Abstract

The essence of producing movies amidst other reasons is to can a peoples’ culture and let the presentation of a worldwide costume of culture bear a turf of its tradition in a globalized attire of a unified coat-of- many colours. However, the verbal and non-verbal cues of messages in Nigerian movies suggest that there is a tacit conspiracy to bury Africa’s diverse culture, particularly Nigeria’s, in a morass of Western theme, cast, style, set and production techniques. The consequence from observation is that the mediated messages transmitted are not only vague, but heavily blurred up, biased and culturally hybridized to reflect a neither here-nor-there package. This paper, through survey data and observation, argues that modern day script writers and producers who are the elites are compromised or have succumbed to pressure to mortgage the distinctive characterisation of Africa in lights that are fallacious of Africa’s culture and tradition. Thus, it concludes by challenging elites to re-evaluate the precarious position of dancing the tones of foreigners on the platform of a Nigeria movie industry; calling instead for a redemption blue-print for a refined representation of Africa’s image.

Key Words: Movies, Nollywood, Culture, Nigerian Movies, African Culture

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*Melchizedec Onobe is a lecturer in the Department of Mass Communication, Bingham University, Karu, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.

** Onivehu Julius Beida is a lecturer in the Department of Accounting, Bingham University, Karu, Nasarawa State, Nigeria.

^JCMRJournal of Communication and Media Research, Vol. 8, No. 1, Sp. 1, May 2016, 199 – 215