A Westernized African Voice

In the world of cinematography, the type of lens a filmmaker uses can change how the viewer visualizes the story being told. A lens can be colored, distorted, clarified, magnified. These visual perspectives then shape the way we look at the image and interpret it. But one does not need to be a filmmaker to use lenses as a way to visualize the world. Everyone has a perspective; everyone views the world through a different metaphorical lens. Every time we write an article, we must acknowledge it is from a particular lens, or point of view. As Roy Richard Grinker and Christopher B. Steiner point out, “when we look at something we always, necessarily, look from somewhere else.”

Unfortunately, the lens the west uses to view Africa has an effect on the country’s representation globally. Africa is seen by many through the distorting lens of colonialism. The concepts of family, kingship, tribes, civilization, culture, and savageness are all derived from this time of colonialism. This historic language is constantly reinforced today, especially in film and media, by western civilization. However, when we view film and Africa only through this colonial lens, we are undermining the emergence of the African film industry as a mode of self-retrieval and resistance, a mode of finding a voice and reclaiming history, as well its future. 

This issue of imposing a western perspective on an African voice was evaluated through a slightly sarcastic article from Granta magazine. The magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, student badinage and student literary enterprise. Since its rebirth in 1979, "Granta has published many of the world’s finest writers tackling some of the world’s most important subjects, from intimate human experiences to the large public and political events that have shaped our lives." 

The article, How To Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina, actually acts as a guideline of what not to do, mentioning the most common offenses amongst most journalists and media outlets. For example he writes, "In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don’t get bogged down with precise descriptions." The work ends with my favorite line, "Always end your book with Nelson Mandela saying something about rainbows or renaissances. Because you care." 

I was so shocked and horrified by the truth of this article. This descriptions can be found in almost every mainstream media western media outlet. Take for example, National Geographic's special issue on Africa. The site's main stories include an African safari live web cam, a story on AIDS, a look at the Congo's Mbuti Pygmies tribe and a story on oil-- with pictures of strong African men bare chested. Not one of these stories help to further or work against these stereotypes and misrepresentation mentioned by Wainaina. Where is the African voice in media?

Nollywood can be considered an alternative form of media to the western perceptions of Africa. This localized film does not carrying the ever-present narrative that Africa needs to be saved or spoken for. According to Mahir Saul and Ralph Austen, “That narrativization is speech fashioned out of its locality and defined in the hybrid mobilization of the technology of video.” And Nollywood is actually the third largest film industry in the world. 

Is the African film industry of Nollywood technically independent media? No. But it is alternative media to the predominant westernized voice on African issues that dominates the global understanding of the continent.  And for that, I think the growth of Nollywood and African media is important to the growth of all independent and alternative media because it means the growth of reclamation of all silenced voices on a global level.