The Romance Genre and Nollywood: A Critical Reading of Passions and True Romance

Abstract

This paper is an examination of the romance genre in the burgeoning video film industry in Nigeria. Using two Nigerian video films namely: Passions and True Romance as paradigm, the position of this research effort is that romance genre is one of the popular genres in the video film industry in Nigeria and that these films command mass appeal on both the literate and illiterate audiences. The methodology of this research is highly literary and sociological. What we find in this study is the fact that actors in the romance genre have become icons and paragons of sexual attraction, beauty, and love. There is the need therefore, for filmmakers to continuously carry out research on the audience in order to sustain their interest and also break new grounds in film productions and categorization. This is because genres depend on the audiences' competences and experiences on the skill they have developed in understanding films and a body of similar experiences they can draw upon.