The hilarious comedy, How to Ruin Christmas, returns to Netflix this festive season with a four-parter. After ruining her sister's wedding, thanks to her reckless antics in The Wedding, has another year around the sun allowed the free-spirited Tumi to reign herself in? And how's her romance with her best friend Khaya coming along? I heard he had a secret to tell her?
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As the Sellos and the Twalas come together once again over the festive period, home truths come to light, with Gogo Twala acting as a catalyst for a series of revelations. The return of Beauty's dad forces an understanding that a picture-perfect happy ending might not always be on the cards. Romance blossoms between some unlikely characters. Financial woes and an impending corruption investigation threaten the lavish Twala lifestyle. And Tumi and Khaya's relationship is pushed to the limit - can they survive?
AMAKA sits down with Rethabile Ramaphakela, one of the series' producers, to get an update on all the family drama; the inspiration behind How to Ruin Christmas' key themes, characters and events; and find out what's next for the Sellos and the Twalas.
No spoilers ahead, don't worry!
You've previously produced the likes of Seriously Single and Bedford Wives. How would you say How to Ruin Christmas differs or remains similar to the themes of your past shows?
I suppose what's different about this is it's a limited series, How to Ruin Christmas: The Funeral, compared to every other show that we've done, which has been a more linear broadcast. And while Seriously Single was obviously a feature film, which was our first foray into doing features and doing a comedy of this nature that was released exclusively on Netflix. I think How to Ruin Christmas is different because it's totally focused on one event. So, it's a limited series based on an event. The first season was the wedding and the second season is now the funeral, and it explores the kind of family dynamics and Black family culture that we don't often see on our screens. It's about celebrating Black culture around Christmas, especially in South Africa.
A lot of the times when we see Christmas content from everywhere else in the world, it's snowing, and people are really cold, and that's not our experience. So, there hasn't been anything really exciting on a South African offering. So we were like, 'We have to make this a show to also show the world that there's a different side of Christmas.' It's not the same one that we see every holiday season.
Yeah, even with the characters having the South African Braai, which is the equivalent of a barbeque. There's a lot of focus on local customs and traditions. And this leads on to a point I want to make regarding the inclusion of Tswana and Zulu languages, in addition to English. Was the incorporation of native languages into the show a conscious decision?
I think we wanted to be as honest as possible when creating the series. If you watch the first series, How to Ruin Christmas: The Wedding, you actually saw two different families. One was Zulu, and one was Tswana, and they were literally coming together to get married. And that's what happens in South Africa. We have 11 official languages. So basically, 11 tribes, if you want to call it that, and it does happen where one tribe marries into the other, and you have to accept the different dynamics of each sort of culture and what traditions one side has and what traditions the other side has. So for us, the language aspect was just to be honest.
Our parents only speak to us in our home language. They don't really speak to us in English. So, because we had older generation characters and then we have younger characters who were able to switch quite easily, it was so important for us to keep that authenticity. If we wanted to tell the story, we had to be true to the languages.
What are the major differences between How to Ruin Christmas: The Wedding versus How to Ruin Christmas: The Funeral in terms of character development and the way these families interact with each other?
Well, if you look at both of them, I would say they're completely different. I would like to call The Wedding more the rom-com series, which focused on romance a lot stronger. If you look at The Funeral, I think it's more a comedy aspect of the family chaos now that they know each other.
In the first season, we were introducing all the characters, and the characters were meeting each other for the first time as well. There was all that awkwardness that we played off of - no one knows each other, they're trying to put on pretences. Whereas in season two, we can jump straight into the story off the bat because we know these characters, and obviously, at the centre of this is Tumi and in season one. We saw how she recklessly messed up her sister's wedding.
In season two, what I think is different is that what she does was actually something good, but it actually ends up backfiring on her. And I think that is where the comedy all comes through. It's beautiful to see her growth as a character. She tries her hardest and best to make sure the funeral goes off without a hitch and fulfil the person's dying wishes. So I definitely think she's the biggest character growth that we've seen.
But also, what was interesting this season, on The Funeral, was that we got to explore love relationships, even with the older characters. We saw how Tumi's mother and Beauty's dad sort of rekindled something. We saw how Valencia and Vusi also had this kind of tumultuous but fun relationship, and at the end, they sort of were able to make up. I think we don't see older people in romantic lights very much on-screen anymore. So that was exciting for us to do, to show that our mothers, our fathers, our grandparents are multifaceted people. They also love, they also hurt. They also go through everything.
We definitely see that with Gogo Twala. She's perceived as this frail old woman who's helpless when actually, she's very much still her own person with agency. She actually comes off as quite stand-offish sometimes, which I think is a response to constantly being coddled by those around her.
How do you think her characterisation plays into these multi-dimensional representations of older women?
I think when we usually play granny characters in any sort of context, they're like the wise sage and, you know, soft and gentle. We wanted to break away from that. I know for a fact that my grandmothers were very sassy - they said what they wanted to say. We learn about this secret affair from Gogo's past, which just tells you that people aren't so one-dimensional. We can't put them into a box.
Do you have a Tumi in your life?
It's so funny. One of our directors, Johnny Barbuzano, likes to say to me, 'You are her!' And I'm like, 'What? No, don't say that!' I don't just do things without thinking about them. Well, at least I hope I don't [laughs].
When we created [Tumi], we wanted to create a character who sort of straddles the lines between modernity and tradition. She's like, super modern, says what she wants, does what she wants, but then at a cost. There are repercussions that she has to deal with. We can see female characters on screen being strong women, or either they're really bad or whatever. I like to think that Tumi is quite complex, and that's so much more interesting to watch.
Does she have a little bit of me? I think in her snarkiness and in her saying what she wants, I would say yes. In the voiceover voice, I would say definitely, but I definitely would not sleep with my recovering alcoholic brother-in-law. But I love her in that her intentions are actually good. She's just misunderstood. I mean, there's always a debate. Is she toxic? Is she not toxic? I just think she's misunderstood.
I noticed that therapy is something that's mentioned throughout the second series, especially among the younger generations. How would you say that relates to wider social conversations regarding mental health?
I think for generations, especially as Black people, therapy is like a rich man's problem or for people who can afford it. And we kind of have these generational curses and things that happen with families that we sometimes don't understand. I think therapy is a game-changer in that now, young people, Black people are starting to go to therapy and accept it.
So we have two sides of the spectrum on The Funeral. We have Beauty and Sbu, who just experienced a tragedy. All Sbu wants to do is see someone, and all Beauty is doing is blocking it up, pretending everything's fine, pretending everything's fine. Whereas, you see a relationship that was quite tumultuous in season one, which is Themba and Lydia, that are now communicating with each other in season two [after going to therapy].
If anything, I wish our parents could go to therapy. I think they probably need it more than we do. We're aware of what's happening, and they're probably still dealing with a lot, and that's why they react the way they do to whatever we do.
Definitely. Even regarding Vusi Twala not communicating his financial problems with his family. I think he faces a lot of shame regarding his status as 'the provider' coming under threat.
It's absolutely a shame thing. I think men are expected to provide, and when you've provided to a certain standard and you can't anymore, it's like 'I have failed.'
We always say there's comedy in drama, and that's what the show is. The fact that he's lost all his money and then when his wife confronts him, he'd rather say he's having an affair. That's how it should tell you how deep the shame goes, in terms of what are our roles? What are our gender norms? But as Valencia says, she married him for rich or for poor.
Whom would you say is your favourite couple on the show?
Valencia and Vusi.
Really?
Yeah, I love Valencia. She's so mean, but also just like, I don't know. There's some respect that I have for her and the fact that she does go through her lessons. In season one, we saw her having to learn to let go of her boys. And in season two, we saw her having to let go of repetitive patterns of treating your daughter-in-law like shit, excuse my French, you know? And I love that about her. And I love that her development is never like, oh, she's now completely transformed. You see that she's picked it up. She's learned it, but she's still got that air of her.
Personally, my favourite is Beauty and Sbu.
Why is that?
I would say their relationship is the least dysfunctional on the show.
What I love about Beauty and Sbu is that they're the couple that brought the families together. So they're essentially the main line. And if they were to break up, I don't think there is a show. So How to Ruin Christmas: The Divorce can never happen unless it's like Valencia and Vusi that are going through their own divorce.
So what next for the series? Are we going to see How to Ruin Christmas: The Baby? How to Ruin Christmas...
[Laughs] The show has a great formula in that once a year, they come together, something happens, and it's like, oh gosh, are we going to make it to Christmas and make it happen? And they do. And then they split away, and then we meet up with them 12 months later.
We haven't gotten a green light for season three yet. So crossing fingers that Netflix will go ahead. But I think there's so much to explore with the relationships. And the ending of this season, we didn't leave it a big cliffhanger [like last time], but there are so many things that Tumi can still explore. And I see a lot of people want her to find happily ever after, whatever that looks like.
So, if you were to pitch to Netflix right now on what you would want the third season to be, what ideas would you want to run?
I'd love to see them on holiday together. I know that sounds so weird. Someone said How to Ruin Christmas: The Unveiling, which in South Africa, I don't know if they do this anywhere else in the world, but after you've had a funeral if you didn't put the tombstone up that time, usually a year later you have an unveiling ceremony of the tombstone, literally. It's like this huge affair. So there's The Unveiling.
This interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.