Our perfect wedding has lost its sponsorship from ABSA bank after airing a very gender sensitive episode at the wrong time of the year – Gender Activism period. Gender activists say the show promotes rape culture after it aired an episode which featured couple who met when the bride was just 14 years old and the groom 28. Gross! The statement below was posted on the ABSA Twitter page
Absa confirms that it informed Mzansi Magic this morning that we have withdrawn our sponsorship of Our Perfect Wedding with immediate effect
— Absa (@Absa) November 30, 2015
In a statement released yesterday afternoon, Mzansi Magic said that it noted and acknowledged the concerns of its viewers regarding the OPW episode aired on 29 November 2015. It added that the premise of the show is to celebrate the love and the journey that the couples take leading up to their wedding day. This still did not help.
Concerned citizen Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng’s wrote a letter of complaint about the episode to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission and it has received a lot of public support.
“I’m absolutely floored and horrified that nobody in the production of this episode saw anything wrong,” she wrote. “Normalising these relationships and airing them on a platform as entertainment only benefits abusers and perpetrators of gender-based violence.”
Lots of media coverage OPW, but this time, all for the wrong reasons.