The mention of Hollywood instantly conjures images of glamour, wealth, fashion and fame. The name was conceived initially as an outdoor advert campaign for a suburban housing scheme called ‘Hollywoodland’.
Today, Hollywood has grown over the years to become the hub of the world movie industry and a symbol of the might of the entertainment industry world-wide. Hollywood has over the years changed the world of many, raised them from poverty and obscurity to wealth and stardom. Some have gone beyond the borders of entertainment to become great political leaders.
Former US President Ronald Reagan, Joseph ‘Erap’ Estrada, the 13th President of the Philippines and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the current Governor of California, are names that readily come to mind when talking about some of those who employed their popularity in the movie industry to create a whole new world in politics for themselves.
As can be seen, movies do not only offer entertainment to millions of people globally, they also generate enough money to make millionaires out of people and push many into affluence and influence. But the most powerful tool of movies is the message they generate among viewers. That is why many film directors and producers would tell you that they were influenced in their productions more by the message rather than the financial returns.
So while the film stars are mostly motivated more by the monetary returns and the glamour to star in films, producers and directors have other things in mind when they set out to produce films. It is, therefore, not surprising that some movies receive condemnation or even face ban in some countries, not for poor technical production but for the message.
Many people cannot forget so soon the harsh things that were said about Mel Gibson’s Passion of Christ , which he released in 2004. Many associated him with anti-Semitism for the content of that film.
Can anyone imagine the social consequences and religious upheaval that would erupt should any film producer venture to turn Salman Rushdie’s book The Satanic Verses into a movie?
That is a clear indication that movies are not only about entertainment and money; they are also about ideas, messages, beliefs, principles, religion and many other things that the human race stands for.
The United States of America (USA) has become a major attraction to many from other countries mainly because of the glamorous image that country conjures among people, especially those from the poor developing countries.
To many, the US is a land of the brave, a world of glamour, a world of freedom and a place where everything is possible and rosy and where there is no sorrow. These images have been captured mostly in movies. Long ago, in what were described as western movies or cowboy films, the white Americans were portrayed as very brave and intelligent people who always defeated the Red Indians who were painted as barbaric and uncivilised. The truth was never told that those Red Indians who originally occupied most of the US were actually victims of systematic annihilation by the European settlers. Today the Red Indians are virtually extinct and those who participated in that heinous crime are the apostles of freedom and democracy in modern America.
In modern times, the US and other countries have used the powerful lenses of movies and mediums of mass of communication to win psychological wars against others. Almost all the war films that were made after the Second World War portrayed the US army as an invincible fighting force that won all battles. They are always the liberators who came to save the world from evil forces.
All the wars fought by the US after the Second World War — in Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Somalia and lately Iraq and Afghanistan — were lost but the world was made to believe through the media controlled by the US and other western media sources that things were the other way round.
Other countries like China, India and Japan have followed suit to market themselves in a very big way through movies and other forms of mass media. One thing about movies is that they generally offer viewers entertainment while conveying a message in a very subtle way.
In the conventional forms of mass communication, there is a clear distinction between what is plain news and what is propaganda, advertising, public relations or indoctrination. That is why Americans never portray anything negative about themselves even in movies. That is also why after the Second World War, the Americans never made a film to illustrate how they dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities, during which hundreds of thousands of Japanese were literally roasted alive.
Similarly, the Chinese marketed their martial arts effectively in their movies. Those who could remember Bruce Lee and other Chinese movie stars in the seventies and eighties would understand what I am talking about.
The Indians have developed a huge movie industry which has been labelled Bollywood, and rivals that of Hollywood. The objective, apart from making money, is to counter the negative impressions created by the western media about India and other Third World countries. That is why Indian movies will not show the India countryside with its extreme poverty and squalor. They only emphasise what is good about them.
In Africa, like in many other things, we were late to arrive movie-wise. And when we did, what are we doing? To confirm to the rest of the world that all the negative things they heard about us are true. That we are still crude and primitive. That we are still indulging in human sacrifice for wealth and power. That we still believe in occultism and demons to manage our affairs.
One would have thought that, having joined the rest of the world in big-time movie production, we would use the opportunity to erase the negative perceptions about Africans in particular and the Black race in general. But look at African movies. The plots and storylines are the same and the end of the films can always be predicted.
We do not even make conscious effort to use movies to market the tourism potentials of our countries. I wonder whether Americans and Europeans will relish our movies as we do with theirs. Unfortunately, our children are being exposed to these films that are being released on daily basis.
The stereotyped idea of the supremacy of everything White has infiltrated the African movie industry so much that only half-castes or those who have bleached their bodies are given lead roles in movies. The producers, who want to go modern, do it in a very extreme way by running riot with pornography and profanity. After all they are copying their masters in Europe and America. What they do not even know is that, having realised the havoc these films have caused their children, many of them are enforcing their censorship regulations to the letter.
Now, it is not easy to show pornographic films on any free-on-air television network in the US and in many European countries. We here see this as a kind of bonanza because these films are pushed onto the African market where there is virtually no control.
We are living in a world of deception. Where others saw danger and are making a hasty and desperate retreat, we are galloping to that direction, thinking we are part of the modern world. Those who try to defend those rotten and appalling pornographic movies on our local market are in a different world.
If we accept the fact that slavery and colonialism have debased us, distorted our history and damaged our psyche as a people, movies offer us a great opportunity to tell our story. Movies are not just for entertainment. They give us the opportunity to showcase our values which were deliberately smeared or totally ignored. It is an opportunity to de-emphasise the negative stereotypes and let the world know our strengths and values which make us a unique people. It is an opportunity for us to emerge from the shadows of others and let our light shine.
These are some of the reasons why our governments must stand up now before we fail in the movie industry like we have already done in many other spheres. So far, we have already succeeded in making a laughing stock of ourselves through the type of movies we have produced and continue to produce on the continent and what we have on the Ghanaian market are no exception. If we want to make any impact, then we do not need to follow the negative footsteps of those who took the lead but chart a path that would radiate light where there was darkness in our life as a people.
Branding Ghana has become a topical issue to the extent that a whole new bureaucracy has been created financed with the tax-payer’s money to promote a new and sustainable image for the country. We cannot do that if all we can do in local movies is to tell the world that we are cannibals, blood-sucking vampires and primitive people still walking half-naked in the jungle.
fokofi@yahoo.co.uk
kofiakordor.blogspot.com
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