Critical Appraisals of Aesthetic Tools in Contemporary Nollywood City Films

Abstract

This study is a critical exploration of social characteristics as aesthetic tools for viewers’ fancy and attraction in Nigerian city films. Aesthetics is any creative strategy employed by culture producers to win consumers of cultural products such as films. The study is guided by Roman Jakobson’s Formalist Theory, which pays attention to the functionalities of the inner properties of creativity. Contemporary Nigerian filmmakers pay attention to city films for economic reasons driven by the need to survive the harsh Nigerian economy. The filmmakers identify the vibrant population blocs and glamourise their social traits for attraction and fantasy. Such population blocs include people of Westernised consciousness, who glamourise Occidental grandeur; the Gen Zs, who are counter-culture; the Yahoo Boys, who flaunt ill-gotten wealth; the Olosho Girls (social media baddies), who sexualise; and Street Boys and Girls, who sensationalise lexicons of self-adulation or expletives. Strategic attraction of viewers through aesthetic resources is necessary for these filmmakers to gain patronage and survive the declining Nigerian economy. However, the deployment of these social characteristics as aesthetic tools has been interpreted as the filmmakers’ promotion of negative aspects of Nigerian society. However, this social aesthetic strategy and practice may not abate anytime soon.