Since the emergence of Nollywood and the Ghana Film industry, I have often read with much surprise and reservation the confidence with which film scholars around the world have poked at gender representations and portrayals in African film.
The African film has become the new toy over which research funding is profusely lavished. And in its wake, scores of papers are gleaned daily from these films supposedly enlightening us about the role of women in African society!
On many occasions, even black film scholars, in my opinion, have fallen for this sort of analysis and proceeded to dissect African films in ways that do not at all reflect the collective work of the filmmakers, the actors/actresses and the producers in Ghana or Nollywood. For instance, how can anyone claim and assert simple conclusions about an industry that produces more than 50 films per week in more than 40 different languages? Nollywood alone, since the mid 1990s, has churned out more than 45,000 films.
More recently I came across this ‘scholarly paper’ (whatever this means) that insisted that African movies were patriarchally motivated and that women were portrayed in a negative light. African films, the paper claimed, fail at depicting women in ways that evaluate the sordid reality of things in the real world. The writer went on alleging that women in most
African films resort to the use of charms superstitiously believed to embody magical powers like juju to get what they want. Moreover, women are portrayed in criminal and other evil tendencies like prostitution, roguery traits among other character portrayals, with excessive or irrational devotion as the activities which eventually ruin them.
Alas, from watching how many Nollywood films?
The funny thing is, on one hand when I watch Nollywood films, I see men portrayed in a similar light – juju men, con men, criminals, hypocritical charismatic pastors, fetish priests, murderers, rapists, and so on and so forth, notwithstanding all the other many positive portrayals of both men and women in African film. I understand that research has to start from somewhere but I feel that for most of these external critics of African film it starts from a presumption that African society must mirror previous studies elsewhere – reflections of societies elsewhere, like Hollywood. That is wrong, and certainly picking up on a couple of movies from Nollywood can only at best, serve as case studies.
But researchers do not adore case studies as mush as they do parochial generalization about stuff they could never understand enough, let alone make meaningful conclusions about. At the very least could it be ever acceptable that generalizations cannot be made – that the African film industry is as complex and intricate as Mechanics – that what may seem to work at the atomic level may not apply at the planetary scale?
Or is there really a universal law that governs it? And if so, in what right is the external researcher positioned to make elaborate declarations about a body of work emanating from a culture they could only possibly stand at a distance and poke at.
Your thoughts?
In order to understand some of the meaning behind the movies produced, you have to have some sort of understanding about the culture, which is why it may be hard for Western researchers to say anything about African films.
And like you said, with 50+ movies a week in Nollywood alone, I’m not sure anyone can keep up enough to make a conclusion about the industry as a whole. But we could say the same about Hollywood. Who watches all the dvd movies or even the ones that tank at the box office? So maybe one could make a generalization about the hits or movies in a particular genre, but not the industry as a whole.
Most definitely, I think researchers on Hollywood are culprits of the ‘scientific generalizations’. There’re so many movies that come out of in the USA that do not see the light of the theater. But often people would make conclusions about what they’ve seen in all of Hollywood, when indeed it’s what they’ve probably decided to see.
African Culture is a beast, I must say. It’s hard to digest it in one bite. Even harder to discuss in a mouthful. I think, well-thought out ethnography and anthropology may be more appropriate and practical to giving us specific understandings of the pieces rather than the retarded effortless conclusions many outside researchers make about African films and for that matter, African Culture.
Reading the quote from the ‘scholarly paper’ you addressed here, it is clear that this scholar’s idiosyncrasies about African culture are deep rooted etching my belief that most of them, if not all, may never understand African Culture. To call African tradition and religions Superstitions, is ‘retarded’. And the analysis from thence must only be biased. No need to even address it.
Don’t they love to go to Africa, live in Gugukangdeiedssjseeeeerpuah, some village just on the fringe of the Sahara, write a couple or papers and say, this is Africa, this is African Culture+++? Isn’t this their specialty. Laugh and mock other people so they can bask in their civilization and feel good about themselves?
Some people need other people to look bad to look good. If that makes any sense!
I am glad you pointed this issue out. It’s sad when other people think b’cos they’ve got pens, paper and a computer in a big building built on the back of slavery, they are the only ones fit to say anything about anything.
Ok, so you don’t want other people to say or write anything about your culture. What’re you doing about it yourselves? You don’t write nor read and when others take the initiative, you complain. What at all do you guys want?
Gonna act like you did not just say ‘you don’t read or write’. So you take initiative to write b*llsh*t abt other people’s cultures? Is that what you mean? Oh, I get it… that really makes a lot of sense.
So why can’t African scholars, I mean the ones in Africa write about their own industry?
Cos maybe there are better things to do? Like chill out on the beach, hang out with ur kids, BBQ and sleep?
Jack is such a twit. Must we as Africans be doing something about our cultures? Is this idiot stating that there’s something wrong with our African cultures? Has he and the other foreigners finished dealing with their own culture? nonsense! we don’t need any foreigner analysing our cultures for us. we will do it when we want to. mboasem!
Interesting arguments. Still though, African films will have to be studied.