Of Nollywood and Tyler Perry Movies

[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

Of NollyWood and Tyler Perry Movies

By Moses E. Ochonu

I have met several African Americans who either watch Nollywood movies or have people in their family who do.

At dinner the other day, one of our students said his mom can't get enough of those movies, and the visiting speaker, an African American scholar, said he's very much into Nollywood movies.

I've been trying to understand the popularity of Nollywood movies in Black America. The obvious but incomplete answer is that our African American cousins connect to the land, peoples, and cultures of their African ancestors through those movies.

But that answer is too simple.

I think the answer that Professor Farooq Kperogi gave during our conversation on the phenomenon is more satisfying, especially since, as he said, it's been backed by scholarly research.

To understand African Americans' love affair with Nollywood, you have to understand the popularity of the Tyler Perry movie franchise.

Some elitist critics and culture analysts laugh at the Tyler Perry's Madea series. They mock it for perpetuating ethnic and racial stereotypes, and have turned it into a punchline of jokes. But the movies in the series remain hugely popular in Black America and have made Tyler Perry a multimillionaire and the first Black person to own his own movie and TV studio in America.

What African Americans love in the Tyler Perry movies they also find and love in Nollywood movies--the melodrama, the over-the-top histrionics, the loud acting, the flat characters, and the moral lessons angle.

This may also explain why African diaspora populations in the Caribbean, Latin America, and other places love Nollywood movies.

I guess we're a loud, melodramatic people. 

The global rise and rise of Nollywood and Afrobeats need to be taken seriously and theorized thoughtfully.

Happy Black History Month y'all!

[Harrow, Kenneth]

the genres of nollywood that satisfy people's needs for entertainment might not be universal, but are resonant in the african american community along with africa. moses does a great job, and we'd have to add something about the portrayals of success in terms of big houses, cars, etc. also the  fears as in esoteric films with satanism etc. these tropes are certainly there in evangelical churches, which is sort of where nollywood got them from anyway. and it doesn't hurt that the major figures are now black, in a world where write stars are uber present

i think everything i said is also true of popular hollywood films, from sci fi (note black panther's presence in both worlds), to all those horror films. in africa zombie movies are now appearing (atlantiques)

and of course hollywood's thing about the beautiful ones—who are born only in the movies—and wealth and bourgeois life etc etc,, planes, fancy cars.

we are talking about popular cinemas, and not surprising that audiences have racial  prejudices that favor some over others.,

for instance, try getting into hong kong movies' humor, that turns on bathroom jokes. not for western audiecnes.

but i am writing to say, this popular side to film is only one side; there are african audiences for things besides nollywood, there are african films that are not popular entertainment features. lots of incredible great movies for whom the african audience is the first, and at times only audience, from most countries in africa now. those audiences exist everywhere. if not all we would have would be soap operas and melodramas.

which aint the case, here or there

independent black filmmakers, here and in africa; an important domain, although not as popular as the ----woods.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meoc...@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 2, 2023 3:49 PM
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Of Nollywood and Tyler Perry Movies

 

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[Moses Ochonu]

Ken,

Your point is well taken that this trans-Atlantic logic of reception and aesthetic kinship applies only to the popular, entertainment iteration of Nollywood and other African filmic expressions.

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 2, 2023, at 3:40 PM, Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu> wrote:



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[Moses Ebe Ochonu]

And this comment, below, is from Farooq, who commented on the topic on my Facebook page.

"Plus, like Tyler Perry movies, the storylines and plots of Nollywood movies are often uncomplicated, even simplistic, familiar, predictable and therefore more entertaining than Hollywood's comparatively convoluted storylines and plots. As we agreed when we talked about this, sometimes people just want to enjoy movies whose end they can predict from the very beginning. But there is another dimension to the popularity of Nollywood movies in American and the Caribbean Islands that I didn't know until recently. I teach a synchronous online graduate course at the University of Guyana, and we talked about this just last week. One of the Black students in the class (there are also students of Indian descent there) told me Nollywood movies are popular with the Black Diaspora in the Western Hemisphere because the ostentation, grandeur, and marble splendor they see in the movies are such comforting departures from the images of poverty and deprivation that have been habituated to associate with Africa. She says the movies deepen their racial pride and self-worth. I was blown away. I hadn't consciously thought of how Nollywood could be racially affirming for our long-lost brothers and sisters in the Western Hemisphere."

[Toyin Falola]

The power of soft diplomacy!

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[Okey Iheduru]

There are over 50 scholarly publications (of varying quality) on Nollywood films and Big Brother (Nigeria) as Nigeria's biggest (some say wasted) sources of "soft power" in regional and global politics. These two public interest pieces attempt to engage this debate about missed opportunities in Nigeria's foreign policy:

TFC Editor’s Opinion: The Unharnessed Potential of Nollywood as a Soft Power for the Nigerian State

Last updated: 2022/06/19 at 10:47 AM

Yousuph Grey - Managing Editor

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Nollywood as Soft Power for the Nigerian State

Soft power, a term popularized by the American scholar, Joseph Nye, in his 1990 book, ‘Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power’, has found its way into mainstream political and international relations discourse over the years. Nye had in his book argued that the “American popular culture, embodied in products and communications, has widespread appeal…This popular cultural appeal allowed the United States more opportunities to get its messages across and to affect the preferences of others.”

The soft power of a country has the ability to attract and co-opt other countries’ interests in the said nation rather than having to coerce. It helps to shape their preferences through appeal and attraction with the projection of the country’s popular culture. Recent history has shown that soft power can be used as a key tool for nations to expound their narratives, tilted or otherwise, to the unwitting audience in an attempt to build a certain degree of interest in the country. You cannot measure it but you cannot exert it in significant proportion.

Read more: https://thefilmconversation.com/tfc-editors-opinion-the-unharnessed-potential-of-nollywood-as-a-soft-power-for-the-nigerian-state/

Soft power or wasteful entertainment? Interrogating the prospect of ‘Big Brother Naija’

By: Akinola E. Akinlolu & Olusola OgunnubiPublished: 6 February 2020

 
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The authors explore the soft power prospects of Nigeria’s popular TV reality Show ‘BigBrotherNaija’ and investigate how the programme has helped to shape perceptions about the country. [photo: Big Brother Naiji on Facebook]

[This is an excerpt from an article in The Round Table: The Commonwealth Journal of International Affairs.]

In this era of globalisation, it is not just enough for states to rely on their traditional sources of power – military, size of the economy, population, and natural resources – in order to get the outcome they seek. States also need to improve on their capacity to make themselves ‘visible’ on the world map. For any state, being visible goes beyond creating awareness and seeking popularity, but includes increasing the capacity for attraction – engendering other states’ goodwill and admiration. Realising the necessity of attraction or creating a favourable image, many countries have set up ‘public diplomacy department along with their traditional Foreign Affairs Ministries. While a good number of other states have become clients of corporate brand management and lobbying firms so as to help facilitate the goal of branding their states as an economic powerhouse and a prosperous nation for doing business, and in order for them to favourably compete for international capital in areas of Foreign Direct Investments, import, and export flows. Soft power is the term widely used to describe this trend.

Read more: https://www.commonwealthroundtable.co.uk/commonwealth/africa/nigeria/soft-power-or-wasteful-entertainment-interrogating-the-prospect-of-big-brother-naija/

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Okey C. Iheduru

e-mail: okeyi...@gmail.com

Recently published:

"A ‘fateful compromise’? Transnational religious organizations and regional governance in Africa," Territory, Politics, Governance: A Journal of Regional Studies Association, DOI: 10.1080/21622671.2022.2160371