When Silence Becomes Overstretched: Exploring the Loud Silence in Women's Struggle for Liberation in Contemporary Nollywood

Abstract

Lots of debates, contestations and criticisms have continued to trail the subjugation of women in Nollywood narratives. Film scholars and critics, especially those who tow the feminist line, keep bemoaning the manner in which patriarchy and male hegemony take centre stage in many Nollywood movies to the detriment of women. Employing the mixed research methodology (qualitative content analysis and key informant interview), this study explores the loud silence in women’s struggle for liberation in contemporary Nollywood narratives. Three widely acclaimed and contemporary movies – Muna (2019), Omo Ghetto: The Saga (2020) and Fine Wine (2021) – were content analysed to foreground and highlight male chauvinism and hegemony as well as women’s struggle for their liberation. Though women’s silence in the movies is as prolonged as it is loud, the fierce fight they later put up against male oppression comes as a great solace. Therefore, it is concluded that Nollywood film-makers should continue to give preeminence to such issues in subsequent narratives.