By Hashim Muhammad Suleiman, PhD
1. Film industry is globally and locally an amalgamation of people living on the fringe of and within societies.
2. The crux of film industry is profit maximization. Film industry is neither moral nor immoral. It is an extreme amoral way of accumulating wealth through the commodification of culture, sex, faith and other human interactions.
3. Globally, film industry is rife with exploitation. Crappy capitalists always exploit what others have to maximize profits.
4. The first mistake of Kannywood industry was and is their use of religious blackmail to gain acceptability from its local host. Wherever you have a combination of money, free women and free men, exploitation of sex appeals by money haves will always be rife. So, using the cover of religion to gain acceptability is always a lost fight in the long run.
5. It is now openly glare that Kannywood knows how to assemble film shots, produce dance episodes but Kannywood doesn’t know how to communicate about itself effectively. Now that they’re communicating about their internal crisis, it has become clear that the industry is an assemblage of war monks with no central source of command. As such, each monk is releasing friendly fire that does no good to no one, including the monk firing.
6. It is pertinent for Kannywood stakeholders to urgently professionalize their industry. It shouldn’t be a free lodge for every Time, Dick and Harry to openly join and exhibit their lack of social appreciation of what a productive industry should be.
7. Kannywood urgently needs an ombudsman who’ll have the wherewithal to collectively address the shortfalls of the industry.
8. For now, Kannywood should stop their open macabre dance of washing their dirty linens in the village square. The host community has heard enough of the dirty dealings of the industry. Let Kannywood come together, stop the ruffian talks, learn their painful lessons and forge ahead.
9. The current Kannywood brouhaha should serve as a pedestal for the industry to appreciate the fact that exploitation, in all its ramifications, always come back to haunt its perpetrator. You cannot continue to exploit your low level characters and expect them not to find a way of fighting back one way or the other.
10. For now, let the elders of Kannywood industry stop being aloop of what’s happening in their industry. Let the stakeholders of Kannywood industry come together and try to stop the vices within the industry. Let them try hard to enshrine unity of purpose within the ranks of the industry and steer it away from the current observable discontent in it.
Hashim can be reached via mshashim@abu.edu.ng
