In Nollywood, Queer Cinema Still Has a Long Way to Go

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For Esquire's Pride cinema series, writer Nelson C.J delves into the homophobic legacy of Nigeria's film industry

with prison sentences of up to 14 years for public affection, same-sex unions, and even public support for the latter. Suffice to say, these draconian laws have influenced how queer stories and characters are portrayed on screen and perceived by the public, making it harder for positive narratives to see the light of day.

In the Nollywood canon, queerness has been portrayed as a morally bankrupt state of being. LGBTQ+ characters are often reduced to comic relief,As a result of their supposed degeneracy, such characters would undergo an exorcism in a church or mosque, be thrown in jail, or worse yet, killed. Their grisly fates and grim origin stories reaffirm the church and state’s most damaging attack lines against the queer community.

“Nollywood made films that depicted homosexuality as a consequence of rape and grooming,” says writer and filmmaker Dika Ofoma. “They helped reinforce already existing misconceptions of queerness and propagated them further with such films. To an extent, I would say Nollywood does bear some responsibility for how queerness is perceived in our society today.”“I detest when they paint it out as a mental illness or a curse,” says digital archivist Theodora Imaan Beauvis, of Yung Nollywood.

 

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