An affecting story: Review by Ikhide Ikheloa
Suspenseful: Review by Fredua Agyeman
Review by Zeblon Nsingo
I’ve been reading the book Cultural Hybridity by Peter Burke, a book that explores much of the concepts of hybridity in human cultures and relations. There are ample evidence from the history of humankind that prove hybridity, even more than we always immediately recognize. From the old Yoruba, Igbo and even Hausa cultures of Nigeria to that of old Rome, Jewish, Brazilian, Spanish and much of Europe, the author cites very many instances of cultural hybridity (also called “borrowing”, “syncretism”, “assimilation”, “adaptation”, “fusion” and even “homogenization” among others) and the way attitudes and opinions to such hybridity have evolved over the years.
One memorable quote from the book was from Edward Said: “the history of all cultures is the history of borrowing.” I find that apt, and the book confirms it with very many instances of both rebellion against and acceptance of cultural exchange by different cultures and societies of people across the times.
Published in 2009 by Polity Press
142 pages.
Tyler Perry’s latest movie is titled Why Did I Get Married Too, a sequel to the first brilliant drama Why Did I Get Married. But while the first part was brilliant, logical and very comical and stimulating, this sequel fails like the very many other sequels that seek to make money off a first brilliant idea. And while I don’t hate all sequels (Meet the Fockers lives up to expectation of a good sequel after Meet the Parents, as did Simba’s Pride and Lion King 1 1/2). But if I was asked to summarize this Tyler Perry movie in one word, it would be: “heck!”.
Don’t get me wrong, it was good as far as cinematography, characterization and acting are concerned. It even has some great laugh-out-loud scenes. But for plot, I give it a big thumbs down. And I am a Tyler Perry fan. I have seen and loved some of his earlier works like Madea’s Family Reunion and The Diary of a Mad Black Woman. I have even seen the stage performance of this Why Did I Get Married. But now after spending my money and two hours of my life in a cinema, I am left with wondering: Why? You don’t always have to make a sequel. But when you do, why not at least give the audience some credit for intelligence and the ability to discern when they’re being taken for a ride.
I know that many people, especially women will crucify me for taking this position, but luckily I am not alone. If you choose to pay your money to see it, note that the story will neither inspire nor even entertain you in any intelligent way. You will get sentimentality, but not brilliance. You will probably wish that you had gone to see Desperate Housewives instead. At least, that one is honest about its intention to sometimes take your intelligence for granted with exaggerated coincidences and plot twists. And Desperate Housewives does have some brilliant lines as well as plots. In this Tyler Perry movie, all the four couples in the first part have gotten back together for another annual retreat. What happens afterwards – I insist – is a matter for tv series and soaps, and not for the movies. As thoroughly superb as her performance in this disappointing flick is, I’m sorry to say that Janet Jackson won’t be deserving an Oscar yet. And it won’t be her fault. It will be the poor script that the director has given her to play. Maybe Mr. Perry should consider turning the “movie” into a tv series, and we can hope for him to win his Emmys someday. Until then, let me go mourn the loss of two precious hours that I will never ever get back. 🙁
Picture this hypothetical scenario:
A woman, suspected by her husband to have been cheating on him, is infected with a hate charm meant to kill the first man who sleeps with her within a period of nine weeks (including her husband if he so becomes stupid as to make love to her within that period). But wait, that is not all. If within nine weeks no man does so, the woman dies too, so it ends up as a lose-lose situation for the woman in question, and a sadistic win for the man depending on what his motives are.
Now picture this further conflict in the story: the woman, by some unexplainable coincidences, discovers that she has this charm on her, and later that her husband was the one who had put it there, since – on being given the chance to help her get it off in the presence of spiritualists waiting to remedy the situation once and for all – he had run scared, couldn’t do it and then didn’t deny his heinous crime when eventually confronted. Time is running down and she has only seven days to live, what should the woman do? Divorce, it would seem, is already a granted option. Here were the others…
a. Sleep with a stranger, a charming medical doctor, who has volunteered himself as the guinea pig for two reasons: He doesn’t believe in the existence of such charm anyway, and he had an eye for the woman since a long time.
b. Wait it out, disbelieving in such crap as a hate charm, especially since she is not from that culture that believes in such a thing as magun as the charm is called. The risk is a 50-50 chance that she might die.
This is the subject of a class movie that we just saw to the end on Monday. The 2001 movie is titled THUNDERBOLT (Magun) and is an adaptation of a story by Yoruba writer Adebayo Faleti, and directed by multi award-winning director Tunde Kelani. Magun (literally meaning “don’t climb”) is an old and notorious myth in the Yoruba culture, and it has been credited for all the strange or spooky things that have happened to people engaged in illicit affairs. The scientific verification of the curse is impossible since no one has ever claimed responsibility for its activation, nor narrated experiences of its infection. The men concubines are supposed to die immediately afterwards, and the woman shamed. Thus so far, it exists purely at the level of myths, literature, movies and academic papers. The movie is instructive in the way it brings the western culture into a spectacular clash with the local traditional medicine, and superstition, and how the love triangle of death, intrigue and betrayal was resolved in the end.
We saw this movie last semester in class, and the students loved it. This semester, they did too, but there was at least one objection to the way adultery was portrayed as the solution to the death triangle. “I just don’t believe that it is right,” the student said, having walked out of the class at the last scene where a medical doctor who didn’t believe in “such crap” had volunteered himself as the guinea pig to test the veracity of the myth and thus get a chance to write an academic paper about its demystification. “It is a marriage for God’s sake,” she said, not really in these exact words “and marriage is a sacred institution. To allow such portrayal of adultery as a solution to something that is purely mythical is barbaric and ridiculous.” And for a moment, it seemed that the fiction on the screen had taken a life of its own out in the real world of the classroom. What she didn’t see in the last moments of the movie as she walked out in protest was how the guinea pig medical doctor who had put the myth to test had come face-to-face with immediate death thus adding veracity to the myth, at least for the benefit of the story. Much of the conflict in the movie however was about that clash of civilization and tradition, and the extent of human tolerance, love, respect and curiosity.
I had brought it along from Nigeria because it was one of the my favourite Nigerian Yoruba movies, because of its drama, and because of the way it explores a cultural myth and its interaction with a modernizing world. I recommend it for watching for everyone, and not just because one of my (now late) Professors was one of the main characters, but because it raises valid questions of what is to be done when one is suddenly confronted with the a life-threatening, time-bound discovery that the world is not all good and kind.
PS: Said student is the only married student in the class, which could make it easier – or not – to understand her objection. That said, I’m glad that the movie provoked such a discussion. Theatre/Fiction tends to do just that.