Browsing by Author "Schnell, Breanne"
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Item Open Access Stop Comparing Nollywood to Hollywood: Reorienting Western Understanding of Nigerian Cinema(University of Oregon, 2017) Schnell, BreanneNigeria has the second largest film industry in the world with thousands of movies produced since the industry’s formation in the early 1990s. However, despite its massive success, Western discourses frequently use terms and allusions that reduce and frequently over-simplify the intricacies of the Nigerian film industry by comparing “Nollywood” to Hollywood. Utilizing the terms “Nollywood,” “Netflix of Africa,” and “New Nollywood” as examples of popular analogies made by scholars and journalists, I demonstrate that reorienting the focal point of industry research enriches the understanding of the Nigerian film industry in terms of Africa and Africans and away from a Western perspective. Ultimately, I argue that the Nigerian film industry should not be compared to Hollywood because they differ completely in structure, distribution strategies, and cultural understanding of what has “value.”