By: Mumuni Yirifa Yunus/metromixdrive
There have been controversies as to why the Ghana Movie Industry has been named “Ghallywood”.
In as much as I
appreciate the fact that we (Ghanaians) must be creative, innovative and “Africanistic”,
I would want the name to remain same for several reasons.
But even before I tell you why the name must remain same,
let me tell you some of the names I have heard people suggest for adoption. “Cinekrom”,
Ananse world” and several other names with “krom” attached to them.
Well, that’s not bad at all but the question is; won’t
people outside the Akan ethnic areas think it is directed at projecting only a
portion of the industry? We shouldn’t forget that Ghana is a multi cultural
state with over one hundred different languages.
On top of the
movie industry are groups including Akans, Gas, Ewes and Dagombas and no place
in the dictionaries of Gas, Ewes and Dagombas would you find the word “krom”.
If we are giving it a name, it must be done, taking into
consideration its implication on national unity and indeed if we want our
productions to sell countrywide and beyond such ethnocentric names must never
be considered.
To me, Ghallywood is just perfect. I have heard some say
that the name is disgusting and has never depicted our cultural values. Well
that’s true, but how many of our internationally acclaimed movies depict our
cultural values except the ones in our local languages? Is sex, romance and
seduction part of our cultural heritage?
I am glad it is called Ghallywood so that the
international community would know that it is just an interpretation of the
meaning of Hollywood by Ghanaians, except that we haven’t been able to act the
action part.
I appreciate the fact that there have been some real African
movie productions in the country, but to be just, this was in the past. I stand
to be corrected but the fact is all our contemporary movies have scenes not
suitable for persons below 18years of age because they either contain sexually
explicit shots or violent languages. So is that the cultural value we are all
talking about?
Even though when it comes to movie and its productions I
am a layman, I must say that the Ghana movie industry needs to grow because
there is this ban-wagon believe that there must always be a sexually explicit
scene in order to breakthrough the market.
It baffles me sometimes when I watch some of our movies
and see a lady (supposed to be an African) appear almost naked with her beads
showing. The question I usually ask is would a real African woman display her
beads for the world to watch her? Not even an African sex-worker would do such!
Most of our actors and actresses prefer playing roles of
obscene scenes because according to them, that is where the money is.
Look at this picture above, what is African about it? So
we should call our movie industry say “Cinekrom” and when I buy a copy of a
Cinekrom movie to watch, I see scenes such as this?
We must rise to the occasion and accept the fact that
Ghallywood is the best acronym for our movie industry. At least it tells that
even though it may be from Ghana, there is some kind of a Hollywood style in
it.
This is my personal view and it should not be seen as a
collective thinking of this site.
For comments, criticism and or additions, e-mail on
yunusmumuni@ gmail.com
