When I typed in ‘Nollywood’ on the computer, that red line which usually appears when you spell a word wrongly, underlined it (I just hissed and added the word to dictionary) which means that it is not a recognized word. The only option MS Word gave was Hollywood. I hissed again. After all, Nollywood is just a sorry imitation of Hollywood and the rather pathetic part is that we keep psyching ourselves as the third best movie making industry in the world. It’s because other countries do not have ‘wood’ added to the name of their movie industries and they did not even call us the third best, they said third largest because we can produce 50 movies in one day! That is fifty unrealistic English C.D’s that will have parts one and two. It is bad enough that we have ‘copied’ their name but it’s completely unacceptable to make movies that are archaic and infuriatingly unrealistic. I am tired of stressing the fact that Hollywood is a place; more like a film village or even city because in Hollywood, if they need to make a movie about a storm or sea, they do not have to go to the sea, as in the real ocean, they use a small swimming pool and add effects that make the whole thing look so real. You see Nigeria? Nollywood is not even a film village or city; it’s a lot of Movie stars chilling in Surulere. Apparently, the extent to which our imagination can grow does not exceed movies on ‘juju’, unchanging love films that never move from ‘rich boy loves poor-no poverty stricken girl…parents refuse blatantly…boy rebels and marries girl…they suffer…parents don’t want to help…boy wont compromise his love…parents reconsider…blah blah blah’, or other love films where ‘girl loves guy…girls friend does too…girls friend blackmails girl…guy leaves 1st girl…truth is uncovered…guy retracts his steps…blah blah blah’…the stories are so predictable! Worse still is the way some of these stories are told. Gad!
...to be continued...
