The triumph of friendship in Spud
In the earlier days of the covid-19 pandemic, when countries outside of China were beginning to come to terms with the enormity of this virus, nostalgia was one of the few commodities experiencing unprecedented levels of growth and popularity. While some enthusiastically documented their revisiting of TV shows, films and books from their childhood, others cautioned against the “danger” of retreating into familiar comforts, with the LA Times columnist and critic, Mary McNamara, warning that doing so would fail to ”prepare [us] for the moment when we can leave [quarantine]”.
I felt pang of guilt when I read this sentence. Like McNamara writes in her essay, I too had spent the initial weekends of lockdown revisiting the pop cultural cornerstones of my adolescence, running through seasons of Gossip Girl and 90210, and inhaling each world of my Nancy Drew books as well as the dilapidated copy of Sweet Valley High that once belonged to my primary school library. Eventually, I decided I needed to try something new to compensate for chasing the safety of the well known. I started with one of those highly recommended shows which I hadn’t watched, or had watched absent-mindedly. A good number of them were about teenagers which made me fairly self-conscious only because I am closer to 30 than 18.
While I found most of them okay (The Politician and On My Block were quite good), I didn’t feel as happy or as challenged as I thought I would. It wasn’t that these shows were terrible— you’d have to be an especially insufferable person to detest something as fun and camp as a high school drama. It was that for all the ways they strived to offer a more complicated portrayal of adolescence, they neglected to show, at least to me, one of the best things about being a teenager: friendship.
In some of these new shows, friendship existed as a way of emphasising just how weird, self-destructive or lonely the protagonists were. It didn’t seem worthy enough, from what I observed, of being explored as an important, meaningful and complex theme on its own. Maybe this was my way of digging my heels and retreating into the past for the sake of feeling safe amidst the chaos and uncertainty in the world? Perhaps I was sabotaging the possibility of learning something new because I’d come to regard any kind of unfamiliarity as a threat during these times? Possibly. I couldn’t be sure. But my disappointment in these shows made me disregard McNamara’s warnings and revisit Spud, the book and film which had its great moment at the beginning and tail end of my teenagehood.
Written by John van de Ruit and published in 2005, Spud tells the story of a white teenage boy named John Milton, aka Spud (but more on that later), from a kitsch middle-class home navigating the pristine lawns of an illustrious all-boys school in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands. It is the year 1990: the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) are going to be unbanned and Nelson Mandela is going to be released from prison after 27 years. We are told that Spud has earned an academic scholarship to this institution which seems to take him by surprise. Spud has all the trappings of South African bourgeois: a pool, garden and a domestic worker, Innocence, whom his parents regard with a contemptuous suspicion typical of the white middle-classes. But he has a feeling that he won’t fit in at this school because he is only just middle class. This hunch is confirmed by the “Rolls Royce and Mercedes-Benz” he sees upon arriving in his dad’s raggedy 1973 Renault station wagon.
Naturally, a big theme of the novel is Spud’s outsider status. He is scrawnier than most boys his age, has miserable at rugby playing skills and gets just-above-average marks, which accentuates his feelings of being a social trespasser and a fraud. “In truth I’m not sure how I got it in the first place [because] there are a couple of other boys in my class who make me look like a complete brain donor”, he writes in his diary, as he grows even more sceptical about the merit of his scholarship.
Like many people his age, Spud is embarrassed of his parents who are gauche and shameless; he is scared of girls despite being, as we will come to witness, pretty decent at getting them; and he harbours dreams of being a somebody (in this case, an actor) which he mostly hides from the boys in his dorm room who earn the name “The Crazy Eight” because of their wild antics. From the beginning, Spud comes across as a self-conscious boy who battles to speak his mind because of peer pressure. He approaches life at his school tentatively, anxious he will suffer some routine humiliation from a prefect, alienate one of the Crazy Eight or yell for his mother in the middle of the night. Survival in this war-like environment is his biggest concern right behind what we learn is the premise of the novel: Spud’s balls have yet to drop — hence the nickname which was handed to him by the other boys, who go by less shameful aliases.
I remember reading Spud when I was about 14 or 15. I recall liking it a lot because it was so different to anything we’d been reading at the time, which may account for why I thought it was a great deal of fun. Re-reading it now, it’s not a book I’d ever go near but I understand why it was met with great fanfare upon its release. van de Ruit received praise for presenting an excruciatingly accurate depiction of a particular kind of South African coming-of-age story which, I suspect, most of his readers recognised as their own. It became an instant best-seller, finding a home in the English departments of IEB and model C schools like mine which were yearning for a “local novel” to spice up their overwhelmingly European or American canon. At the height of the book’s popularity, it was common for some of the girls at my co-ed high school to claim they preferred the company of boys from single-sex schools. Not only were they s better at sport and debating than the ones at our school, but they also seemed to possess, in our precious little brains, some masculine advantage over the losers who would etch dicks and swastikas into our desks.
Of course, when we left high school, we realised how little we knew and wanted to know about boys. But back then, we enjoyed being the type of girls who hung out with boys from these sort of schools. Many of us would rotate between different all-boys schools, scouting groups of young men to befriend or make our boyfriends. Though Spud showed us the many unpleasant parts of being at a single-sex-schools, we felt a mix of admiration for the pride and confidence these boys exhibited in themselves and their school, possibly because we’d never felt this ourselves. We confused bullying with character-building, and indoctrination with school pride because we envied, or at least I envied, the sense of belonging and shared identity that existed amongst these boys.
One of the Spud’s achievements is how well it captures the frustration of being misunderstood. Spud suspects he’ll be confined to this state forever which is affirmed by most of the people around him. They either find him odd or unremarkable, which only serves to heighten the isolation and loneliness he feels in this new environment. On the one hand, he wants to stand out for his gifts and talents, mostly evident in his decision to audition and land the lead role in the school’s production of Oliver!. On the other hand, he wants to blend in as much as possible, even if that comes at the expense of other people like Gecko, aka Henry Barker, the sickly boy who becomes the punching bag of the Crazy Eight. For van de Ruit, Spud is an underdog, only because the world chooses to see him that way — a relatable sentiment ready to be confirmed at every encounter of rejection in life. The people who notice what is good and fine about him, namely Gecko and The Guv, are also underdogs in their own right, affirming the novel’s idea that people either fall into one of two camps: conformist or nonconformist, crowd-follower or maverick.
Reductiveness aside, van de Ruit creates a vivid and engaging world filled with characters who display some heart and complexity, despite being obvious typecasts. While most of the Crazy Eight never quite depart from their juvenile ignorance and prejudice, they do show hints of affection towards one another without having to say as much. This isn’t to downplay the sad, chest-puffing masculinity which Spud has to perform to earn the respect of the crew, especially Robert Black, aka Rambo, the Crazy Eight’s unofficial leader. Even as the star of Oliver, he is still the butt of all their jokes, teased for donning a shaggy blonde wig which makes him look like a lamb with Guy Fieri-style frosted tips. But as much as we begrudge the fact that Spud has to play by the group’s rulebook, we realise all of the boys are just living by the standards of the world they live in.
Then there is the English teacher Mr Edly, otherwise known as The Guv, with whom Spud strikes up a relationship after he asks him to stay behind on the first day of class. The Guv, a flamboyant, prickly man with a lofty English accent, compliments Spud on sharing a name with the English writer John Milton and gives him a copy of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett. As the novel progresses, The Guv passes on more of his favourite books to Spud, which they have animated discussions about in the English teacher’s cottage near campus. Despite what Spud thinks of himself, The Guv sees something special in him. Their brief exchange in the English class establishes one of the main themes of this coming-of-age book: the lifelong quest to be seen and acknowledged by someone as a person worthy of being taken seriously.
What unites the Crazy Eight, Spud and The Guv is their pursuit of freedom, adventure and individuality in a stifling, hierarchical environment which van de Ruit parallels, rather clumsily, with the struggle against the apartheid regime. In a review of the book published in the Mail & Guardian in 2006, the staff writer took the book’s portrayal of black people to task, especially the character PJ Luthuli who is supposed to be the grandson of former ANC president, Chief Albert Luthuli. There is no doubt this character comes across as superficial and contrived, as the review rightly points out. The younger Luthuli is used as a tracking device for Spud’s growing sensitivity to the plight faced by black South Africans, a tired, rundown party trick if there ever was one.
Notwithstanding this clunky device, van de Ruit does manage to relay the mostly apathetic and ambivalent responses of white South Africans to the historic events that would shape the country well after democracy in 1994. Even when we do encounter “good whites” like Spud and his history teacher Mr Lennox, who starts the un-ironically named African Affairs Society, van de Ruit mocks white guilt, most evident in the scene where Spud, after announcing that he is ashamed to be white, is told by another white boy, Linton Austin, that “shame [is] a useless emotion”.
Yet for all the ways the novel is able to skewer white shame, it fails to apply the same treatment to other forms of bigotry. It is not that one expects a book of this age to satisfy the demands of digital wokeness — in fact, I can’t imagine a book about the experiences and vernacular of privileged white South African teenage boys being portrayed any other way. But when the Guv uses homophobic slurs to express how he doesn’t have a problem with queer people, it gives the impression that van de Ruit relished the thrill of writing these cheeky little words instead of showing The Guv’s attempts to challenge what the boys have been socialised to hate.
Further, the illegal sexual relationship between drama teacher Eve and Rambo is arguably the most uncomfortable part of the novel. There’s no denying that incidents of this kind occur between teachers and students, but it is relayed so casually that I couldn’t help but feel for young men who see this behaviour as more of a compliment than the act of a sexual predator. This is where van de Ruit lets his abilities as a keen satirist go to waste. While he is able to seamlessly ape, and sometimes parody, the humour and sensibility of a teenage boy, he can sometimes appear to condone some of the more sinister aspects of it too. As the writer Keith Gray wrote in The Guardian in 2008, van de Ruit can often spend too much time “chasing the joke [rather] than digging a little deeper into the issues he raises”.
This is perhaps where the movie Spud, released in 2010, does a better job than the film. From the opening scene where we hear the sound of hadedas quacking and Spud sitting upright in his small bed with his diary as his father tries to kill the neighbour’s dog with a chemical sprayer, we get the sense that this milieu will handled with a touch of lampoonery. Donovan Marsh, who directed the film and wrote the screenplay, captures the book’s free spiritedness but also lets it mature in places that, in hindsight, required some growing up. With the help of an incredible ensemble cast which includes veteran actors like John Cleese, Julie Summers and Aaron McIlroy, the film adaptation keeps the fun of the book but adds some much needed wisdom and sharpness.
Much of Spud’s brilliance derives from the South African-born Australian actor and singer-songwriter, Troye Sivan, who delivers a delicate yet forthright performance as the title character. Sivan, who was about the same age as Spud when he got the role, relays the discomfort and confusion of being an adolescent at a time when everything and nothing seems to matter all at once. While Spud fits the criteria of the stereotypical male outcast that we have come to know in pop culture, Sivan gives this trope more dimension and body. In the book, Spud’s spud is a juvenile gag meant to serve as comic relief for the reader. The film, though, is able to be tongue-in-cheek about Spud’s affliction, while also treating it very seriously. After he’s excluded from looking at a raunchy magazine with the Crazy Eight, Spud heads towards the bathroom, looks down his pants and bemoans how undeveloped he is. “I wonder when I’ll start wanking?” he asks, before staring into his teary-eyed reflection in the mirror. “I wonder what suicide is like”, he adds. without a hint of irony. It is a ridiculous yet sincere moment which elevates Spud’s spudiness into something of an existential crisis. We feel his shame about as vehemently as he does, but Sivan doesn’t lean too heavily into pathos. This gives him the freedom to emote broadly and nimbly as Spud encounters familiar and new life experiences.
Sivan’s varied narration also relieves the film of the occasional claustrophobia and repetition caused by the book’s militant diary structure. Besides van de Ruit’s insistence that teenage boys would be respectful enough to use the term “breasts” instead of the 1000 other equivalents, this meticulous note-taking, which even accounts for 15 minute time lapses, can come across as affected and unrealistic. Perhaps the thought of writing on paper may seem strange and uncommon in the age of smartphones and tablets, but it did seem odd that a teenage boy, especially one who characterises himself as being two naps away from lazy, would make such detailed diary entries. In any case, the film’s more liberated approach emphasises just how much the structure of the book gets in the way of readers having the space and independence to observe the action and relationships unfolding in front of them.
Nowhere is this more evident in Spud’s friendships with The Guv and Gecko. While the relationships Spud has with these two are compellingly sketched out in the novel, they resonate and come to life on camera. The Guv remains the eccentric rebel from the book but Cleese infuses him with a temperamental warmth and homeliness that gives his dynamic with Spud more texture and familiality. Instead of a curmudgeon who randomly plays favourites, the enduring humanity Cleese brings to the role helps The Guv anchor the film in spite of the turmoil he faces in his personal life, especially when it comes to his drinking.
His dependency isn’t portrayed as a quirky, grandfatherly trait or the vice of someone pathetic; instead, we understand his drinking as the coping mechanism of someone who has relinquished all faith in life. After gently asking The Guv about his drinking, Spud states that “maybe the more you drink, the sadder you get and the sadder you get, the more you drink”. The line isn’t a fix to The Guv’s problems, but it shows how much this relationship is as beneficial to him as it is to Spud. The Guv is first person in whom Spud confides about his pubertal problems which he reassures him about, providing one of the few places where he can be himself without the fear of having someone teasing him (friends) or embarrassing him (parents). In the end, we realise that while The Guv encourages Spud to develop his own opinions through the context of literature, Spud pushes The Guv to work towards becoming a better version of himself, regardless of how tough and boring that process may be.
Then there’s Gecko, whom Spud befriends in the middle of the film. Gecko, played with grace and integrity by Jamie Royal, has the most profound impact on Spud, as the circumstances of his life force him to deal with the darker parts of the human experience. Like Spud, Gecko is an outcast who is harassed constantly by the Crazy Eight for being frail and injury-prone. These barriers towards social acceptance manifest themselves physically, as his recurring illnesses confine him to the school’s sanatorium with terminal regularity. But unlike Spud, Gecko doesn’t care for the approval of his peers. He is content to live in his own world and relish his oddities. Even though he falls short of the masculine standards within the dorm and school, Gecko leans into the qualities which separate him everybody else, possibly because he knows he’ll never ever fit in. He dreads the forced night swims and dangerous shenanigans of the group, but he participates in them anyway. To Spud, Gecko’s failure to blend in and go with the glow terrifies him, but he soon realises that like The Guv, Gecko is mostly interested in living life on his terms, giving him enough inspiration to stand up for himself and to Rambo later in the movie.
What stood out to me, especially as I rewatched the movie, was how little Spud’s romances held my attention. While his dalliances with Debbie (or Mermaid) and Amanda (his co-star in the play) drive much of the book and film’s action, they didn’t seem as interesting as I remembered them to be. In retrospect, these girls are figments of Spud’s imagination, mere playthings who remind us which stage of boyish milestones he’s hitting. There’s no doubt these tales of teenage love are cute — you’d have to be pretty soulless not to find Spud’s kiss with Debbie in the courtyard adorable. But the real intimacy of the film and book lie in the friendships, which are bursting with intensity and adventure. When Spud and Gecko are both in the sanatorium because they’re sick, we see them bond over the pills they have to take, Gecko’s stories about his eccentric life (“he’s had 42 different diseases, six unknown to medical science”) and his advice on love and relationships which don’t appear to be rooted in any real-life experience.
The film’s best scene arrives after Spud discovers that Amanda has been hooking up with another boy in the play. To help him give over his hurt, Gecko takes Spud on a hike near a hill by their school. When the boys reach the top, Gecko explains how he’s christened this spot overlooking the school and surrounding midlands “hell’s view”. With the song “Shadows” by the South African band eVoid playing in the background, Spud embraces Gecko as both boys stare into the horizon with the camera zooming out on them. It is a moment which cements the beauty of this friendship, which endures heartbreak, betrayal, trauma and eventually, death.
I thought back to the person I was when South Africa fell in love with Spud twice over. I considered just how different I happened to be from the 14-year-old who read the book during the winter holidays, to the 18-year-old who watched the movie at the Nu-Metro cinema at the end of Matric. My perception of all-boys schools had changed, mainly due to the news earlier that year of the horrible initiation practices being meted out at Parktown Boys High. I’d heard some weird stories of boys being forced to do “manhood-building” things from my friends, but this incident seemed particularly disturbing and bleak. As the years went by, my interest in these boys wained as I realised just how restrictive and uninteresting the concept of “manliness” really was.
As the world attempts to cohabit with this unruly virus and as people move on from revisiting their favourite childhood books, films and TV shows, it dawned on me that while looking back on Spud made me reminiscence about the youthful intimacy and joy of teenage friendship, it also made me mourn their simplicity. It wasn’t that I’d failed to make meaningful relationships after school — some of the best friendships I’ve made have come in adulthood, in fact. What I seemed to be grieving was the idea of an uncomplicated relationship which didn’t have to survive the test of distance, silent periods, romance, career, paranoia and envy. Shamefully enough, I missed not having to work so hard for something so good and consistent. I’d experienced wonderful friendships so I felt entitled to them in a way that made me feel like working for them was a sign of something gone wrong. To me, they were still these easy, cosmic things when in fact, they required more nurturing and love than I was probably willing to give.
When I look back, I’m unsure as to whether I should feel pride or concern that I don’t see too much difference between who those girls were then, and who I am now. Unlike them, I no longer desire whatever freedom or lust for life I assumed boys from single-sex schools had. I see the limitations of masculine expression, which also makes me appreciate how the girls at my school discovered a way to be themselves in spite of the strict codes of ladylike conduct by which we had to abide. But like those old versions of myself, the admiration and trust I have in friendship, my full-bodied belief in how transformative and life-changing they can be, even as I’ve lost some, gained a few or sat in in my own solitude, remains the same, if not stronger. As Spud concludes towards the end of the school year, these relationships, however difficult they may become, are usually worth whatever challenges they bring.
