AN EXPLORATION OF CULTURE SHIFT IN THE PORTRAYAL OF LADIES IN YORUBA NOLLYWOOD FILMS

Abstract

The paper examines Yoruba Nollywood’s construction of moral decadence among Yoruba ladies in Nigeria as represented in Yoruba film-texts. Such decadence is borne out of the concept of culture shift through globalization. This is because these two concepts mean Western hyper-civilization to most modern Yoruba women. This reads post-feminist consciousness in some of the productions of Yoruba film industry. The study is qualitative in nature. Film-texts were selected based on gender and grossing consideration. It is motivated by the principle of Molara Ogundipe-Leslie’s Stiwanist Theory which advocates the inclusion of women in the social scheme of things. The study emphasizes Yoruba Nollywood for depth. In the selected film-texts, Agbere Olosa Meta, Alakada Part 1, and Iyawo Digboluja, women, in the bid to exercise their freedom, exhibit such ills as bickering, deceit, avarice, prostitution, fake life, women rising against women, and commercialization of the marital process. All these moral excesses suggest that modern Yoruba ladies need to undertake intra-gender introspection in order to attain the goal of feminist agitation currently undertaken by concerned gender freedom advocates in the Southwestern part of the country. This is necessary so as to discourage men from continuing to find faults in women’s quest to be heard in society. It is noted in the study that the ladies featured in these films exhibit non-traditional traits such as smart life and independence in their dealings with men. These are non-conformist conceptions which have been more pronounced among many Yoruba ladies in the age of globalization, but which the films lampoon.  Such condemnation is targeted towards the revamping of traditional Yoruba ethical values and peaceful gender coexistence, especially in the Yoruba society as a Nigerian (African) society.