Johannesburg — Hlubi Mboya, all 1.53m and 46kg of her, minces around the Isidingo production offices in high-heeled boots, jabbering about being grateful to Charlize Theron.
"Charlize has paved the way for me. I want to win an Oscar. I think I can go that far," says the exuberant 26-year-old soap opera star - and she is not likely to let her diminutive frame, or anything else, get in her way.
Ten years ago Mboya was in Grade 11 at Rustenburg Girls' High School in Cape Town, head of its debating society, house captain and a sub-prefect who played Western Province hockey and "simply looooved" school.
South African soap opera had been on air for two years, with the first broadcast of Egoli going out on M-Net on April 6 1992. Mboya watched the wheelings and dealings at Walco "now and then", but had no dreams of being an actress.
Today she is part of a competitive industry that has spawned five home-grown soapies, with others waiting in the wings.
As a soapie star, Mboya is a media darling, featured in one magazine after another, holding forth about her favourite Johannesburg suburb or fencing speculation about which designer will clinch the deal to dress her character, Nandipha, for her upcoming - and much-awaited - TV wedding.
In many ways, Mboya has potentially changed the lives of millions of South Africans. "Nandipha is a girl who has gone from being a maid to a TV presenter to an HIV/Aids ambassador - it reflects the South Africa we live in," she says. "If Nandipha can do it, then anyone can do it and it gives people hope; you can easily live the dream."
Mfundi Vundla, creator of SABC1's Generations and the original producer of e.tv's Backstage, is bolder. "I came along and I showed Africans who are in complete control of their lives... I am probably a beneficiary of this transforming society. In a way, I am like my characters."
Prior to Generations ' first broadcast on February 3 1994, black people on television were always caught in a quagmire, victims of circumstances beyond their control, depicted only in working-class dramas in which, Vundla says, "life was just a maze of complications, with no solutions".
Now it's a different picture. Generations characters Karabo and Tau are more than simply the South African versions of the characters in the US soap The Bold and the Beautiful.
Says Vundla: "These people we see [in Generations ] are the vanguard of the first generation of the African bourgeoisie in the making. It's a process, it's happening. Society is transforming and the bourgeoisie is becoming more and more entrenched. They are the torchbearers of a transforming society, and our characters reflect this."
But the power of soapies in our society goes beyond a mere depiction of torchbearers. They don't just show aspects of our lives; they are a repetitive, interactive experience.
As Reinet Louw wrote in Egoli 2000, a commemorative book celebrating eight years of the soap: " Egoli has become part of our local culture, the way our culture is part of Egoli."
Professor Magriet Pitout of Unisa, who specialises in media studies and popular culture, refers to viewers' involvement in soapies as "parasocial interaction", or "intimacy at a distance".
"Viewers talk aloud with characters and some get emotionally involved to the extent that they are moved to tears and physical action," she says.
Said one participant from a focus group established by Pitout for her doctorate research on Egoli : "I was like a referee that night with the fight between [ Egoli characters] Kay and Sonet. When they were hitting one another, I actually jumped up and down and said, 'now hit her this way and hit her that way'. I really got involved that night. My husband said to me, 'Please sit down before you break something in the house.' "
Pitout says viewers have a "built-in compulsion" to find out about forthcoming events. Soaps, she says, have become "a forum for addressing important social and political changes", providing models for changing racist attitudes. She notes how Egoli started with a coloured woman being pregnant with a white man's child.
Isidingo, however, has become the soap which best mirrors South Africa's evolving democracy. Says the show's executive producer and creator, Gray Hofmeyr: "We're the most representative. We deal with the realities of South Africa and I don't think any of the others do. Isidingo reflects the issues of the country - that's where we pitch ourselves. Isidingo is rooted in reality."
Backstage, on the other hand, attempts to provide role models for its mostly younger viewers. e.tv's executive producer, Deva Britow, says Pam Andrews' character, Frankie, going back to school after overcoming her drug addiction is the type of positive behaviour the soapie tries to advocate.
All the local soapies claim to be sticking to their brief of reflecting the changing South Africa, yet each is different - which perhaps is an acknowledgment of the many faces of the country.
Egoli has always featured a mixed cast and "has a strong aspirational arc, in a storyline about sophisticated, rich people", says the show's creator, Franz Marx.
It also gathers its stories from current affairs, including one scene a week that reflects a topical issue - such as the date of the elections.
When the 9/11 attacks happened, Egoli "dropped in a scene" on the day itself, Marx brags.
7de Laan [Seventh Avenue] takes a different tack - it always features at least one comic storyline among its interweaved plots.
"There are two things people like about 7de Laan - you can relax and relate," says its originator and producer, Danie Odendaal, who directed the first episode of Egoli.
Inspired by Odendaal's regular breakfasts in a coffee shop in Melville, Johannesburg, the soap is based on the community he saw traipsing past while he munched on bacon and eggs.
"People would love to live in '7de Laan'. We've had people driving from Bloemfontein to have coffee in Oppiekoffie [the coffee shop featured in the show]," Odendaal says.
And, he says, the scriptwriters have to be super-alert - it's not unheard of to get a call from a judge or medical specialist pointing out a teeny flaw in the soap's depiction of a legal or medical matter.
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Backstage, says Britow, has managed to grab its young, black audience with its "authenticity".
"We want to be very real in terms of how we deal with the students [at the performing arts school featured in the show ] and their day-to-day issues. We want to show audiences a side to life they are familiar with."
This show, too, is kept on its toes by viewers who complain about the coloured characters being portrayed as gangsters.
" Backstage is now reflective of what we refer to as South Africa's rainbow nation," says Britow.
Interestingly, viewers are not so loyal. In the weekday soapie slot of 6.30pm, 4.6 million South Africans are watching television on an average day.
And 3.4 million of them are watching Isidingo, Backstage or 7de Laan.
Stats reveal that they switch among these three. Whichever one has the strongest storyline at that point is holding viewers' attention.
When actor Deon Coetzee rode through the platteland in his bakkie to find his wife in the opening scene of the first episode of Egoli 12 years ago, it was a thrilling moment for South African television. But Marx and his team at M-Net had no idea of the impact they would make.
Today South African soap opera is an industry, a source of immense entertainment for millions and a breeding ground for academics to delve into for its depiction of our society.
And it's spawned the likes of Mboya, a star who dreams - along with many South Africans - of even more.
