Feature

The Modern Female Protagonist In Nollywood

2 months ago

Nollywood, one of the cultural exports of Nigeria, perennially mirrors the country’s social, economic, religious and political realities. Amongst these representations is the portrayal and regurgitation of age-old beliefs, such as patriarchy and the practice of magic and witchcraft. These are particularly conspicuous in early Nollywood adventure, crime thriller and money ritual films, such as Living In Bondage, Issakaba and Igodo, where the characters, mostly masculine figures groomed in male-dominated societies, wield magic to superimpose their choices and decisions over the natural order. Kenneth Nnebue’s Living In Bondage, officially regarded as the first Nigerian home video with major success, has prominent women characters. Around Andy are his first wife Merit who is used for sacrifice, his gold-digging second wife Ego, his friend’s girlfriend Caro, and a prostitute-turned-Christian devout Tina who helps him to regain sanity—but all of their roles and worth are tied to that of the male protagonist. The local inter-community vigilante in Issakaba 1&2 is strictly made up of men, while the forces they mostly engage with, which include community elders, spiritualists and criminals, are male. In Igodo, the men risk their lives to embark on a perilous adventure into the evil forest, and the women are relegated to mere wailers with little or no direct involvement in the decision-making that affects the community’s sociopolitical and spiritual affairs.

While the same 90s home video era yielded female protagonists and women-centered narratives in productions like Glamour Girls, Karishika, and Nneka The Pretty Serpent, the women in these films are treated rather disparagingly—sexualized or demonized. The so-called independent single ladies in Glamour Girls are involved in high-profile prostitution and sex trafficking for survival. Karishika and Nneka The Pretty Serpent drift towards the archetype of the demon-possessed lady who uses sexuality, including the power of seduction, and gimmickry to plot the fall of already-flawed men.

Historically, Nollywood films have positioned women in subordinate to forgettable roles more often, compared to their male counterparts. In such roles, the identities of the female characters are tethered to the male, with the female barely commandeering a personality independent of the male around them. One argument that justifies this underrepresentation is the dominance of male filmmakers (Kenneth Nnebue, Tunde Kelani, Tade Ogidan, Zeb Ejiro, Teco Benson, Lancelot Imasuen) in the industry from the 90s to the early 2000s. Amidst this hegemony rose Amaka Igwe, one of Nigeria’s foremost female filmmakers, who released films such as Rattlesnake 1, 2 & 3, Violated 1 & 2 , and championed popular television shows Checkmates and Fuji House of Commotion in the 90s. At the same time, her films had prominent female characters, but not much changed regarding their attitudes and representations against the backdrop of patriarchy. The romantic drama Violated stars Ego Boyo in a subordinate role as Peggy, the wife to a wealthy young man, whose marriage encounters a storm after unsavory secrets are spewed. Fuji House of Commotion, a sitcom and spinoff from Checkmates, foregrounds a polygamous setup where the wives—Mama Moji, Peace, Ireti and Caro—with their numerous children are constantly at the helm of chaos in the household.

Over the past decades, with the rise of more female actresses and filmmakers who are actively involved in leading productions, the image of women in Nollywood has moved away from rather vague and lackluster treatment to one with clarity. Actresses like Joke Silva, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Genevieve Nnaji and Rita Dominic gained mainstream prominence for the feminine charm and charisma they exuded on screen, which earned them lead roles in home and cinema videos. In the Tchidi Chikere-directed Blood Sisters, Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde stars as the sweet, loving older sister Gloria while Genevieve Nnaji plays the evil-natured and mischievous younger one, Esther, who orchestrates an unhealthy sibling rivalry. Both actresses reconvene for another star power as siblings in Ijé: The Journey where, paradoxically, their relationship in character is benevolent, with Genevieve’s persona Chioma committed to saving her embattled sister Anya (played by Omotola) from the racially tainted American legal system.

Today, female filmmakers, such as Mildred Okwo, Tope Oshin, Biodun Stephen, Funke Akindele, Mo Abudu, Kemi Adetiba, Omoni Oboli, Jadesola Osiberu and Bolanle Austen-Peters are calling the shots in what used to be a male-saturated industry, necessitating a palpable de-genderization of the industry and the proliferation of women-centered narratives and characters in Nollywood films. Jadesola Osiberu’s Isoken and Sugar Rush, released in 2017 and 2019 r espectively, spotlight women whose actions challenge gender expectations in their quests for fulfillment. The titular character in Isoken is a highly successful thirty-four-year-old unmarried woman who resists cultural expectations regarding marriage for women and breaches racial stereotypes as she falls in love with a white man. Sugar Rush captures three scheming sisters, Susan, Sola and Bola, who resort to stealing a huge sum of money in a race to improve their lives and care for their cancer-ridden mother. In 2018, Genevieve Nnaji released the first Netflix Original film in Nigeria, Lionheart—which tells the story of Adaeze, a charismatic woman who aspires for the leadership of her father’s company in a sexist society.

The development of feminism in Africa has been helpful to fashioning the image of women. With the increasing awareness about women’s rights in society, Nollywood, the world’s second-largest film industry by volume, has been instrumental to rejuvenating the images of women in film and creating female characters that are just as dynamic, powerful, sophisticated, admirable, dreaded, competitive or, sometimes, combative as the male. While it is counter-intuitive to oversimplify the representation of the modern female image in contemporary Nollywood, two unique kinds of female characters have been recognized in Nollywood dramas: the victim and the bad girl. The victim is interpreted as passive, straightforward and exploited, while the bad girl is perceived as defiant, sometimes also deviant, and recognized for orchestrating some problem that is linked to the plot of the film. The victim image is evident in Mo Abudu’s Òlòtūré (and its sequel-series, Òlòtūré: The Journey) and Kunle Afolayan’s Citation, both stories which center themes of sexual exploitation and violence against women. The female protagonist in Mo Abudu’s, Oloture, is an undercover journalist, who becomes a victim of human trafficking and corruption that she hopes to unravel. The bad girl aura is seen in Alhaji Eniola Salami in Kemi Adetiba’s King Of Boys franchise. Sometimes, too, the lines are blurred, with some females, as Elizabeth Johnson notes, failing to fit comfortably into the bad girl or victim category. An example of this is Sarah Duruh in Mo Abudu’s Blood Sisters who resists an abusive and narcissistic partner and unwittingly becomes an accomplice to his death on their wedding day after her friend, Kemi, kills him. In Adeoluwa Owu’s Adire, the titular character is constantly held back by a denigrating past and an unyielding pimp while attempting to seek agency in an ideal world of hers.

Funke Akindele rose to fame in 2008 following the portrayal of the iconic titular character in the Yoruba language film, Jenifa, which would later form the basis of her popular sitcom series, Jenifa’s Diary. In the franchise, Jenifa is an unrefined lady who relocates to the city where she aspires to be sophisticated. Her poor grasp of the English language, local accent and, sometimes, erratic conduct yield moments of hilarity. The character of Jenifa is, probably, one of the most circulated female personas in Nigerian television in modern times. Another film of Funke Akindele’s, Omo Ghetto: The Saga, created as a sequel to the Yoruba language film Omo Ghetto, negotiates the concept of the androgynous female through the adventures of female rascals Lefty and her cronies in the local neighborhoods. Lefty and Ayomide, both played by Akindele, are identical twins in the film, the former crude and badly behaved and the latter well-lettered and refined. Through their opposite personalities, the filmmaker renders a complex identity of the modern female protagonist. Thus, the contemporary African woman can be soft and vulnerable, yet capable of the daredevilry and rebellion traditionally reserved for men.

Omo Ghetto: The Saga ranks as the third highest-grossing Nollywood film of all time, toppled by A Tribe Called Judah which hit an unprecedented 1 billion naira in box office revenue, and Battle On Buka Street, both films also credited to Funke Akindele. A Tribe Called Judah, in a rather deviant fashion, normalizes the bittersweet experience of a single mother, Jedidah Judah, with five grown sons from five different fathers. This creates an image of a strong, independent woman who, having raised her children with little or no assistance from their fathers, becomes the apple of their eyes. Conversely, Battle On Buka Street explores the tumult of a polygamous household, highlighting the unhealthy rivalries that are likely to sprout particularly among wives and female offspring in such families. Whereas, traditionally, men are portrayed in stories as instigators of domestic violence with women seen as cowering victims, the half-sisters, Awele and Yejide, in Battle Of Buka Street are audacious, vindictive, and perpetrators of violence.

The identity of a woman, writes Elizabeth Johnson, can be voiced through the lenses of her gender, religion, sexual orientation, race, background, social class, language and political orientation. Likewise, the modern female character in Nollywood is a reflection of the complex and heterogeneous experiences of women in Nigerian society. Nadine Ibrahim’s Beyond The Veil, a Prime Video series in its sophomore season, exemplifies this. The show chronicles the experiences of five middle-to-upper-class Northern Nigerian women, against the backdrop of Islam and Northern Nigerian culture. The women are forced to negotiate their identity amidst issues such as domestic violence, marital hiccups, romance, unrequited love, and religious, class and culture differences that plague their lives. There are, for instance, Baddriyah who is faced with an abusive marriage that conflicts with her social media image; and Na’ima whose relationship with Matthew is threatened by cultural and religious differences.

Despite problems of funding and poor structure that bedevil the Nigerian film industry, female filmmakers have continued to show up in different filmmaking departments from the preproduction to the postproduction stage. This reality is evident in local and international awards and media platforms dedicated to celebrating excellence in the creative industry. Women such as Kehinde Bankole, Genoveva Umeh, Abishola Omolade, Lola Awe, Precious Cambell and Chichi Nworah shone at the recent Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards (AMVCA) where they won prizes in acting, art direction, costume, makeup and production. In 2022, The Hollywood Reporter listed Mo Abudu among the 20 most powerful women in global entertainment. A 2024 report from the same media outfit recognized Mo Abudu, Jadesola Osiberu, and Funke Akindele among the 40 most powerful women in international film. This rising global leverage allows for more Nollywood narratives with challenging and laudable female characters.