IJELE: ART EJOURNAL OF THE AFRICAN WORLD ISSN: 1525-447X Issue 5 (2002)

Janki Patel

Review of Videos: Born Again. Director, Gabriel Moses, Amaco Productions, Nigeria 2001; and Submission: (Beware of Adicers[sic]). Director, Christian Onu, Valseco Productions, 2001

Women portrayed in domestic spheres are not always reflective of the way women actually utilize their roles as mothers and wives. The marriages of Azuka and Patrick (Submission, 2001) and Loretta and Edward (Born Again, 2001) are ones in which the wives are fully dependent on their husbands. “I want you to stay home and read the bible,” Edward informs his wife, Loretta. In both movies, wives express their love by becoming full time housewives: they stay home, cook the food, clean the house and serve the master. Submission and Born Again specifically present Nigerian wives as domestic beings, willing to give up all autonomy to do whatever their husbands ask. A discrepancy exists between the way that women are portrayed in the films and the ways they live given the socioeconomic conditions of life in contemporary Nigeria. An analysis of the literature on the history and current cultural practices of Nigerian women reveals that they hold a fair amount of economic and social independence and are nowhere the submissive wives they are supposed to be. In this review, I will reconcile the portrayal of women in the movies and the images of women in the writings of John N. Oriji (2000), Titi Ufomata (2000), Oyèrónké Oyewùmí (2002), Nkiru Nzegwu (2001), and Audrey Gadzekpo (2001).

Regardless of their level of education, Nigerian women have historically produced leaders who are willing to fight for the freedom of other women. John Oriji’s article, Igbo Women from 1929-1969, provides an important historical framework for understanding the leadership skills of some of these women. In 1929, a group of women in Oloko led a revolt against colonial taxation practices. A woman named Nwanyeruwa, “emerged as a leading advocate of non-violence during the protest marches” (Oriji 4). She led the revolt by drawing on the collective strength and economic resources of women from neighboring communities. Nwanyeruwa sent off phalanges of protesters to various locations where they surrounded the Warrant Chiefs in charge of tax collection, and mounted pressure on them until their demands were met.

Even the British District Officers revered the power of these women. They prevailed on the leaders of the uprising to prevent the escalation of violence and sent them as peacekeepers and negotiators to different communities. Three women, who repeatedly functioned in this capacity, were known as the Oloko Trio. They worked with protesters and used their intelligence, influence, and oratorical skill to peacefully attain their goals. Most importantly, they did not need a man to lead them in the uprising, nor did they need a man to speak for them, or to instruct them in the art of political negotiations with the Warrant Chiefs and the District Officers.

Many other women emerged as strong leaders and were subsequently recognized by the state. Ihejilemebi Ibe, of Umuokirika, came to be feared by the Warrant Chiefs, because she did not employ nonviolent means of protest as many of the other protest leaders. She sent women to beat up men who were found guilty of crimes against other women. Eventually, “Ihejilemebi was accorded the privileges powerful men enjoyed in her society” (Oriji 7). What is important about this is not only was she able to attain power without men, she was able to infiltrate the male sphere of society.

Historical evidence shows that women in the rural areas of Nigeria continued to protest whenever their freedoms were infringed upon. Importantly, they came together as a group to assert their rights and ensured that the rights of other women were protected. They harnessed ways of empowering themselves even though they lacked similar resources available to their male counterparts. They created their own sources of power, and politically asserted themselves without being defined by their domestic roles. The idea that women are strong is not one that is conveyed by the films.

The idea that women can become empowered through collective action is blatantly argued against in the movie Submission. One of its key points is to not trust one’s mother; meaning that not only should one not listen to one’s more knowledgeable mother, but instead, should listen only to a husband. The movie also instructs women that the only way to achieve happiness in a marriage is through submission to the will of a husband. This ignores that a marriage may be a misery for some, and that women can be happy without being married. Submission attacks the idea that a woman can have a wholesome identity, a satisfying life and career, without being a wife.

Born Again, places great value on motherhood, which, in fact, is the reason the marriage fell apart: Loretta could not provide her husband with a child. Edward feels justified in jettisoning his Christian beliefs, throwing out his wife, and marrying another wife. Loretta’s ability, or rather her inability, to have children determines her entire worth. Nowhere is there any mention of the responsibility that Edward shares in the failure to produce a child. It is entirely the wife’s fault. Every aspect of having a child is presented as the wife’s responsibility, and in this, Loretta failed, leaving Edward with no other option but to fall into Blessing’s lap. The underlying message of Born Again is that women should not trust other women. Blessing enters the home of Loretta under the guise of helping, but in actuality destroys the latter’s marriage and secures for herself the role of Edward’s wife. The plot teaches us that affluent husbands are precious commodities, and so women should not seek strength in their company, even though history has shown that it is by combining their power and strength that they are more likely to meet their goals and become powerful.

Moving on to a different theoretical perspective, Titi Ufomata’s article, Women in Africa: Their Socio-Political and Economic Roles, portrays Nigerian women as independent and self-sustaining. Women have their own means of acquiring income, and have refined their skills in trade, farming, and life in a market economy. These women have been defined as “self-regulating” and with “a sharp intelligence in the handling of their relationships and in negotiating their space” (Ufomata 7). They have acquired the ability to carve out their own space and create a way of providing for their families; thus they do not rely on the male figures in their lives.

It is important to note here that Nigerian women are often thought of in relation to women in western societies. This line of thinking suggests that because of lack of advanced education, women in other societies will not be able to fight for their rights and thus will lose themselves in a male dominated world. Nigerian women falsify this view. They may not all have attained the same level of education as women in the west, and they may not have the same prestige as those in the west, but they are able to create an equal, if not greater, autonomy for themselves that could rival what women in western societies are looking to achieve. This autonomous way of life is not limited to middle and upper-middle class women. It constitutes the life of a wide range of Nigerian women, being that a majority of women in Nigeria are associated with market trading.

Against this backdrop of enterprising Nigerian women, it is remarkable that the portrayal of the young modern women in the two movies shows them as economically powerless and totally subordinate to their husbands, doing whatever they ask of them. Except for Lebechi, Azuka’s mother, the movies portray wives as monetarily dependent on their husbands. This picture starkly contrasts with Ufomata’s assertion that “market women are generally in control of their economy” (19). In Submission, Azuka is forced to ask her husband Patrick for money, even though most Nigerian women are known to have their own income. This view of wives as materially dependent on husbands derives from stereotypical assumptions that women in African societies are weak and helpless, and lack the initiative to transform their lives. The idea of Nigerian women as completely dependent on husbands is laughable were it not that it presents an outrageously false image of an enterprising group of women. Jacobus noted that “Representations rapidly become representative” (quoted. in Ufomata 17). The danger here is that if Nigerian women are constantly shown in movies to be submissive, helpless, and disempowered, the portrayal causes western stereotypes to persist by confirming the false ideology that African women are indeed incapacitated.

Fortunately, Oyèrónké Oyewùmí’s article, Conceptualizing Gender: The Eurocentric Foundations of Feminist Concepts and the Challenge of African Epistemologies, tackles the sociological dimension of the movies patriarchal view of the culture. The article denies the notion that women would lose power once they marry. She underscores the idea that gender is not constructed the same way in Nigeria as it is in western societies and so the application of the western ideals of a housewife is absurd. Both of the movies continue in this diversionary stance by reinforcing the ideal of a submissive housewife within the nuclear family. Yet, even when a wife enters a new household, she is not necessarily placed in the power of the husband simply because she is his wife. In most western societies, up until the 1960s, men were the dictators of family relationships, in which women were being recognized only when the husband permits. This does not seem to be the case of women in southern Nigeria, as the literature indicates. Therefore, attempting to impose a patriarchal system unto a differently constituted context fosters misconceptions, especially for those who are unaware of how the society actually functions.

To complete the framework for analyzing women’s roles in Nigerian society, I will now examine the idea that Nigerian society may be patriarchal. This will without doubt provide legitimacy to the patriarchal tendencies in the two movies. I begin by engaging Nkiru Nzegwu’s article, Islam and its Bigots: The Case of Safiyatu Huseini Tugur Tudu. The article deals with what it means to be a poor, Muslim woman when reactionary men become responsible for the creation and maintenance of policies in society. Although, southern Nigerian women have historically been economically free and politically active, conservative Muslim men do not want to honor the civic rights of poor Muslim women in northern parts of Nigeria. Using Islam as a cover, they impose a regime of submissiveness on women. Nzegwu states that politically, “women never received full and complete representation from their political fathers, husbands, lovers, and nationalist (male) champions” (7). Gender discrimination persists as the organs of State are utilized to impose reactionary views on women. If reactionary men are the ones defining the issues that are relevant to women, then there is no reason to expect that they will select the same set of issues that women would, given the opportunity. The implication of this for the movie review is this Islamic fundamentalist view of women by no means constitutes the norm as resistances to it show.

However, that husbands would like to remain in control of how women are defined becomes apparent when dealing with women’s sexuality. This is an area where they feel especially passionate and threatened, and at a loss for power. To justify imposing maximum restrictions on women, they construct them as hyper-sexualize beings who must be controlled. In Submission, figure of the mother/grandmother is hyper-sexualized. Lebechi, the mother of Azuka, is found in bed with the husband of one of her daughters. Not only does this idea of a mother being sexually active with her son-in-law seem ridiculous, it also attacks the respected cultural image of mothers. It insidiously casts a mother as abdicating her maternal role of watching out for her daughter’s interest, and becoming a sexual competitor for the affection of her son-in-law. Clearly, this is not an image of mothers that anyone would take pride in. Its role in the movie is to indict mothers who fail to preach marital subjugation to their daughters as unworthy of being mothers. If female assertiveness is equated to unbridled sexual laxity that is disruptive of good family life, then a case is easily made for women to be sexually controlled without focusing on the control of women’s assertiveness. With mothers having sex with any man, including their son-in-law, why should society not accept that it is a good idea to reign in women. If women must be controlled, then men must be given a reason to step up and enforce that control.

In Born Again a different variation of the control problem arises. Edward is unable to control Loretta’s fertility, as he is not able to control her ability to have children. His inability to control her body in a realm that western ideology of family deems as his domain creates special problems for him. It is not that he particularly loves children and would spend quality time with them, it is more that the absence of children compromises his virility. The peculiar problem Edward faced is that though he is the head of the household and therefore could dictate all the activities that occur within his home, he is a failure in that he cannot control reproduction.

In “Gender Discourses and Representational Practices in Gold Coast Newspapers,” Audrey Gadzepko explains the issue of control over women. One immediate answer is Christianity and western ideas of marriage, both of which celebrate the notion of subordinate wife. Although educated African women were valued in the 1930’s, a concern for women being overly educated and thus forgetting their duties as a homemaker soon arose. To combat that possibility in response to husbands’ requests and Church teaching, women’s education shifted to focus on their wifely duties in the home and thus to promote an education that had no real economic application except that of wife. Further reinforcing the Christian viewpoint, the colonial period introduced ideals of what African women should or should not be and what roles they could acceptably hold. In the face of protests by women in various localities, women were stripped of their traditional powers, not by the men that rule them, but by the very things—Christianity and the nuclear family ideal of marriage—that were supposed to liberate and propel them into a progressive life. Both promised them education and progress, but they offered them powerless, handmaiden roles at the side of husbands.

The failure of both movies is that they attempt to pronounce on contemporary Nigerian reality without attending to the socioeconomic contradictions shaping people’s lives. There is no sense of the complexity of married women’s lives. The slapstick story line does not provide a rich psychological reading of the angst of both the male and female characters. Edward is as gullible as Patrick, Azuka’s husband, is unbelievably stodgy. The Nigerian women depicted in scholarly writing are strong, assertive, and independent, while the image of women in the movies is dependent, unsure, and ignorant. The strength of the formers is that they draw on historical facts, while the movies appear to derive from hastily developed storyline. The Nigeria video industry still has a way to go.

References

Born Again. Dir. Gabriel Moses. Amaco, 2001.

Submission: (Beware of Adicers[sic]). Dir. Christian Onu. Valesco Productions, 2001.

Gadzepko, Audrey. “Gender Discourses and Representational Practices in Gold Coast Newspapers”. Jenda: A Journal of Cultural and African Women Studies. 1, 2 (2001), <http://www.jendajournal.com/jenda/vol1.2/gadzekpo.html>.

Nzegwu, Nkiru. “Islam and Its Bigots: The Case of Safiyatu Huseini Tugur Tudu”. Jenda: A Journal of Cultural and African Women Studies. 1, 2 (2001), <http://www.jendajournal.com/jenda/vol1.2/nzegwu2.html>

Oriji, John N. “Igbo Women From 1929-1960”. West Africa Review. 2, 1 (2000), <http://www.westafricareview.com/war/vol2.1/oriji.html>.

Oyèrónké Oyewùmí, “Conceptualizing Gender: The Eurocentric Foundations of Feminist Concepts and the Challenge of African Epistemologies,” A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, 2, 1 (2002), <http://www.jendajournal.com/jenda/vol2.1/oyewumi.html>

Ufomata, Titi. “Women in Africa: Their Socio-Political and Economic Roles”. West Africa Review. 2, 1 (2000), <http://www.westafricareview.com/war/vol2.1/ufomata.html>.

Citation Format:

Janki Patel. “Review of Two Nigeria Videos: Born Again and Submission,” IJELE: Art eJournal of the African World: Issue 5, 2002.

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