Our Culture, Our Movies – Nollywood as a Global Soapbox by Will Noelle

I’m a movie junkie. In fact, it’s fair to say that I’m a movie nut. I mean I’ll watch almost anything and I love almost all genres (except musicals). But honestly, I feel a special pride when I’m watching good African movies. You know the ones I’m talking about: the rich; entertaining stories that show Africans as the multi-faceted and diversely-dynamic people that we are.

In the West, images of Africa are largely negative and frequently substantiate Western stereotypes of the “Continent In Chaos,” and though most of the TV news stories might contain elements of truth, their camera lenses often only point in one direction. African movies point all directions.

The success of Nollywood Movies with Africans in Diaspora is evidence of this. It is consumed worldwide by a starved audience finally getting their serving of film entertainment that’s relevant to their experiences, dreams and hopes. But Africans aren’t the only viewers feasting on these stories, and this often makes me think about the content of this fresh global export. What messages are we sending, artistically and culturally?

If you want to see a Nollywood film, chances are you can get it anywhere. These movies are everywhere; they’re available for purchase online, they’re even in-flight entertainment options on Virgin Atlantic flights. Our contemporary African culture and lifestyle are visible for everyone to see. There’s no denying it, Nollywood is currently Africa’s global Soapbox.

And while, I am ecstatic that we are defining our own image within the global media landscape, I feel a little jaded by the filmatic efforts of many Nollywood producers whose movies duplicate Western movies. A large majority of the romance movies I’ve seen from Nollywood are reflective of this idea. I’ve seen Nollywood romance movies that really have no structure to them whatsoever, except for the fact that the word “love” is thrown so loosely in the course of the narrative, you have no appreciation for what that means within the African context.

Don’t get me wrong there have been some really good yarns that give us insight into the reality of romantic relationships in Nigeria. One notable mention is a film called Just Before the Wedding, which follows the friendship of four young Nigerian men, three of which are bachelors facing the pressures of getting married and starting their families. What’s refreshing about this comedy-drama is its lack of pretentious dialogue. The guys relay a rarely seen male perspective in Nollywood romance movies, while conversing freely about love and sex in pidgin English.

There are quite a few other Nollywood movies that have successfully communicated the idiosyncrasies of the contemporary African without pandering to this notion that an African romantic narrative should be as Western as possible to be successful. I’m not saying that our movies shouldn’t have some common cultural threads within them, only that we should be in our African movies as we are in life – authentic, unapologetic and culturally dynamic.