Nollywood Film Industry
As you would exspect, Nollywood, is the Nigerian version of Americaâs Hollywood. The Nollywood film industry began around 1992 and produces films for as little as 15 grand. Despite producing films with such a low budget, Nollywood is the third largest film industry. It follows right after Inidaâs Bollywood and Americaâs Hollywood. Itâs home is Lagos, Nigeria, one of Africaâs largest cities. Just as one of the speakers discussed, Nollywood is used as a platform to tell African stories. Before these films, there was an influx of films from other parts of the world such as China and Britian. However, since Nollywood has taken over, you no longer really see such types of films. This is mainly because, Africans want to see the African story. During the documentary, one thing that intrigued me, where that a lot fo the speakers refered to Nollywood being the voice of Africa. One woman in particular, had stated that many of the Nigerian actors and actresses are not very attracted to Hollywood. She made a point that these talented artist actually prefer to stay in the Nollywood sphere because Hollywood is âtoo-white.â I can say that I whole heartly agree with her. Although I am not Nigerian, I can tell from the documentary that the producors and consumers of Nollywood films are very proud of their work because it consist of people like them, and it tells THEIR story. It also made me think about the recent boycott of the Oscars awards. Since Nollywood consist of mainly, if not all, blacks/people of African decent, and paints a positive picture of blacks/African decent, then why are there not many African Americans participating in the Nollywood film industry? This is not to say that African Americans should just completely overtake the Nollywood film industry. However, I often times see in magazines and even social media of black actors and actresses complaining that Hollywood is basically being bias towards them because Hollywood is a white sphere. In my opinion, I say why continue to complain and boycott to an industry that, honestly does not respect, hardly employees, and have no interest in any other ethnicity except for white? Furthermore, even when African Americans are able to make it in Hollywood, they are unfortnately only most noted for stereotypical roles. Lupita was only known for playing a slave, Denzal Washington mostly played thug and crime roles, and even the first African American female to win a grammy recieved the award for playing a mammy! The list goes on and on. I really did not mean to make this an âAfrican Americanâ thing. But as I was watching the documentary and some of the comments the speakers were making about Nollywood and what it meant for them, it sparked an idea. Although, African Americans and Nigerians obvisouly have two totally different cultures, I feel as though Nollywood would do a better job at depicting a black/African person of decent than Hollywood. So again I ask you:
Should African Americans writers, actors, actresses, producors, etc. participate more in Nollywood film industry verses the Hollywood industry? Would it help them or would it have a negative impact due to cultural differences?
In my opinion I donât think that will work out quit easy. Like you said before Africans take pride in their film industry because most of the movies are based upon what most Africans (those that actually live in Africa) are faced with on a daily base. In the documentary some of them also stated that acting was one of the major ways that people will use to get out of poverty, with that being said I donât believe that Africans (born and rised) would fully support African- Americans in their industry. So overall I do believe that the cultural difference and also the competition of actually getting the role will always clash.
Yeah I also agree with the idea that if more black actors were to leave the Hollywood industry, it would start to become more exclusively white. Â I also wanted to add that some actors consider more to it then just taking pride in their culture. Â I feel like some are there in especially the Hollywood industry for the fame, attention, money, cars, etc rather than the role that they play in a certain movie. Â It is sad to think that but even up till today, the African American Community is still fighting to gain more recognition through the Hollywood Industry. Â I donât think it would be necessarily good for the Nigerians and the African Americans to clash cultures with one another through the Nollywood Industry due to cultural differences, a lot of competition, and just in general it not make alot of the African actors happy if all of these guys were to leave Hollywood and all jump into this industry.Â








