Paper short abstract:

Representation of gender in the Nigerian film, Nollywood, is reflective of the country's triple ideological and cultural heritage. This paper considers artefacts of connections and disruptions in some Nollywood gendered films, and their epistemic founts in light of western and African scholarship.

Paper long abstract:

The representation of gender in the Nigerian film, popularly referred to as Nollywood, is reflective of the country's triple ideological and cultural heritage. The films' conflicts can often be delineated in terms of these heritages and their inherent connections and disruptions. However, African gendered representations have often generated conflicting perspectives in Western and African gendered scholarship especially regarding the source epistemes of gender in Africa. On the one hand, gender in Africa has appeared as mono discourses prior to the 'disruptive' influence of western colonialism. African gendered tales were largely seen as tales of gendered serenity, blissful hierarchism and unwavering heteronormativity. On the other hand western disruption is seen as liberating latent African ideas of gender whilst contributing a few. This paper is concerned with how practitioners of gender in the arts come into the picture? What do their pictures, and their language, reveal of the epistemic founts of gender as perceived by the practitioners? The paper considers artefacts of connections and disruptions in some of Nollywood's gendered films and the relevant epistemic founts. It attempts to link these artefacts with conflicting western and African thoughts on gender.