DIGNITY OR SUPPRESSION: WOMEN’S PORTRAYAL IN THUNDERBOLT NOLLYWOOD HOME MOVIES
INTRODUCTION
1.1. Background to the study
Film has been in existence since time immemorial, it serves many generations as a tool of understanding and passing across vital information and ideas generated by individual different communities. Since some people lack reading cultures, there is a need to engage films to disseminate information to the public for better understanding. Film, in the generic sense is the basis of all motion picture forms and most pervasive form of communication and entertainment in the postmodern world, Tomase (2005).
Films play an important role in the fabric of our society. It is like a food which people cannot joke with, because of the satisfaction of hunger. The need to ensure that ideologies and values that need public participation is transformed into social thinking and debate has been a serious concern to people and governments. To avail themselves this golden opportunity, they resorted to various films which are extensively used because of the important role they play in the comity of nations, especially on how they command extensive audience participation. Films transpose the discourse of social life into cinematic narratives, Ryan and Keller (1988). The film producers are supposed to be deeply rooted in the language and culture of its audience. The manner adopted by film producers to express themselves in various languages of their choices is very important to the audience because they show the importance of understanding the message the producer of any film is passing across to audience. Film is a popular cultural form which is regarded as a gauge of social attitudes and change, Kuhn (1990).
Masoud (2010) defines film as the currency of intellectual debate. Films help the audiences both old and new to rethink their places in the world and critically motivate them to do something about the injustice and exploitation to which they are witnessed Pietari (2013).
From the foregoing, it is suffice to say that film is a subtle way in which producers utilize to express their opinions to the public.
In spite of the magnitude of film as a powerful vehicles for moulding public opinion and determining people’s perception of social reality, it is worrisome that women are unfairly portrayed in Nigerian home videos .Nigeria is still dominated by stereotyped portrayal of gender relations and negative images of women. The explosion in the number of local video films is truly astounding. Aihe (1996:7) cited Chinyere (2013) points out that at least one video film enters the market every week . According to him “The result is that in a single year since the past three years, more than three hundred local films have been pumped into the Nigerian market”. The negative images of women by the large local home video films producers have eroded the positive feelings of the audience both within and outside the country. This has made a growing number of Nigerian women have in recent years expressed misgivings about the portrayal of women in Nigerian home video films (Ezeigbo, 1996: Layor, 1995).
To investigate the representation and images of women in Nigerian film, this research will adopt a thematic and semiotic analysis of Nigerian film of ‘’Thunderbolt’ (2000) produced by Tunde Kilani ,one of the films belonging to Nollywood . This popular film belongs to the melodramatic genre that characterizes contemporary filmmaking in Nigeria. Most interestingly, despite the films is characterized with socio-cultural history, it employs the genre and theme in relation to women’s position in the narrative structure.
The selection of this film is based on its popularity, which occurs due to the popularity of the filmmaker, more importantly the melodramatic, heartwarming plot, love and narrative of the film. The film revolves about two different tribes in which the protagonist (woman) proves to her husband beyond any reasonable doubt of her love and hope that two different tribes can live in harmony in spite of their cultural differences. The film portrays a woman is loyal to her family vows and abhor any sort of sexuality outside marriage. Thunderbolt is decidedly progressive. It is beyond any doubt that the audience’s identification with Ngozi as a (relatively) strong female main character somewhat subverts societal norms of male dominance.
This examination of sexual politics is suitable to the video-film’s overarching discourse of modern (or Western) beliefs versus African tradition. While it is somewhat Western in its treatment of sexual politics, however, it sides overtly with traditional beliefs in many other ways. The film portrays a modern African woman educated and well-to-do, and she works instead of staying home to take care of her baby, and her modern beliefs nearly cause her downfall, as she scoffs at the idea that she has been placed under some sort of curse. it is faster-paced, more focused on character psychology, and far more melodramatic than canonical films.
This study indicates empirical evidence to support or disprove such misgivings of women in our society. This is demonstrated by the widespread condemnation of violent and socially deviant contents of the Nigerian films, stereotyped and negative portrayals of vulnerable social groups like women. The film narrates mystical love victimization.
Theoretically, this research employs the feminist perspective to identify the images of women in the selected film using the semiotics approach as its method. Semiotics concepts are applied when analyzing the film. Semiotics as originated from linguistics can be applied to cinema although care must be taken when doing so because cinematic language is not like the normal verbal language in everyday use Abubakar (2014)
