68-Year-Old Gomora’s Mam’Sonto, The Best Gangster On TV Right Now
Veteran actress Connie Chiume’s role as Mam’Sonto on Gomora has been well received by fans who are constantly glued to their small screens just to see what the shebeen queen/crime boss is up to.
Connie Chiume has been on our small screens for some time now. From playing the strong and soft maternal figures to spiteful women and now to crime Queen pin.
Mam’Sonto even makes the act of eating an apple look scary, she can smile at you, before pulling out a knife on you.
For what seemed like the longest while, TV has been awash with patriarchal figures doing the most, getting the challenging roles and getting to be the resident baddies.
Most female baddies on TV always have a femme fatal element to them, use se.x or the promise of se. x to get the hatchet job done.
Those roles are usually given to younger and sometimes thinner women, n which has really become an eye-roll.
Mam’Sonto ain’t about that life though
The fact that she’s the last character you would expect to be a gangster at that age and being female, makes it more interesting.
She’s ice cold and she doesn’t hesitate to use it when the event calls for it.
There is a tendency to throw love interests at strong female characters to mellow them down, it’s like TV writers sometimes forget women don’t need love interests to show their softer and nurturing side.
We’re glad Gomora writers didn’t decide to go down this route with Sonto, that would have pretty much sucked, I mean, it wouldn’t bode well for the character to go through dubious love triangles or pining for a man and forget to count her bills.
She might have feelings too but that’s sort of not the whole point of her character.
We would normally expect her to be seated in her throne of power and giving orders to her henchwoman, but she also goes down the trenches.
Sonto is reminiscent of old-school Mafia dons on TV, absolutely wicked but deeply religious. That is a contrast itself but she takes her faith seriously, even though it’s warped.
With Connie Chiume pushing for 70 years, it’s hard to believe she could pull off the role of a hardened and ruthless crime boss, but she executes the role with so much flair.
Sonto doesn’t let sentimental stuff get to her head, she’s the woman who contemplated killing her own daughter Thathi to cover up her tracks.
It’s refreshing to see women who aren’t always breaking down into tears left and right on TV, or whose role is to prop up the males.
Connie Chiume’s Sonto is not a role that serves to prop up the male characters or compliment them, it’s a role within itself, which doesn’t need cheerleaders
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