Wednesday 23 September 2009

DISTRICT 9 AND THE NIGERIA FILM AND VIDEO CENSORS BOARD

Just a quick question,how did the movie get past the bulging eyes of the Nigeria film and video censors board? They censor Nigerian movies before they are released into the market and foreign films before they are shown at cinemas so how did District 9 get past them to be shown at Silverbird cinemas?
The things D9 said, we dare not try a quarter of it in Nollywood, Censors board would ask you to yank it immediately so why did they approve D9 for the general public. Is this a case of double standards? Wouldn't it have been simpler to simply dissaprove the movie from day one than to now run round banning it?

A one time winning short story of the commonwealt short story writing competition was titled: Bill Gates goes to Hell. The States or Gates family decried the title, and the award had to be withdrawn so everywhere people do not take kindly to their names being used negatively.

I think it was highly irresponsible of the movie makers particularly at a time when emotions are still raw from the xenophobic attacks on Nigerians in South Africa. What exactly was neil Blokamp hoping to achieve by this? To start a war? I know that as writers, we want to make a statement but they are subtle ways of saying things. The use of the name Obasanjo was a very cheap jab. But I guess Neil has gotten his cheap popularity.

1 comment:

Myne said...

Do you still blog? I heard about you from Nigerianstalk and came to check.