Nigerian Video Films

291 Pages·2000·1.556 MB·English

by  Jonathan Haynes

Nigerian Video
MEDIA STUDIES / AFRICAN STUDIES AFR 73
N
Films
A revised and expanded study of a dynamic and flourishing i
g
popular art form
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i
Nigerian video films—dramatic features shot on video and sold as a
cassettes—are being produced at the rate of nearly one a day, making n
them the major contemporary art form in Nigeria. The history of
V
African film offers no precedent for such a huge, popularly based
i
industry. d
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o
The contributors to this volume, who include film and television Revised

directors, an anthropologist, and scholars of film studies and litera- F
and
ture, take a variety of approaches to this flourishing popular art. i
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m
Topics include aesthetic forms and distribution; the configurations of Expanded
various ethnic audiences; the new media environment dominated by s
Edition
cassette technology; the videos’ materialism in a period of economic
collapse; transformation of the traditional Yoruba traveling theater;
individualism and the moral crisis in Igbo society; Hausa cultural val-
ues; the negotiation of gender roles; and the genre of Christian videos.
JONATHANHAYNESis Associate Professor in the Humanities Division at Joed
Southampton College of Long Island University. He is the author of The nit
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ad
Humanist as Traveler, The Social Relations of Jonson’s Theater, and (with t
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Onookome Okome) Cinema and Social Change in West Africa. y
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Cover:Poster for a Yoruba video film on the door of a video shop, with cassettes
of pirated American films. Courtesy of Onookome Okome. a
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COVERDESIGNBYKAROLHALBIRT n
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s
O U
HIO NIVERSITY
ISBN 0-89680-211-6
Research in International Studies ,!7IA8J6-iacbbh! edited with an introduction by
Africa Series No. 73 J H
ONATHAN AYNES
Ohio
Nigerian Video Films
Video film posters on a Lagos overpass. Courtesy ofOnookome Okome.
Nigerian Video Films
R E V I S E D A N D
E X P A N D E D E D I T I O N
edited with an introduction by
Jonathan Haynes
Ohio University Center for International Studies
Research in International Studies
Africa Series No. 73
Athens
© 2000by the
Ohio University Center for International Studies
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
All rights reserved
The books in the Ohio University
Research in International Studies Series
ƒ
are printed on acid-free paper ™
080706050403020100 54321
Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Nigerian video films / edited with an introduction by Jonathan
Haynes.—Rev. and expanded ed.
p. cm. — (Ohio University research in international
studies. Africa series ; no. 73)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89680-211-6(pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Video recordings—Nigeria. I. Haynes, Jonathan. II. Series.
PN1992.934.N6N55 2000
791.43’09669—dc21
00--021006
for Sandra

Contents
List of Illustrations, ix
Note to the Revised and Expanded Edition, xiii
Preface to the Nigerian Edition, xv
Acknowledgments, xix
1. Introduction, 1
Jonathan Haynes
2. From Film to Video, 37
Afolabi Adesanya
3. Evolving Popular Media: Nigerian Video Films, 51
Jonathan Haynes and Onookome Okome
4. From Folk Opera to Soap Opera: Improvisations and
Transformations in Yoruba Popular Theater, 89
Wole Ogundele
5. The Igbo Video Film:
A Glimpse into the Cult of the Individual, 131
Hyginus Ozo Ekwuazi
6. Onome:Ethnicity, Class, Gender, 148
Onookome Okome
vii
Contents/ viii
7. Women, Melodrama, and Political Critique:
A Feminist Reading of Hostages, Dust to Dust,and
True Confessions, 165
Carmela Garritano
8. The Rhetoric of Nigerian Christian Videos:
The War Paradigm of The Great Mistake, 192
Obododimma Oha
9. Culture and Art in Hausa Video Films, 200
Dul Johnson
10. Hausa Dramas and the Rise of
Video Culture in Nigeria, 209
Brian Larkin
Bibliography, 243
Contributors, 259
Index, 261
Illustrations
Video film posters on a Lagos overpass, frontispiece
Preface
ChiefTomobi and his Mercedes in Ayo Ni Mo Fe, xvi
Andy Okeke and his Mercedes in Living in Bondage, xvi
Dafe Fregene’s Mercedes in Onome, xvi
Chapter 1
Tunde Kelani and Tunde Adegbola on
the set ofTi Oluwa Nile, 33
Occult imagery from Sakobi . . . The Snake Girl, 33
Chapter 2
Poster for Domitilla, 45
Two Ibadan video shops, 46
Chapter 3
Poster ofAyo Ni Mo Fe, 60
FromLiving in Bondage:
Andy Okeke (Kenneth Okonkwo) soliloquizing, 65
Paul’s invitation, 65
Andy and the prostitute Tina, 65
The cult ceremony, 66
Andy’s wedding, 66
ix