Naija films-the bad

I applaud actors for what they do, Nigerian actors most especially. I laud the creative bodies behind an art piece: music, film, literature.

One thing I find irritating with Naija films--perhaps above the crappy writing and editing, is the speaking or the butchering of what is supposed to be said.

With the Yoruba movies, I get irritated when an English word is used when its Yoruba equivalent does exist. This is not just bits and pieces of English, but entire sentences and phrases when unneeded. I might as well stick with periodicals, except those are near going extinct. With the English genre, my grouse comes when the actor starts speaking English. Many actors--both male and female, are guilty of this.

But I am not faulting the actors. I blame the director for not catching it and for not fixing it. And I blame the producer for allowing it. It shows laziness on both the producer and the director. This particular post is aimed at the director and producers. If an actor makes a mistake, the director and producer are the ones who should and must catch the and rectify it.

Acting does not mean impeccable language, be it Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa or English.

Now some Nigerians say English is not our mother tongue. That is a sad excuse. The institutions of learning are in English: primary, secondary, poly and Uni. Governing is conducted in guess what? English. So stuff it with the English is not the mother tongue. English is the official language--keep the mother tongues, those tones and vernacular are beautiful. And stop using this pathetic excuse as a crutch to allow "educated people" butcher it. It's yours, and that is not likely to change. 

Acting also does not mean incorporating an accent just because. If the character is a poor rural girl/guy, she should sound like one. Now if a character is supposed to be a student, in University, then he/she should not be butchering the lingua franca. Unless she is supposed to portray an uneducated person.

Acting is also not about just speaking English: Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo actors show us that. It is not about having a British-Carribbean-Australian-American accent when you are a poor and struggling guy/girl who has never left the country. 

But then again, it could be a reflection of the current Nigerian society. The weaves are already in competition for the longest and most outrageous, so it may not be completely wrong that the accents are equally so.