Dale Anthony McDougall Interview
In addition to my responsibility to being in charge of the overall programming of the station, I am also one of two news anchors. I anchor the morning and evening news solely and I co-anchor the lunch hour news with the other assistant manager, Hyacinth Latchman-Cuellar [pronounced kway-yar].
I am also the host of two music programs too. I host Monday Night Classics, a program that features 'grown folks' music from the 60s, 70, 80s and 90s, every Monday night from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. Belize time. The second program I host is called Hi-Tech Saturdays from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. on Saturday evenings and it features an array of techno, pop, hip hop and R&B blends and much interaction.
Looking at the prototypes that you asked me to comment on, right off I can say that the Belizean society knows just a couple of these people by name and by face. Good Times and The Cosby Show were in heavy rotation in the 80s and 90s here in Belize. While the affluent people could have afforded television and satellite dishes, television was not heavily introduced to the Belizean society until circa 1981, the year our small nation of now 280,000 people achieved its independence from Great Britain. We were a colony of the British for most of our history - actually in 1862 we became a colony and in 1871, we were named a crown colony. In 1954, we achieved universal adult suffrage, meaning that at that point, Belizeans for the first time were actually asked to participate in the electoral process, although during this time, we saw the emergence of political parties, one of which is the People's United Party then led by the nation's first Premier and Prime Minister, George Price, we had little say in our government - that is until 1964, we had achieved self-government.
As I noted before, in the early 80s, even before I was born, television was not widespread in Belizean homes. As a matter of fact, my uncle, who at the time worked on the national radio station, Radio Belize, purchased the first television in my neighborhood. It was 19-inch colored television from Zenith. I was born in 1983, and at an early age, thanks to the only American station we received, WGN from Chicago, I saw the Cosby Show and Good Times. I also remember watching things like Green Acres, M*A*S*H*, Petticoat Junction, Hogan's Heroes [my mother's favorite], Diff'rent Strokes, Charles' In Charge, and even Happy Days, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Bob Newhart Show, Cheers and The Brady Bunch, and tons of game shows - Wheel of Fortune, Jeopardy!, Scrabble, $25,000 and $100,000 Pyramid, Press Your Luck [another of my mother's favorites], Family Feud, Classic Concentration, Double Dare, Tic Tac Dough and Card Sharks. The game shows came later when in the late 80s when we started getting NBC, CBS and ABC. I guess that's the reason why now my TV is programmed for only GSN and TV Land to see all the re-runs.
It would also be politically incorrect for me not to mention how much of an influence cartoons had on the children back then. I loved every single Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever created - Top Cat, Scooby Doo, The Vulture Squadron, Wacky Races featuring the precocious Penelope Pitstop, Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, The Flintstones, The Smurfs, The Snorks, Tom and Jerry and of course WB's creations of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and the list is as long as Papyrus Scrolls at the Vatican.
So we can say that largely and maybe even consequentially, television took root fast in Belize as many Belizeans can also attest to watching soap operas too - Days of Our Lives, All My Children, One Live To Live, Santa Barbara, Another World [my cousin was super addicted to it and she nearly died after it came off the air] General Hospital and Young and the Restless [I have a friend and his mother who swears by the Newmans and the Abbotts, it's bizarre.]
Other dramas that came on the scene included Night Court, with Harry Anderson, Markie Post, John Larroquette and Marsha Warfield; St. Elsewhere, with Ed Begley, Jr. Rin Tin Tin K-9 Cop, Scarecrow and Mrs. King with Kate Jackson, Bruce Boxleitner and Martha Smith; The Barney Miller Show, Benson with of course Robert Guillaume, The Golden Girls [I love them to this very day!], Soap with Billy Crystal and Katherine Helmond and Taxi with Judd Nelson, Rhea Pearlman, Danny DeVito and Marilu Henner and naturally, Sanford and Sons and All In The Family and not to mention The Jeffersons. I've always had the notion and Norman Lear was absolutely brilliant.
What's really the point of me saying all this? Well, it's to underscore the irony of the whole concept of identifying with someone black on this American programming because when you really think about it, black people did not have a strong presence on these shows. So when people actually paid keener attention to Diff'rent Strokes, Good Times and especially The Cosby Show, it was something almost unheard of.
That was really the syndicated television material most were exposed to and even those who frequented the movie theaters, did not see much black people in films during those days either. I can tell you also though that one of the first movies I saw in a theater in Belize was Coming To America with Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall. One of the other movies I saw after that had to probably be Denzel Washington in Ricochet and maybe and an Arnold Schwarzenegger film and I vaguely remember seeing also some Bruce Lee flicks one of them possibly being 55 Days at Peking, of course I could be wrong.
News was also a large part of the Belizean television experience. I watched Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather intently almost 95% of my entire life. I also watched many episodes of 60 Minutes and I admired Ed Bradley immensely. My grandfather's wife [not my grandma, biologically at least] worked for Andy Rooney many, many moons ago. She showed me pictures some years ago. Bradley and Brokaw are two of my idols.
To answer your question about the prototypes you listed, from my personal experience, many children were a lot like me when it comes to a father - there was none. Period. At times I wondered if I came to being as a result of a hatched up concoction in my gran's oven in 1983 but my mother somehow convinced me that I was a product of love. Isn't that interesting? If there was sooo much love, then why didn't I feel it? That's for another discussion. But based on that ideology alone, many children, especially boys who never knew what it's like to be raised by or with a father - to play soccer with, pitch marbles, spin tops with, or teach me how to ride a bike, I am sure many of us wished Heatcliff Huxtable was our father - no doubt about it! He was absolutely perrrrfect and he knew exactly how to deal with Theo and how much of a wonderful father he was to Saundra, Denise, Vanessa and Rudy. I can remember asking my mother one day: what's it like to have a real father like that? She was never able to explain because although my grandfather lived right next door, she or my uncle for that matter never had a good relationship with him. She too did not have excellent examples. It was virtually tempestuous between them. He died in '86, the same year my three uncles went to live in the US and the only person who I looked up to, my older brother Patrick had gone for summer holiday never to return.
To the other prototypes you asked me about, I really can't say that I've had a direct understanding of the characters, but I do have an appreciation for them because their own individual complexities make the plots of the very valuable and important stories they told in themselves, proved to be stories that we suddenly realize have existed, are existing today and because of that pace of life, we'll see those same stories retold - theoretically, it's case of the same script but a different cast.
Later in my years, right after I began working on the radio, I met the womanizers. I guess sex and sexuality never played an important role in my life because in the 80s, sex, especially homosexual sex was very taboo. I had a gay cousin and a gay uncle on my dad's side who were very open but everyone thought their effeminate behavior was too much to bear. The thing is, it was only their voice, because I must admit my cousin sounded a lot like my mother at times, but otherwise, they wore pants, drank, smoke and cussed like any other man I knew around the neighborhood.
My step-father, who was a Latino was definitely a womanizer. He lived with us for five years and I must record that it had to be one of the most trying times for me. He was cruel - to me, my disabled gran, and my mom. It was also during those five years, my three younger siblings were born. Although they come from Spanish speaking ancestry [and so do I since Granddad was from Honduras originally] they did not speak and still don't speak a scratch of Spanish. I knew some of it growing up but worked at it during high school. So I know, I'd never get lost in Mexico.
My stepdad though, in addition to the abuse was living [yes, living] with three different women at the time and that stemmed much confrontation from the women towards my mom and fights and arguments between mom and stepdad. I think he got hit with a hot waffle iron once to the side of the head and died in 2001 with the scar fresh as if it happened the day before.
Today, too, I see many men like that. They attribute it to a 'man shortage' as sung by Lovindeer in a Caribbean musical favorite in Jamaica and Belize. I have three co-workers who spend half of their salary in child support and lying to their significant others hand over fist. It's absolutely unnerving and insane.
Today these strong influences are definitely because of the sex, lies and videotape we see. I am not talking about a vulgar performance by Laura SanGiacomo, but the shows, especially the reality shows that drip these themes wantonly and many of our impressionable youths in Belize, who more than likely come from less affluent backgrounds, find it imperative that in order for them to get themselves out of the destitution, they need to do exactly what they see on television.
In addition to the injury the reality shows have done, music plays a major part of it. We do get BET on cable, so we get to see the raunchy attire of the women on color being the video girls and the rappers with their pants under their derriere singing, smoking, drinking, driving fast cars and showing the world how much money they have. Some artists, who have criminal pasts, have depicted their murderous and injurious lies in videos and music and many of our young boys fall into these traps and end up on the wrong side of the law.
I am not suggesting that the music that even my station plays is the root cause of the crime wave in Belize, but it's certainly a contributory factor and as a media personality, I try to be as responsible as I can when it comes to airing these songs. So to answer your question, I'll repeat what I said in an essay in my junior year of high school 'I agree with former Minister of Education Said Musa when he said in 1981 that the television is like an army of 10,000 men.' Although his political career is coconut thrash at this point, his words are indeed one of the wisest he's ever said.
In retrospect, many people would agree that a large part of our culture features that of the United States. Many people celebrate Halloween and Thanksgiving. That's how much of a root it has taken on our society and while I agree that there are good things I like about the United States, I am also very wary and fearful that much of what has happened and will happen will inevitably cause us to lose our direction and not remember our individuality and identity as a people and a nation that has toiled and labored for the little we have.