Refashioning Gender Relations: Materiality of Love and Sex in Contemporary Nollywood

This article considers the materiality of love and sex in contemporary Nollywood and argues that, in the Nigerian public sphere, a culture of refashioning gender relations is in the making. By analyzing the narrative form of two films, Tango with Me and Contract, it argues that, despite the commodified representation of transgressive sexual practices, Nollywood offers a nuanced representation of the contradictions and complexities that Nigerian society is experiencing around intimacy, sex, and marriage. It further explores the question of spectatorship through ethnographic fieldwork and examines the new language of negotiations in intimate relationships.