By Cornel Osigwe
On Sunday, November 10th, 2019, was my wife’s birthday and as part of my activities to mark her birthday with her, I took her to Viva cinema, situated at Polo Park, Coal City.
The movie on our mind to watch was Living in Bondage: Breaking Free. That’s the sequel to the Original Living in Bondage
A few weeks earlier, I watched the online ads(Trailer) of the movie before the premiere and I had wondered how the producer of the movie intends to continue the storyline from the first series and truly he didn’t disappoint.
Living in Bondage Part 1 is credited to be the first Nollywood movie, basically the first home movie in Nigeria. The movie was reported to have sold over One Million copies. This over one million copies were sold to basically all tribes in Nigeria and some other countries outside Nigeria.
Now there was a negative narrative that Living in Bondage created; it interpreted Igbo successful men as being men of secret societies, it interpreted Igbo businessmen as men of Ogwu-ego (People who got wealth through evil means).
Living in Bondage created a single story about Igbo billionaires. A single-story that these men did not become billionaires by dint of hard work but by belonging to a powerful secret society.
It created a perception that to make it and achieve greatness in this country that you must belong.
The effect of this single-story created a negative stereotype. That is the stereotype that has been with the Igbo millionaires and billionaires for long thereby making people judge them negatively.
It is not the fault of those who share this stereotype, it is basically the fault of the writers and producers of these movies who have consistently failed to create a balanced story.
Chimamanda Adichie in her definition of a Single Story said- Show a people as one thing, and over time and that’s what they become. The danger of a single story is that it creates stereotypes and the danger about this is that, it is not that it is untrue but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
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I thought that the writers of the sequel to Living in Bondage: Breaking Free will balance the story about the negative stereotype created in Living In Bondage Part one which has refused to go, but this time they went on to reinforce the perception.
The perception that the young and hardworking young Igbos must belong to a secret cult before he can climb to the top of his profession; the perception that the successful men in the society has one secret cult or the other they belonged to. The sequel failed to balance the story that you can still rise to the top of your career by dint of hard work and consistency without belonging to any secret cult or society.
Our Nollywood scriptwriters need to start balancing our stories. Throughout history, many leaders have used the power of film to help achieve their goals. During World War II, for example, both Hitler and Stalin used movies as propaganda and did so very successfully. Cinema can easily change people’s opinions and perceptions of life.
A study by Michelle C. Pautz, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton United States of America, suggests films can act as an influence. Dr. Pautz asked undergraduates at a private Midwestern college to fill out a questionnaire regarding their views on the government before and after viewing the movies “Argo” and “Zero Dark Thirty.” She found that after watching the films, 20 to 25 percent of the participants changed their opinion and generally more favorably on a variety of questions about the government. Their trust in government increased, for example, as did their general optimism about the direction of the country.
Now that the Cinema business in Nigeria is becoming popular, The Government, NGO’s, Churches should start taking the investment in Movies seriously. We need to start balancing the stories that have been told of us. We need movies that will show the strength and resilience of Nigerians. We need movies that will show our scientific and technological might, we need movies that will inspire young Nigerians to start pursuing greatness. If not This Stereotype Will Still Continue and become injurious to future generations.
Hardwork still pays and Nigerians are extremely hardworking people.
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