIDS since the founding of Staying Alive. And yet, much more needs to be done. Of the 36.5 million people estimated to be living with HIV, 15 million have access to lifesaving antiretroviral treatment that doubles as prevention by lowering people’s viral loads to an undetectable level so they are virtually non-infectious. How do you position this moment in the HIV epidemic specifically when you are talking to young people, too many of whom think it’s either not an issue or not a big deal?
ARNOLD: I’m going to stick my neck out here. I think we are at an exceptionally dangerous time in the response to AIDS. I agree that we have made enormous strides over the past 15 years; it’s incredible. What really worries me is this focus on how we can see the end of the epidemic, and it’s all going to be okay. It’s not, and that’s driven by the fact that the most vulnerable parts of society are usually criminalized, and therefore, less likely to present for, or access, testing, treatment and care (let alone stay in care). LGBT people, drug users, sex workers and young people are all especially vulnerable to HIV. There are many places where governments should be putting money in order to stop the epidemic, and they’re not. So I take a much more realistic point of view, and I’m hugely concerned about it.
SAFE: Georgia, how does Shuga address the issue of gender-based violence?
ARNOLD: We have had a strong storyline on gender-based violence in each season of Shuga. For the second, third and fourth seasons, we also created a comic book that extended the storyline relating to gender-based violence. We created it with a legal team led by Susan Sterling; they did all of their work pro-bono. We were also supported by a legal charity called Boys Without Borders. We wanted people to understand what steps to take to protect themselves if they ever found themselves in certain positions. In season three, Malaika is raped. The audience knows she goes to the hospital and we know she goes to the police but we don’t actually see either of those things on camera. The comic book expands on the show; it actually show the steps Malaika took at the hospital and with police. There are information boxes in the comic book to highlight specifically whom you should contact in Kenya and Nigeria. In Nigeria, we work with an amazing center for survivors of sexual assault in Lagos called the Mirabel Centre. But I have to say, there are very few, and certainly not enough, places like the Mirabel Centre across Nigeria. That is one of my real frustrations: using media to highlight these issues and to help people understand how to address them, but doing so in places where there are not sufficient resources to help them. But we have to continue doing that and hope that the demand for services will create more supply. We’re up against cultural barriers, too. There’s a very strong attitude in Nigeria that men believe they have a right to hit their wives and girlfriends if they don’t do what they ask them to do—something as simple as not having bought salt for the meat. There’s acceptance by girls and women that that is their place in society. We’re trying to show that that is not acceptable, but we also know that on the ground there is a lot of catching up to do.
FAPSON: The Mirabel Centre is an amazing place. It’s for women in relationships that have been abused physically, emotionally or sexually. It brings people from all different ages together; some are older ladies, 89-year-olds, some are young ladies, some middle-aged people. Hearing their stories made me see that we needed to highlight issues that people otherwise shy away from in society to create discussion around them so they will stop.
SAFE: What advice would you give to a young woman who was in a relationship dependent on a man and it’s a relationship that’s not working for them or she feels threatened. What would you tell her?
FAPSON: Definitely get help. There’s so much help out there. So many people who will help you and even shelter you if you need somewhere to stay. There’s more to life. I mean it might be tough to leave, but you’ll make it. The first step is huge and it will get easier. The hardest step is leaving, but once you do that, then you’re there.
SAFE: Dorcas, for your role you spent time in the Nigerian National Health Fund, at the national HIV call center—6222. What was that like?
FAPSON: I went to a HIV center and sat in as a consultant. I watched them give HIV tests to 10 people. I watched them give results, both negative and positive. I heard from people who were getting tested; I listened to their stories. These were real people in a real HIV clinic that were getting tested for real. I met with people who have gone through some really tough situations related to HIV in their relationships. I just kind of adapted that to Sophie.
SAFE: Georgia, you worked Dorcas’ experience at 6222 into the show. How did that impact the work of 6222 in the real world?
ARNOLD: In the latest season of Shuga, we embedded Sophie inside the 6222. In season 4, she’s grown up a little bit, she’s still running the nightclub, but she’s also working at 6222 giving advice. I hope the government will see a huge uptake in people using 6222, and in turn, make sure that 6222 is a good resource. Now, you can access 6222 five days a week between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. which is not particularly great if you go out on a Saturday night and you have sex without a condom or you get attacked and call 6222 and there’s no answer. We’ve been working with the government and given them software so 6222 can deliver FAQs via phone 24/7 and you can leave a message and someone can get back to you. At the moment, they can’t afford to have it populated 24/7. But at least were taking it to the next stage.
SAFE: Georgia, the show is set in Africa in two different countries, but the show and the characters have universal appeal. Are there plans to roll it out to other nations or air it more broadly?
ARNOLD: One of the things I love about Shuga is that even though it’s currently based in Nigeria, it is relatable all over the world. When we did the season four premiere in London, a young girl in the audience asked when we are going to do Shuga UK. I hear that question in every country in which we screen it. Obviously, we will go where the funding is and where the health needs are greatest. There is a storyline in season four, in which Femi gets a new girlfriend named Shiva and she’s HIV-negative and they come out publically on TV about the fact that he’s positive and she’s negative. Their story is based on Shawn Decker and Gwenn Barringer’s story—Shawn and Gwenn are a fabulous, real all-American couple living in the circumstances of the storyline. I love that Americans could actually inspire this storyline set in Nigeria. There is a universality about the experience of living with HIV and many of the other challenges the characters face.
Do I want to take it to different countries? I do. I love being in Nigeria. Ten percent of all HIV positive adolescents in the world live in Nigeria and there’s a need for us to be there. But I’d like for us to be open to going to other countries as well and one of the reasons is because we can tackle different issues in different countries. In Kenya, we had a very small storyline around male circumcision, which isn’t in the Nigerian show; and if we go to a new country it might be a little easier for us to have gay characters. We don’t have any gay characters in the Nigerian Shuga though we did have a gay Kenyan character in a minor role in the second season. And that was done with the permission of the Kenyan government. I would really love to be able to take that a step further and show a gay character in other countries.
SAFE: Dorcas, you have a degree in criminology and you work with young, incarcerated people. What do you teach the kids you council in the real world?
FAPSON: I work with young offenders when they come out of incarceration. I help them get back into society, fix up their CVs, help them apply to higher education. From right after my own graduation, I decided I could help young people. My long-term goal is to work with young people from poor backgrounds and help them stay off the streets by getting them into drama classes and football academies, stuff like that so they’re not out committing crimes.
SAFE: Any final words?
FAPSON: I would definitely say we need to come together in society to support and educate our youth. Doing so doesn’t only help our own worth, it makes the world better. I teach young people you shouldn’t act like you need somebody to help you; you can help yourself. You shouldn’t be dependent on any man or woman. Having self-worth is about knowing yourself more, knowing your worth and living in ways that protect yourself.