How to solve the 'Generations' gap

This week's column requires you to suspend disbelief. (Disclaimer: Many of the events portrayed in this column are fictional and those that are factual will be hard to separate from the fiction.)

Now imagine the scene. You tune into your 8pm soap opera. On screen is the president, clearly vexed by accusations of corruption and demands that he pay back public money spent on lavish upgrades of his private residence. (I know it's crazy, but this is a soap opera.)

So incensed is he that he ups and leaves the House, and riot police are called in to clear rowdy members of a political party who wear red overalls . (This is showbiz - people will buy almost any story line.)

Cut to the president storming out of the House. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out his phone and dials a number.

Cut to the office of the CEO of the state broadcaster. He eyes his phone's screen as it flashes the caller's name: No1. No1. No1.

He is tempted not to answer it. There is a document on his desk that requires attention. Salary increase number four needs his personal stamp of approval. He answers.

"Sir?"

"Code Red. Code Red."

They've discussed this before. He knows what to do.

The cast members of a fictional soapie have been primed for this. They have already staged a walkout of their own and have been fired. Now it's time for phase two.

The president puts down the phone, looks into the camera (they use this technique effectively in House of Cards), chuckles and pushes up his glasses with his middle finger.

Back to the sacked soapie actors who are hosting a live press conference, using real actors to plead their case.

This is good stuff. One cries real tears and the nation is transfixed. Working on the set of a soap opera is hard, they say. These are apartheid working conditions, they plead.

"Not only do we get paid peanuts, but we have to pay tax," complain the actors.

Live news channels have to choose between a press conference of the ruling party berating someone called the public protector (this is a highbrow soap opera) and the actors. One of them is crying. This is good. The news channels focus on the actors.

Switch back to the president - he looks into the camera, invokes House of Cards, chuckles, and pushes up the glasses with his middle finger.

The end.

Nah! It's ridiculous . No one would watch.

Back in the real world, actress Sophie Ndaba, who plays Queen in Generations, said actors had worked on the soapie for years and had "nothing to show for it".

Actors, according to the soap's executive producer, Mfundi Vundla, earn an average of R55000 a month. Many actors who do part-time jobs to make ends meet would kill for that kind of income.

Acting is a tough profession, which is why few parents encourage their children to study drama at university.

Few will ever attain the level of stardom achieved by Charlize Theron.

The biggest problem for Generations is that it has been wildly successful and the actors, not content with regular work and wages, want a piece of that success.

It's a growing trend in South Africa, this expanding culture of entitlement.

Everyone wants a piece of the action without risking capital. Entrepreneurs provide jobs and opportunities by risking their capital. Often it is capital they sweated blood to raise. We need more of them and should not be discouraging them from creating new opportunities.

So here is a solution to the Generations standoff.

Perhaps the now ex-Generations actors should back themselves and approach Hosken Consolidated Investments or MultiChoice with a programme idea of their own and create their own production company.

That would be the best revenge on their former employer. Either that, or it would turn into the toughest life lesson imaginable.

For TV licence payers, they should be encouraging more money-spinning successes like Generations to take the burden of funding away from the public purse. As for Nkandla, that's a rant all on its own.

Whitfield is an award- winning financial journalist and an eager watcher of corporate and political soapies