Gendered Nollywood: Interrogating Femininity in Contemporary Nigerian Films
Abiodun Olayiwola

Abstract
Studies on the construction of women in Nollywood films have majorly focused on the subjugation of women by the phallocentric African men and the need for socio-economic liberation. Most of these films perceive women as a socially constituted homogenous group on the basis of shared oppression. However, this study intends to interrogate gender relations in terms of the way cultural and development policies are currently regulating the balance of power between men and women in a rapidly mutating African society. Through a reading of select Nigerian films, the paper examines how Nollywood films construct the heterogeneous roles performed by men and women in Modern Nigeria. The paper submits that the dynamics of modernity is changing the depiction of perception of the female gender in contemporary Nigerian cinema.

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