Nollywood Films’ Depiction of the Nigerian Society: A Reflection or Distortion of Reality?

Abstract

The Nigerian video film industry - codenamed Nollywood - has been criticised on various bases. One of such bases is the myth that, its productions insidiously tarnish the image of Nigeria on the international scene. Related to this criticism is the claim that these films are in the most part over exaggerated stories which distort the Nigerian socio-cultural reality and mislead foreign audiences into seeing Nigeria in a bad light. Although true to a category of Nigerian films, this reading must be nuanced for at least two reasons: first, reality is a complex concept which may, in some contexts, even be very elusive; second, films are theoretically speaking a window into their society of origin. Although make-believe, they do have elements of reality. All may depend on the definition the Nollywood film critic or audience gives to reality. In this conceptual paper, a systematic review of secondary sources and critical observations are used to examine how Nigerian films’ ability to reflect or distort the Nigerian socio-political reality is fuelling the social debate on Nollywood’s contribution to the Nigerian image crisis.

Keywords

• nigerian image crisis
• nollywood film industry
• reality
• media literacy
• cinematic representation
• perception