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The African
Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) is sponsoring the first ever “Women in
Film Forum” in Lagos on June 16 and 17, 2010. The AWDF should be deeply
troubled by the treatment of women in Nigeria. But then, I am afraid,
Nollywood merely mirrors how society views and treats women. It is a
scandal that had been previously ignored in the reams of work by
(mostly male) Nigerian writers, and the pretend-art of the wretched
offerings of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA). Why are Nigerian
women treated so poorly and what should we do about it? The AWDF is not
advocating the censorship of Nollywood, but there is an opportunity to
collaboratively combat a problem. The answer is to begin to attack the
root of the problem until the mirror that is put to the disease begins
to reflect meaningful progress.

I have a love-hate
relationship with Nollywood videos. The several dozens I have watched
are usually crappy productions featuring awful cinematography and
overwrought acting. But you have to give it to the brains and brawns
behind the industry. Nollywood is a huge triumph for innovation, can-do
energy and entrepreneurship. Nollywood is a juicy slap in the faces of
those who stole the money that was promised for the arts. Without
Nollywood, we would have state sponsored monstrosities like the NTA and
her hapless offshoots. Dysfunction abhors a vacuum. Nollywood has
tapped into a hunger for real everyday entertainment and it has hit the
jackpot.

My wife loves
Nollywood videos. From the comfort of the lawns of America she views
the videos as a damning mirror of all that is wrong with our country.
You have to respect the multibillion naira industry that is Nollywood.
Say hello to Nigerian ingenuity and industry, as it reaps gold from the
trash dump of dysfunction

Nollywood mostly
celebrates patriarchy at its basest and most obscene. This is not a
call for faux feminism to rain opprobrium on Nollywood’s head.
Nollywood did not make up the violence, condescension and second class
status accorded women in Nigeria.

Art imitates
society’s ways. Indeed, the sense that a visitor gets upon spending a
few weeks in Nigeria is that Nigeria plods along on the strong backs of
women and children. In return, most of them are treated very poorly by
the patriarchy. In general, most women are taken for granted as if it
is the law. This message is reinforced quite robustly by Nollywood.

It takes getting
used to when you are visiting from a Western nation. Nigeria is a
patriarchy. What is wrong with that? There is plenty wrong with it as
it is currently practised. It is the past tense layered on the present.
This ought to change.

Nollywood is a
mean, brutally honest, crude mirror to Nigeria’s insides. And it is
ugly. In some respects even when it tries to rise above the seamy murk
that passes for life in Nigeria, it is even more revealing.

There is not just
a gap; there is a yawning chasm in the power equation between men and
women in Nigeria. The women who have escaped that gulag owe it to the
less fortunate women to push for change. I am not talking about
Eurocentric prattle about women empowerment, the one that attracts
dollars to NGOs with mission statements written to the test of dollars.
I am talking of a Nigerian centred strategy for treating women and
children with respect.

There is a huge
role here for our writers and Nigerian women who occupy leadership
roles in circumstances that are totally under their control.
Anecdotally, a high percentage of them use the new social networking
media alongside presumably their spouses and partners. Visit Facebook
and you will be impressed by the leadership role Nigerian women play in
facilitating online dialogue. The literary scene is also heavily
influenced by female writers. Under these conditions, Nollywood does
have a role to play that goes beyond merely mirroring what the society
looks like. We should collaborate more.

When it comes to
the welfare of women, Nigeria can be bipolar; what one sees is not
always the experience. As we speak, traditional relationships are under
attack.

Nollywood blurs the lines between stereotype, misogyny and reality.
In these videos, the women are portrayed as needy, aggressive,
sometimes not too bright and Machiavellian. They are dressed for the
kill, ready to be hunted down and killed, literally and figuratively.
The man is the sometimes benevolent giver; he also has the power to
take back what he has offered. Physical and emotional violence are used
to maintain control. And sometimes the demand on the woman is beyond
her powers: A male child is highly prized. Why are civil servants
prizing male offspring over females in the 21st century? Nollywood
won’t, can’t tell you. Their scripts lack any depth, spiritual or
intellectual. It is not Nollywood’s problem, the misogyny. Nigeria has
to fix how it views and treats her women. And then perhaps, Nollywood
will run out of material. And start really entertaining us.