Celeste Ntuli talks about issues affecting South African Men

Comedian and actress Celeste Ntuli has had a good year, despite the global pandemic making it difficult for comedians to perform. She concluded her show Money and Men, with a performance in eMpangeni, KwaZulu-Natal, and is preparing to perform in London in early 2022.

I talk about everything, more especially, my concentration is more on intimate relationships that sometimes are affected by finances. We are faced, most of the time, with choosing between success and love. It never coincides.

This is the reason Ntuli is vocal when asked about the role of men, and money, in perpetuating gender-based violence.

“When we talk about ‘indoda must’, we only talk about money. We never talk about character, we never talk about understanding a person, we never talk about communicating with a person,” she says. She also calls on women to start having uncomfortable conversations with themselves about how they enable abusers.

“South African women, I find we don’t want much. What we say we want from men, and what we find and what we get. We don’t want to question the in between, which is where there is a healing. So we are going to continue having 16 Days of activism because we are not ready for the conversations we’re going to have with ourselves.”