Written By: Nana Bonsu—In an effort to appeal to African moviegoers, and distinguish their films in a crowded market flooded by Nigeria’s giant film industry, Nollywood (some reports claim Nollywood releases as many as forty films per week), Ghanaian moviemakers are pushing the boundaries when it comes to film by including steamy sex scenes in their movies. Last year, debate ensued when Raj Films and Heroes Productions’ trailer for Heart of Men, featured, among other things, a shot of actor Majid Michel’s grinding buttocks during a sex scene. Yet, ultimately, the film snagged five African Movie Academy Award nominations. This year, Ghanaian production company Venus Films sparked controversy when it released the trailer for 4Play, which among other things, alluded to a love triangle involving a married couple and the bisexual husband’s male lover. Although public outcry led to some of the sex scenes being edited out of the final movie, when 4Play leaked on YouTube, the combination of soft-porn sex scenes and dialogue laced with f-bombs and n-words to rival a rap song, led viewers to criticize Ghana’s film industry as producing nothing more than just that—profane soft-porn. Drawing comparisons to Nollywood films, commentators on 4Play’s YouTube page remarked, “Sex is being overrated in Ghana movies. We Nigerians don't do such!” and “No disrespect … but seriously … African movies [are] suppose[d] to be respectful [and] real.” Read more about the Nollywood versus Gollywood debate in Cut! Censoring Sex In Ghanaian Movies.
(Photo Credits: © Stockbyte / PunchStock) (Models Used Solely For Illustrative Purposes)
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5 comments:
Nana, this is a great article and I completely agree with everything that you say. These are not "African" movies, these are "American" movies made by Africans.
Thank you for this excerpt, African movies need to capture all aspects of life. However; lately it more like candy for the deluded and deceptive mind. bring back authenticity and delete the selling of sex, violence and masogeny. Please write more articles on this subjects, thank you.
The quality of the movies is one thing, complain all you want, but the subject of the movies is fair game people. It's a movie, it's supposed to be a fantasy. These are not documentaries!!!
I agree. Ghanaians should stay away from sex in films. If un-African things such as bisexuality and bare bums are the most shocking thing they can produce, I’ll stick to foreign films! lol
Co-sign on Mimi Reader's point. These movies are not African. Since when do we walk around calling each other n***** this and n***** that? And then to talk about a husband having an extramarital affair with another man, good African people, this is just too much. First we were stealing American plots and making them African, now we are taking the smut and trying to pass it off as African. Shame on these writers, directors, producers, actors. Shame on the whole lot of them.
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