Nollywood and Nigerian Scholarship

Emem Isong; source: pinterest.com

(Isiguzo Destiny)--Nollywood is over 20 years; yet many Nigerian scholars are not keen on using Nigerian films as references for their researches. What is the way forward?

In a survey this reporter took in University of Lagos on 2014/2015 session final year projects students, it was shocking to discover that most of the literary and theatre art students centered their research on creative literature e.g. novel, play, poetry, and literary criticism and there was an overwhelming neglect on Nigerian motion pictures.

Even up to post-graduate level, there is an insignificant research going on in Nollywood films. Though the model and case study can be said to be inadequately representational of Nigerian scholars, it goes a long way in revealing the aloofness of Nigerian academia on Nollywood films. This may have informed why one of the foremost and reputable journals in Africa: African Literature Today, chose film as the theme of its 28th edition but unfortunately, Nollywood received little complimentary remarks.

The bulk of critiques we have today on Nollywood are championed by film journalists especially in the print and new media and most of them are not dissected critically. Most of their works are interpretations of the plot and storyline and lacks in-depth analysis.

This conspicuous neglect of Nollywood is as a result of what these intelligentsias termed the “exhaustible nature” of Nollywood films. They argued that for criticism to worth its salt, the text must be inexhaustible, having the ability to have multi-dimensional approaches to it, and most importantly must be able to generate arguments and controversies.

While decrying this situation, in one of his essays on Nollywood entitled “Literature Review: Nigerian and Ghanaian Videos”, Jonathan Haynes pointed out that academic literature on Nigerian films are but few, scholars on films in Nigeria hardly make reference to others but however admitted that the comatose in Nollywood industry over the decades negatively affected academic criticism of Nigerian films.

Supporting this view, Biodun Jeyifo said: “For everything in Nollywood is cheap to the point of excess. In plain terms, and as far as I am aware in well documented comparative profiles of the national film traditions of the planet, Nollywood leads the rest of the world in how cheaply, how quickly and how effortlessly films are produced and released”.

On the other hand, others believe that the Industry has done remarkably well and should be patronized by these critics. Tayo Elesin remarks that “I think Nigerian movies are getting better and better every day. This is an industry that is about 20 years old and it has recorded remarkable progress in the time frame”. However he admonished and hopes that “…with more training for actors, producers, directors and structure put in place, the industry has the ability to make more progress in future. For instance, we need agents and managers who will deal with contracts so that artistes don’t have to be bogged down by these things”.

Speaking with a Literature post-graduate student of Lagos State University who begged for anonymity, the scholar admitted that he has never thought of doing any research on Nollywood because he does not see Nollywood as a veritable area that will yield good research results. When asked if he has been following Nollywood or patronising them recently, he concluded he could not bring himself to watch Nollywood films for what he called nauseating production.

This reveals the fact that most of the scholars have lost touch with Nollywood owing to its formal reputation for recklessness; and are unaware of the revolution going on in Nollywood industry.

Agoola Adesanya, a lecturer in Lagos State University’s Mass Communication Department who recently worked on Ije and Mr and Mrs revealed that he changed his mind on Nollywood after seeing Ije and Mr and Mrs. According to him “I use to believe all Nigerian movies are heaps of rubbish and nothing good can come out of them, though this position is right when you look at Nollywood‘ s recent past, but this orientation has changed. I worked on Ije and Mr and Mrs and it was published in an international journal. I feel sanity is gradually returning to Nollywood and I think it’s high time they took leverage of this new reputation”.

Apart from these two movies, there are a whole lot of Nigerian films with deepened or improved qualities according to film critics reviews. Last Flight to Abuja, Figurine, October 1, Phone Swap, and Dry are just few from the long list of films with deepened quality.

Adesanya noted that this improvement will surely attract the academic scholars who alb-initio were discouraged from engaging in scholarly enterprise with Nollywood films. Jonathan Haynes noted the importance of scholarship ventures in Nollywood when he averred that film impacts almost all sectors of the society from language, to health, ecology, politics and even economy.

Nigerian scholars’ continuous neglect of Nollywood, as widely believed by critics imposes great danger on the life span of Nollywood. But again, Nollywood film makers must sustain the tempo of quality film making which according to Moradewun Adejunmobi must be charted towards local and global appeal.

According to Adejunmobi “Audiences for Nigerian video film, as for other commercially driven texts, respond above all to perceptions of substantive relevance, that is to outcomes presented as having implications for the interests or concerns of viewers, and presented as having implications for the interests or personal, social and political circumstance of viewers. Paradoxically, both the desires for escape from everyday life and the desire for relevance to everyday concerns are high on the list of reasons why people consume commercial fiction”. This also applies to the academic critics who are looking for inexhaustible materials for their criticism.

Again, Nollywood and Nigerian literary scholars must have a symbiotic relationship as proposed by Ernest Emenyonu where as literary critics are giving Nollywood in-depth attention, Nollywood must reciprocate by adapting creative works into motion pictures in order to sustain the interests of these scholars.