Nollywood And The Lure For Pórn Movies

The Nigeria movie industry, Nollywood  is the world’s second largest, churning billions of naira in export. Even at that, it seems that roles a lot of notable faces play is not enticing enough thus the attraction to sóft pórn. ANTHONY ADA ABRAHAM brings you some movies and actors who star in these films as well as reactions from Nollywood watchers.

It seems roles in the movie industry are no longer interesting and fulfilling as Nigeria actors and actresses are now displaying their talent in soft pórn movies in Nigerian home videos which have attracted widespread condemnation from a large number of movie enthusiasts.

Nollywood stars are venturing into hard core pórnographic roles with the help of “I no send” producers and marketers whose  aim is to make money.

The internet ‘YouTube’ is one avenue used by these desperate, and ‘must make money’ producers to ensure such movies reach as wide an audience as possible.

The Movies And Reactions

Nollywood English movies like ‘Room 027,’ ‘Bold 5 Babes’ are more erotic, ‘Bedroom Assassin’ and Taboo! ‘Pastor fornicates in the office’ are some of such films. Pregnant Hawkers and ‘Sinful Act 1&2’ as well as a Yoruba movie, Lesbian are others.

The issue has raised concern on what the Nigerian Films and Video Censors Board (NFVCB).  and other agencies vested with the power to scrutinise movies churned to the public.

It was an unending war of words on social media when fans of controversial actress, Tonto Dikeh, showed their disgust when they saw her in two different sóft pórnography movies. But the actress defended herself in an online interview, where she said, “Only the ignorant and pretentious souls would criticise this lovely movie. It is a film, it’s a job that has to be done. I accepted the script because when I see a good film in the making, I appreciate it.

It’s a movie most people can identify with: I love and appreciate all the hype around this movie.”

Also speaking with popular Nollywood actress and activist, Dorothy Njemanze in an interview, she stated that Parents should be held responsible for allowing their children access to such movies especially when the censors board have directed who should watch a particular movies.

“Parents have no excuse for not training their kids right. Any kid who has the guts to pick such and watch definitely watch porn regularly. Adult movies are okay for adult viewing. I have no sympathy for any parent who cannot teach his/her child the right thing to do whether or not they are there. Movies have ratings. It is the duty of parents to ensure that the first thing any kid does is to check for ratings before watching. There is no excuse for brooding kids without discipline. Kids that don’t look out for ratings will never obey written instructions anywhere,” she stressed.

Also, American-based Nigerian actress, Judith Opara Mazagwu, popularly known as AfroCandy, was reported to have called for actors and actresses who could fit into nude roles on April 19, 2012, when she posted a message on her Facebook wall, which read,“It takes a lot of guts to get naked in front of the camera. In a couple of my concluded up-coming movies, there’s a lot of nudity in them.

“I also have scripts lined up for production and there will also be nudity in most of them. So if you are an aspiring actor/actress, you have the passion and you will like to get naked, send in your info/contacts for casting and I look forward to meeting and working with you.”

In an interview with an online blog,the Deputy Director (Corporate Affairs), NFVCB, Yunusa Tanko Abdulahi, said the agency was not aware of the existence of such movies on the internet stressing  none of them was submitted to the board for censorship and classification.

He said, “We are not aware of such because they have not come to us. As far as they have not come to us, we do not know about it. After production, a movie has to come to us for censoring and classification before it gets to the market, be it a foreign or local film. Any movie that doesn’t come to us before going to the market is illegal.”

The NFVCB official stated that some producers try to play smart by sending edited copies of movies to the agency instead of the master version.

“They ought to send the master copy but some send an edited copy to us while sending what they want to the market. When we see the edited copy, we tell them to make corrections, but it doesn’t matter as they have done what they want to.

“Normally we get tip-offs or raid some markets and when we find these people out, we get them arrested and prosecuted,” he said.

What baffles movie lovers is the sponsorship by corporate organisations who would do everything in making sure their product is known by sponsoring such, paving the way for legibility of the product (movies) itself.

According to Matthew Akande, a movie critic, corporate organisations sponsoring any product is all about expanding their market.

He also stated that people might consider it crazy but they have to look for a larger outreach which means sponsoring anything like movies, events, competition that would show their product to the world.