Business Men in the Arts and the Need for Empowerment of Nollywood Actors and Actresses

Abstract

The advent of "businessmen" in the arts is not a strange phenomenon to warrant the hues and cries over the exploitation of the artists by producers and marketers in Nigeria. Film is a scion of the theatre. The film, a more glamourous vine branch of theatre has overwhelmed the popularity of theatre obliterating the memory of theatre's palmy days. However, the "business" value of this screen phenomenon is unclear to the practitioners of the arts to take advantages of its financial prosperity by producing their own works or negotiating better financial deals with their business magnate producers. This paper takes into consideration similar situations in showbusiness history. It calls attention of the Nollywood artists' naivity in appreciating only the psychical benefits of their talents and neglecting the good financial advantage their skills attract. This, the producers are exploiting as the New York theatre syndicate and the Shubert Brothers did in the 1890s and early 1900s. The fact that artists are inept in the "business" of the art and are therefore living a subsistence life instead of opulence is the focus of this paper. The way out is for artist to articulate the 'business' in the arts, come together as union, negotiate commensurate fees with producers or raise producers among themselves. By this effort, they would attain good life standards as their counterparts in Hollywood and Bollywood.