| Re: My lamentations for Yoruba Nollywood
KAYODE KETEFE
Since last week when my piece "Lamenting decline of Yoruba Nollywood" was published, in the National Mirror newspaper and simultaneously as "My lamentations for Yoruba Nollywood" in our vibrant USA AFRICA DIALOGUE SERIES, a deluge of reactions from readers, comprising an eclectic mix, had poured in. A number of these were denunciatory in intent and acidic in diction, accusing me, among other things, of not seeing anything good in the efforts of our indigenous and enterprising artistes. There were also reactions of moderate hues which sought to expand the horizon of discussion by offering additional enriching perspectives, while there were a few others who also agreed, almost on all fronts, with my postulations. My intent in this piece is to put the record straight by offering clarifications on some areas which had engendered controversies as well as purveying one of the reactions I found interesting. What actually led me to write the piece was a discussion with a friend who claimed to have bought ten Yoruba Nollywood videos and alas, nine of them featured supernatural elements that mocked reality. I watched some of them with him. While I won't give real examples, let me give fictitious imitations of the kind of storylines we usually encounter. A banker who had offended somebody put money he had taken on loan in the safe in his room, then an incensed spirit materialised in the dead of the night and took the money away! A lady who was looking for husband for many years later became desperate and despite warning that she needed more patience, she picked the next wealthy guy that came along only to discover that the man was a corpse, who had died many years before, but took on a living human form! Let any intelligent person tell me if that is the way the real world operates. I venture to think every profession has some responsibilities that inherently devolve on it - these filmmakers are supposed to be social educators, but pray, would a child who had been constantly fed on the staple of superstitions, magic and empirically unverifiable assumptions like that turn out to be a highly rational adult with a profound analytical mind?
. Some people also accused me of "wrongly" ascribing emergence of Nollywood to Yoruba artistes. This point ought not to generate any controversy as it could easily be resolved by appeal to history. The pioneers in the indigenous filmmaking in Nigeria (with the celluloid filming technonogy) were legends like late Hubert Ogunde, Ola Balogun, Kola Ogunmola, Duro Ladipo, et al. Even when the home-video revolution occurred, it was started by late Alade Aromire and his Oriire Productions before the emergence of the more business-minded compatriots who now claim to have started Nollywood. Be that as it may, now I reproduced below a reaction from Mr. one, Mr. Connor Ryan, whose submissions I found interesting on the grounds that it expands the scope of discussion instead of degenerating into unnecessary vulgar abuses and ad hominem vituperations, like some reactions. Mr. Connor Ryan (via the USA Africa Dialogue series) wrote "Ogbeni Ketefe, I agree with a number of the points you make. I also agree subtitling could be improved, though I don't think the subtitles hinder a viewer's comprehension of the film. And the titles do have many misspellings. The film I am watching this morning is advertised on the cover jacket as "O'meko," which should really be "O ò m'Eko." The mistake is corrected in the opening credits, and the theme song leaves no doubt as to the meaning. But from my experiences, viewers grab the meaning of the titles in spite of spelling mistakes. Like you, I am also troubled when Yoruba videos collapse incredibly rich and complex traditions of thought, such as Ifa divination, into scenes of banal magic or occult dealings. There are some who are arguing against this reduction of traditional Yoruba culture to mere superstition on the screen. But this point on cultural representation sidesteps what I take to be your main critique, which is that Yoruba videos do not take social education as its responsibility. The freedom of creativity afforded to producers of popular culture is a hallmark of Nollywood. It is an industry that never envisioned itself within the paradigms of filmmaking that predominated in canonical African cinema. We frequently are reminded of Sembene Ousmane's adage that his films were "the night school" of Africa. In films audiences could see the source of their alienation and oppression revealed. Nollywood filmmakers have refused these terms of filmmaking and embraced the freedom to shoot whatever stories compel them and their audience. They don't seek to plunge down to the root of social immiseration, or bring us to a higher, idealist plane of understanding. They rest at the surface of everyday life and discover the romance, pleasure, misfortune, and humor that exist there. Yes, Yoruba films are disjointed, self-contradictory, and messy. Yes, they are produced to give viewers pleasure. Yes, they are fixated on the superficial: money, sexy women, sexy men, flashy cars, fine cloths. But I am more drawn to what film critic Siegfried Kracauer says about the "distractions" of popular culture. The audience encounters itself in these films, insofar as they encounter the fragmented, disintegrated, and contradictory nature of social reality. More so than the refined culture of scholars and artists, popular culture is more intimately related with the people who buy and enjoy it. Visiting Idumota market, where the Yoruba industry is based, one could not get a more clear sense that the videos live embedded in their social reality. These videos are not mirror reflections, but one sees in them the contradictions of everyday life. If these contradictions remained hidden, then audiences could not choose to dispute, attack, or change them. The Yoruba comedies are particularly good at revealing such contradictions while making light of them. There are dozens of videos about the exigencies of life in Lagos (Alejo Eko, Eko'go, Ipaja si Idumota ninu BRT, Keke NAPEPE are the most recent I can find). We laugh of the misfortunes the characters face, and we are never taught a lesson about ameliorating the social conditions of Lagos. We couldn't be farther from responsible filmmaking, and yet there is social preoccupations embedded in the depictions of the latest fashions and technology, relations between poor and wealthy, Lagosian Yoruba dialect, the experience of alienation in the city, and so on. These videos are far from banal, and that they are suffused with magic and humor is part of their virtue. In any film or play reality is refracted (or "distorted) through the film/play's project of representation. In the genres most common in Nollywood, reality is refracted through melodramatic codes, supernatural deus ex machina, and comedic caricature. Whatever lesson or instruction they depart to viewers is offered not from above but from below; it grows out of the common place stories that the videos depict".
Published today, Thursday, January 17, 2013, on page 17 of National Mirror newspaper.
|
You received this message because you are subscribed to the "USA-Africa Dialogue Series" moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin.
For current archives, visit http://groups.google.com/group/USAAfricaDialogue
For previous archives, visit http://www.utexas.edu/conferences/africa/ads/index.html
To post to this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com
To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to USAAfricaDialogue-
unsubscribe@googlegroups.com
No comments:
Post a Comment