Jill Scott, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, My Woman-Crash, a Gay Hole and "Something Else"
Posted: Saturday, April 25, 2009
by Yangki Christine Akiteng
The Real People's Love Doctor
I never thought I'd say these words in this lifetime. I have a crash on a woman.
There are Big Beautiful Women (BBW) and there is Jill Scott. Jill Scott is not only a beautiful woman inside-out, she has the most authentic facial expressions and sweetest smile I have seen on screen. She lights up the TV every time she smiles.
I adore Jill Scott's music and have enjoyed the roles she plays in other movies, but in the BBC/HBO series The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency, Jill Scott is playing a role of a lifetime. She radiates unadulterated humanity and is so unapologetically sensuous that I have a woman-crash.
Jill Scott as the "fat and fabulous" Mma Precious Ramotswe is the first and only woman private detective in Botswana, Africa. Driven by a strong desire to help ordinary every day people with every day problems, she opens the first ever female owned detective agency. With her innate feminine smarts, "my daddy taught me everything a man can do" boldness, good manners, cheerful and respectful sweetness combined with an understanding of human nature, she cooks up unconventional, canny and sometimes down-right-dare-devil ways of solving cases.
Episode after episode, with the help of her friends, super-calm Mma Precious Ramotswe investigates cases, blasts barriers, rights wrongs, confronts corruption and greed, stands up to witchcraft, comforts the heart-broken, hugs a child, teases the men, lends a helping hand, and makes the world beautiful.
And unlike many detective shows, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is anything but stolid. It's charming, witty and hilarious, especially in it's elbow-jabs on "African ways".
Anika Noni Rose who plays the "highly educated" secretary (a.k.a. 97% success rate) to Mma Precious Ramotswe is so on role that she makes up-tight, perfection-obsessed, hyper and take-charge women deliciously adorable, even sexy.
One of my favourite scenes is a heated exchange between Mma Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose) and BK (Desmond Dube), a flamboyantly gay hairdresser.
Mma Makutsi: "I didn't say you were a something else, and if you are, I'm not criticizing."
BK: "You know what, if you're in a hole, stop digging!" Jill Scott as the "fat and fabulous" Mma Precious Ramotswe is the first and only woman private detective in Botswana, Africa. Driven by a strong desire to help ordinary every day people with every day problems, she opens the first ever female owned detective agency. With her innate feminine smarts, "my daddy taught me everything a man can do" boldness, good manners, cheerful and respectful sweetness combined with an understanding of human nature, she cooks up unconventional, canny and sometimes down-right-dare-devil ways of solving cases.
Episode after episode, with the help of her friends, super-calm Mma Precious Ramotswe investigates cases, blasts barriers, rights wrongs, confronts corruption and greed, stands up to witchcraft, comforts the heart-broken, hugs a child, teases the men, lends a helping hand, and makes the world beautiful.
And unlike many detective shows, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is anything but stolid. It's charming, witty and hilarious, especially in it's elbow-jabs on "African ways".
Anika Noni Rose who plays the "highly educated" secretary (a.k.a. 97% success rate) to Mma Precious Ramotswe is so on role that she makes up-tight, perfection-obsessed, hyper and take-charge women deliciously adorable, even sexy.
One of my favourite scenes is a heated exchange between Mma Grace Makutsi (Anika Noni Rose) and BK (Desmond Dube), a flamboyantly gay hairdresser.
Mma Makutsi: "I didn't say you were a something else, and if you are, I'm not criticizing."
Mma Makutsi: "I'm not digging"
Even though Mma Makutsi does not admit that she's digging herself deeper into the hole, she does not deny that she's in a hole. It's a pretty accurate reflection of how homosexuality in Africa is spoken (or not spoken) about. Sexual orientation is never explicitly talked about because of the coy reluctance to even give a word to homosexuality or a gay person. My hope is that an open discussion on "a something else" will develop from Mma Makutsi's "not criticizing" gay hole.
If you've read the book series that the movie is based on and loved it, and if don't mind the fact that everything is so noir and "accenty", The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency proves that there is such a thing as good TV.
The episode "The Boy With an African Heart;" a story of an African American mother determined to learn what happened to her son after he'd been missing for 10 years will tag at your heart strings. At one point the African American mother says "It breaks my heart every time she calls me my sister" referring to a village woman who is oblivious to the fact that this "black" mother is African American and not Botswanian.
When Mma Precious Ramotswe tells the African American mother that in African cultures, looking someone in the eye and saying, 'I forgive you" is much more important/healing than the legal justice process, the mother says she finally understood what her son meant when he said he had found his "African heart".
I recommend this show to everyone. If nothing else you will love the beautiful everyday life visuals and brilliant colors and landscape of Botswana. When was the last time you saw Africans on TV who were not starving, pot-bellied, fly infested, wide-brown-eyed babies?
You might even fall under the spell of the beautiful and lovely, Jill Scott. I've fallen and don't think I'll be getting up anytime soon. I am a happy woman!
In Canada, The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency airs on HBO, Sundays 8.p.m. EST.
Update: Jill Scott and her fiance, drummer Lil John Roberts, have welcomed their first child, a boy, Jett Hamilton Roberts born at 4:20 p.m. on Monday, April 22, 2009. He weighed 7 lbs., 8 oz. Congratulations to Jill and Lil John!!!
Tuesday, People.com reported Jill Scott as saying: "I definitely had issues over the course of my life, reproduction issues. I was married for five years and could never conceive a child. Until now ... It's the most amazing thing that's ever happened to me."
Jill discovered she was pregnant the day she was scheduled to leave for Botswana to film the HBO show. She had been asked to gain weight for the role but thought something wasn't right because the weight came on too fast. Even knowing that she was finally pregnant after trying for so long, Jill still got on the flight and went to Africa. And you should see her driving her should-have-been-thrown-away-ten-years-ago truck on the pot-hole filled sometimes non-existent roads, pregnant. She deserves an Emmy! It's rumoured that HBO is campaigning for the show to be nominated for best drama series. I am keeping my fingers crossed.
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