Africana Periodical Literature 
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 Periodical article |
 Leiden University catalogue |
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| Title: | Signs of femininity, symptoms of malaise: contextualizing figurations of 'woman' in Nollywood |
| Author: | Bryce, Jane |
| Year: | 2012 |
| Periodical: | Research in African Literatures (ISSN 0034-5210) |
| Volume: | 43 |
| Issue: | 4 |
| Pages: | 71-87 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | Nigeria |
| Subjects: | Nollywood women images stereotypes |
| External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/research_in_african_literatures/v043/43.4.bryce.pdf |
| Abstract: | Nollywood, emerging in spectacular fashion in the 1990s to dominate the cultural scene in Nigeria, is intricately enmeshed in the semiotic web of Nigerian popular (and literary) arts of the preceding decades. The author's purpose is to place the feminine-as-sign in Nollywood, which encompasses but is not limited to its representation of actual women, within a broader historical context of constructions of femininity in Nigerian popular culture and literature. Different styles of feminism favor different labels, but the controversy surrounding both 'images of women' and 'constructions of femininity' is an intrinsic aspect of culture itself. The author is especially concerned with critical theorizations that shape responses to and perceptions of gender roles and femininity. Her intervention forms part of an on-going dialogue between feminist and conservative/cultural nationalist commentators around the representation and role of women in literary and popular culture. She traces some of the contours of this dialogue so as to demonstrate the way familiar arguments keep recurring, and suggests an alternative approach to what Bisi Adeleye-Fayemi calls the 'mirror-image' or 'either/or' paradigm that largely defines the argument as it is conducted in the public sphere. Bibliogr., notes, sum. [Journal abstract] |
