Nollywood and Its Others: Questioning English Language Hegemony in Nollywood Studies

The current trend in Nollywood Studies is to focus on the way video films are being made and consumed around the world, a focus that parallels the name “Nollywood,” which, as Jonathan Haynes and Alessandro Jedlowski point out, references the film industries of Hollywood and Bollywood (Haynes, “Nollywood” 106; Jedlowski, “Videos” 11). While such studies are important in understanding the global impact of Nigeria’s film industry, a focus on migration, diaspora, and transnationalism of largely English-language films often overshadows those being made in Nigerian languages. Ironically, according to 2011 National Film and Video Censor’s Board statistics, Nigerian-language films are currently about 75% of the productions being made in Nigeria (Bala, “2011” 18). While research is being done on Nigerian-language films, the theorizing about Nollywood most found often at international conferences and in international publications is most often of English-language productions. This is problematic for several reasons: 1) It ignores the majority of the films being made and consumed in Nigeria, as well as the local discourses surrounding them; 2) It overlooks the full history of the video film in Nigeria, as well as nuances and variations in the style and culture of Nigerian-language film industries; 3) It risks missing the way that Nigerian-language films are also crossing borders and appealing to transnational audiences. Such oversight creates gaping holes in the research used to theorize the video phenomenon in Nigeria. The first part of my article examines English-language hegemony in representations of Nollywood, and the second part demonstrates why the study of Nigerian-language films is important in theorizing Nollywood. While I touch on multiple Nigerian-language industries, the bulk of my examples and analysis come from the Hausa language industry which I have been studying since 2005.