Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Video Films
Abstract
Censorship and the Content of Nigerian Video Films
Abstract:
Because the field of culture has always been considered a powerful socio- political and economic endeavor, it has often been a site of keen interest by the state. From the very inception of the creative enterprise the world over therefore, especially within the ambit of contemporary nation states, literary and other imaginative reproductions of culture have always attracted some kind of surveillance. But these regulatory practices, and their implications for the content of culture have differed from place to place and from time to time. In this paper then, I propose to examine the specific nature of censorship within the bourgeoning Nigerian video film industry and, the implication of such unique censorship for what we see in the films. As a point of entry into that problematic, I track the beginnings of film censorship within the Nigerian state enfolding in the process the statutory bodies and laws that had [and are] involved in these regulatory activities. I shall then proceed to examine the actual formal process of state censorship and, the "hidden" forms of censorship within the video colony. By problematizing this regulatory process, I hope to illuminate how the unique forms of censorship within the video industry impinge on what we see [and do not see] in the films.
Paul Ugor
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta, Edmonton
Canada.
Phone: 01-780-492-7833.
Abstract:
Because the field of culture has always been considered a powerful socio- political and economic endeavor, it has often been a site of keen interest by the state. From the very inception of the creative enterprise the world over therefore, especially within the ambit of contemporary nation states, literary and other imaginative reproductions of culture have always attracted some kind of surveillance. But these regulatory practices, and their implications for the content of culture have differed from place to place and from time to time. In this paper then, I propose to examine the specific nature of censorship within the bourgeoning Nigerian video film industry and, the implication of such unique censorship for what we see in the films. As a point of entry into that problematic, I track the beginnings of film censorship within the Nigerian state enfolding in the process the statutory bodies and laws that had [and are] involved in these regulatory activities. I shall then proceed to examine the actual formal process of state censorship and, the "hidden" forms of censorship within the video colony. By problematizing this regulatory process, I hope to illuminate how the unique forms of censorship within the video industry impinge on what we see [and do not see] in the films.
Paul Ugor
Department of English and Film Studies
University of Alberta, Edmonton
Canada.
Phone: 01-780-492-7833.
Keywords
Censorship
Full Text:
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