| Sumario: | The Nigerian video film class which is now regarded as "Nollywood" continues to grow with the passage of time because it provides its local audience with a visual delight of narratives which captures their prodigal desires and pains. An enterprise which began strictly for the purpose of entertainment has mushroomed into something close to a casino. Although, the enterprise continues to defy definition because its production localized, it has become so popular amongst the people considering the fact that Nigeria is now more of a "watching" society to a "reading" one. The subject of this essay is not to specifically define this filmic enterprise, but rather intends to examine an aspect of the film which borders on the asymmetric gender relations in the screening of the films. My argument is premised on the socio-cultural role of women in the Nigerian society and how their identity is distorted and contracted in films in order to justify their exclusion from crucial national issues. The films celebrate popular gender stereotypes identifiable in first- and second-generation Nigerian literature. Thus the paper maintains that this biased filmic gender practice is only an invocation of pre-existing stasis which is facilitated by the patriarchal control of the entire filmic enterprise in Nigeria.
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