Stereotypes are dangerous. They can define people falsely and it takes a lot to wipe off the curse of stereotype on a particular people. Many of us have been victims of stereotype and have been narrowed to single definitions that affect us. It is time to kill the generalized definitions.
Nollywood has examples of some of the worst stereotypes. The way particular things are re-broadcasted on TV affect our perception and definition of a people and some of the films that have been released have taught us a lot about stereotypes.
See our examples of the worst stereotype to come out of Nollywood.
8. Calabar People are Always the House Girls: Calabar people are good cooks, but in Nollywood it means being a house girl or a house boy. Ekaette and Akpan are the most famous names to be used in films, if the house girl is not Ekaette then it is a boy and his name will be Akpan.
7. Hausa Men are always in Charge of the gate: Every Gateman is a Hausa man. In Nollywood, the spice always gets missing if the gate man has to be from a different ethnicity and so we hear Musa, Sule, Ahmed and they are always at the gate. Also, they always have a strong accent.
6. The Mother in-Law is always the worst Curse to a marriage: If you have been married and you are yet to conceive, the mother In-law has something to do with it. Thanks to Nollywood, there are many girls that will rather marry a man that has lost his mother than one whose mother is still alive. This stereotype has affected our perception of mother in-laws because in reality there are people that think having a mother in-law is a curse.
5. Your First Love will Always be Your True Love: When they start young and one has to travel to the United States, or when lovers lose contact and they get in contact again, trust that they will leave their present relationship to go back to the first love, because first love in Nollywood never dies.
4. Wealth is always as a result of Cultism or Shady dealings: You only get rich when you give away the head of your wife or your mother. We are glad we get very few films on cultism these days but even at that, wealth is still as a result of shady dealing or theft with recent films.
3. Throwing up is always a sign of pregnancy: Once she starts throwing up, she is pregnant! A girl is not allowed to throw up because of a bad meal. Vomiting means pregnancy and this one has even affected us in reality, we see vomiting as the first sign of pregnancy.
2. Taking a village girl to the city is a risk. She will break lose and cause Catastrophe: you better stick to your city girlfriend o! If she is not a good cook, just manage her because if you go and carry Chioma from the village, city life will tempt her and she will make hot city friends that will help her in frustrating your life.
1. The king’s son will always fall in love with the maid. And the Princess is always Nasty: Ghanaian films took over this story line from Nigeria and we are grateful to them. You know those films that the King’s son will always return to take the throne and he will find interest in the maid in the house? That is what we are talking about. The Princess that he is betrothed to will chase him away with her bad attitude. The Prince and the Princess never flow. Wealth will always meet poverty when it is a royal film.
