HAUSA ‘FIM’ STILL AN ISSUE

By

Madiha Zarruk

 

Forwarded by Jibo Nura

jibonura@yahoo.com

 

 

 

Entertainment programs in the media are designed to bring about pleasure to the audience, be it electronic or print, there are programs for sport lovers, adventure, music, science lovers, fantasy and fictions, nature and the likes. Movies as tools for entertainment provide all form of pleasure to children, youth and adults. As these services are provided for, the providers try to maintain as much as possible some decency in what they give to their audience and the same time doing themselves justice by safe guarding their wears.

 

But are the Hausa movies makers aware of such an issue and do they really care about the viewers? As the entertainment industry is vast and cannot really estimate it viewers, it has to device a means of protecting its consumers.

 

Therefore censorship and copyright protection are the mechanism that can protect both the consumer and the producer. And as the saying goes “variety are the spice of life” but do Hausa film makers add those spices to their game and the main question here, does Hausa entertainment industry care about this, if they care, how can we actualize and  justify it?

 

Talking about censorship in the Kannywood business, then it is a no, censorship in the sense of Age Tags on their movies. Historically, at the stage when film making was booming, and cinema was growing in the west i.e. around 1906, there was a constant problem that existed between the film makers and the local authorities on how to regulate the categories of viewers going to the cinemas to watch. To eliminate this, the film industry had to set up its own voluntary censorship organization, and film producers were expected to comply with its standards. One may come to understand that in cinema, using bad language, obscenity and the likes are very common. Though in the Hausa films obscenity might not be an issue but the use of market language is the order of the day. We know that there is a body that censors films in Nigeria before they are released into the market; therefore, this responsibility is saddled upon then to tackle this problem. The viewers want movies that will make them feel safe and guaranty in preserving what is deem right for the society in which they live. The question here is, our Nollywood counterparts have and are still doing so, why not Kannywood? The Nigerian English Movies that come from the southern and eastern part of the country however, you will see that these have with them movies with official tags for the age category that are supposed to be watching those materials. For instance you see the tag ‘18’ meaning 18 years and above are only allowed to watch. And in the tag ‘PG’ mean Parental Guidance which means that the viewer if young are to be guarded also to safeguard the children against obscenity and the use bad language, the tag ‘U’ meaning Universal which is considered suitable for the whole population and ‘15’ when the film is not suitable for people under the age 15 years. Though not all these mentioned are applicable to Nollywood, but at least some are, and that is a way forward to them, but what about us?

 

On the other hand, copyright protection warnings appears on every CD, video cassettes of Hausa film you pick from the stall because they don’t want to be cheated out of their pennies. But, that doesn’t mean they (the Hausa film) have any respect for such warnings, because translated Western and Indian movies, copied songs and lyrics still appear on our T.V. screens. The Hausa film makers also believe they have that authority to do so to the originators of such material despite the warning on those same materials they copy from

 

Of course Variety, as we all know is the spice of life, but our local entertainers hardly provide us with that, in fact sometimes they make one thinks that these movies are like reading M&B novels all romance and the same problem always emanate. The only difference if any, are the scenarios and characters. The Hausa film makers hardly produce movies that are motivational or children movies for entertainment, though there are lot of comedies and a little bit of horrors here and there, but majority are love stories, I think it is high time that the film makers do something about this very issue so that we can have all the fun, or is that not what these movies are meant for?