Female Narratives in Nollywood Melodramas

by Elizabeth Johnson, Donald Culverson

Overview

This book investigates how identities for West African women are created and recreated through the broad interplay of Nollywood film viewing on social and individual levels. Since many Nollywood films are freely accessible online, the role of online communities repurposes Nollywood films. Female Narratives in Nollywood Melodramas addresses if this is a good or bad promoter of critical consciousness, as many of the films depict the stifling of women. The authors examine nine Nollywood melodramas through Black feminist, cultivation, audience reception, and social identity theories. Readers will gain an understanding of how Nollywood is a product and contributor to evolving processes of globalization. Recommended for scholars of film studies, communication, African studies, and women studies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498524766
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	05/10/2018
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 8.78(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Dr. Elizabeth Johnson is an Associate Professor of History and Social Sciences at Governors State University. She is the author of Resistance and Empowerment in Black Women’s Hairy Styling. She has published articles in the following journals: World Literary Review, MP: An Online Feminist Journal, and Southwest Journal of Cultures. Her research and speaking interests are grounded in group identity and critical race theory including hair aesthetics, body image, nineteenth-century U.S. history, and media representations of ethnicity and gender.

Dr. Donald Culverson is a University Professor of Political Science and Justice Studies at Governors State University. He is the author of Contesting Apartheid: U. S. Activism, 1960-1987. He has published articles in the following journals: Political Science Quarterly, Race and Class, and Transafrica Forum. His research focuses on globalization and its relationship to racial inequality.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction

II. Alternative Frames for Viewing and Thinking about Nollywood Films

III. The Women of Nollywood: Suffering and Agency

IV. Differential Access to Nollywood Films

V. Female Directors and Producers

VI. Concluding Thoughts

Appendix A: Themes of suffering in the nine selected films

Appendix B: Themes of agency in the nine selected films

Appendix C: African/African Diasporic Film Festivals

Appendix D: African female filmmakers

Filmography

Bibliography

About the Authors

Editorial Reviews

Female Narratives in Nollywood Melodramas is a quintessential and compelling interrogation of women’s identity in Nollywood films through the periscopic lenses of culture, tradition, memory, and gender.

Emmanuel Adedun

The authors have provided an in-depth study of Nollywood, depicting rich African cultural and traditional values, exploring the reconstruction of West African women and examining the role of online communities, making it a must-read for Nollywood fans.

Pius W. Akumbu

Female Narratives in Nollywood Melodramas represents a groundbreaking work looking at the intersectionality of gender, popular culture, and social ethics. Aside from a brilliant and critical rendering of the Hollywood melodrama phenomena, the authors provide us with a deeply human look at innovative ways in which women navigate polarities of subjectivity and objectivity, wholeness and suffering, endurance and socio-cultural fatigue on film and in real life. In what is a superb analytical framework, readers will gain entry into a world where Nollywood women's cultures of dissemblance and dissonance serve as emblematic of both particular and universal realities of community, nation, and diaspora. Read this book!

Zachery R. Williams