By
Obododimma
oha
Nollywood is
thriving, doing exciting things to keep its staggering domestic audience. Part
of this audience magic of Nollywood is in costuming: expensive beads lavishly
donned by the cast of a film, their almost exaggerated body tattoos and marks,
the traditional ruler seated on an expensive golden throne in a grove or
thatched “palace” and called “king,” the land he is ruling called “a kingdom,”
even though it is clearly a bush with sprinklings of thatched huts, with
arteries of bush paths. You cannot see a single industry where the beads are
made or where the expensive cloth is woven. Yet, it is a “kingdom.” Members of
the Council are swinging their horsewhips or cow tails and the villagers are
moving about half-nude. Yes, that is fiction of fiction Number One. The
community is called “a kingdom.” What is a kingdom, after all? It could also be
part of the fiction being presented. The ruler may frequently talk of “my
kingdom” or “this kingdom.” You must be a circus simpleton to begin to look for
“this kingdom” in a story book!
OK, why is it
not “a kingdom”? Does it not have “a king,” even if no such absolute kings ever
existed in spite of Igbo enwe eze (Igbo have no kings). The kings are made in the image of an oba,
with palace guards and all that. The “kings” can banish anyone or take over a
man’s wife, and no one can speak against that without thinking of his wrath.
The king is a consuming fire and his subjects know it. If that is not enough
evidence, just look at members of his household. He may have a prince who
likewise is an untouchable and may spoil if he so pleases. He is followed
around by palace guards. His wife, the queen, is also very powerful and
commands an army of guards. His daughters have guards clearing the way for them
and could spoil terribly. Don’t dream of asking for their hands in marriage, if
you are of a low estate. You could be banished or tortured for that. Yes, look
at the Igbo Igwe in the Nollywood film and you see fiction at work. Moreover,
it is fiction construted from fiction, a different reality all together. You
must suspend your disbelief that this is not the Igbo local politics that you
know.
In order to
make this fiction of fiction more admirable, what strategies are employed?
First, loaning. One culture borrows from another. For money, not out of mere
admiration or assimilation. The director thinks of what is in the vogue and in
the market. Maybe at some point borrowing may be discarded or the financial
pursuit ruptured.
There could,
of course, be an experimental desire. I am careful not just to call it a
creative strategy! It is informed by the desire to experiment, to try something
out. The “Kabiyesi” model (or Kingdom design) transplanted helps us to see if it
can work in another context where we think it is out of place.
Yet there is
other secondary fictionalisation in Nollywood that could make one raise
eyebrows. In this case, a known Hollywood film is taken and given the same or
related title, with a related story. This is close to plagiarism and has little
or no originality to it. The local audience may be ignorant of the
international original and would be excited with the local version. Just a
local content is enough adjustment! A film like What Women Want, a Hollywood film starring Mel Gibson, would have
Nollywood versions like Wetin Women Want,
What Do Women Really Want? What a Woman Wants, What All Women Want, etc. The cast and the supporting local story
make the difference.
In the age of
relativism, it becomes pretty difficult to call a plagiarism by its name.
Perhaps, one has to identify this practice tentatively as “copy-copy,”
borrowing that redupication of a name from my children who can tell an original
from an imitation. Copy-copy practice has a way of taking intertextuality for
granted.
In a society
where speeches and party slogans could be made in the image of the originals,
reminding one of Plato’s notion of art as an imitation of reality, or of being
twice-removed from reality, why would a film not be a fictionalization of an
existing fiction? It is an art, honestly.
By the way,
wetin women want? Abi dem wan kill pesin? Abi pesin neva try? What (wetin)
women want in the periphery may be different from what they want at the centre.
It is wrong for them to want centre treatment in the periphery! They can be
presidents at the centre, but no such thing at the periphery! Are our ancestors
no longer on guard? Wetin women want, abeg?
The making of
fiction out of fiction strikes me like parasitism, not as art. Do not go to
religious music in Nigeria. Just don’t go there! The Holy Spirit as the
universal author neutralizes what you call “copyright” and makes one musician
change a Voice of the Cross composition to a new album and still sell it to
make money. Holy Spirit ataala ahụhụ (Holy Spirit Has undergone untold
hardship)! No problem. Fiction and fiction are collocates. Nollywood knows collocates
and strings them together.
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