Who’s Watching the Gate?
23 Jun 2011 Leave a Comment
I admit… this is almost becoming my own personal Nollywood blog. Hey, what can I say? This is where I am in my research efforts.
Anyway, I noticed two interesting character types this week: the gateman and the first wife. For my MA thesis I wrote a paper about stereotypes in African American literature, so quite naturally, one of the goals for my overall graduate studies grew into comparing and contrasting African stereotypes to African American stereotypes. Moreover, I would like to determine influences of stereotypes from each group.
There is no gateman type in African American literature or film, but this is a common character in African literature and film. Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie mentions this type in her novels and a high percentage of the Nollywood films employ this type as well. In most cases, gatemen are service workers who are often treated as children. They are loyal to a fault, ridiculed to a point of being called stupid, and often the recipients of misguided anger and evil. I have even seen gatemen in films hit and slapped by visitors and employers. However, gatemen have a subtle power. Because they are often poor workers from villages, their employers think they lack the intelligence to understand the schemes and plots that seem to be part of all Nollywood films. They hide little from them. In fact, they treat them as furniture. They bring lovers (from affairs) through the gates right before the eyes of gatemen, as well, they make other sneaky little gestures that indicate trust in secrecy from these men or awareness that not keeping quiet means getting fired. In one film, a sad film, the gateman was comic relief. He protected and guarded the gate, but his actions and responses to the abuse from his employer were funny. For example, the wife was keeping a secret from her husband and a lover from her past came home with her spouse as a business partner. Since the gateman had met him, when he knocked on the gate later (when the woman’s husband was away) he was granted entry. The woman later scolded the gateman and told him to never allow the man entry again, but when the ex-lover reported this to the husband (his business partner) he came home enraged. The woman told her husband (in front of the gateman) that the gateman was stupid and misheard her words. She told him that she had instructed the gateman to let the man in any time he came. The gateman made a “whatchu talkin’ bout Willis” face, but willingly took the lie as a mistake of his own.
While the gateman is the often subjected to abuse and humiliation, he knows everything that goes on inside the gate (which by the way is always comprised of tall stucco walls with an equally tall steel or metal door that disables anyone from the street from getting an actual view of the dwelling; I will discuss this more in a different post). He is sometimes a sly advisor. I have seen gatemen give advice to their employers without their employers knowing that they have received advice from someone they see as beneath them in status. In many cases, gatemen are responsible for saving the protagonist from doom because they are always aware of the sinister plots and plans.
The gateman appears to be a mere opener and closer of the gate, but like the mammy, buck, and welfare mother, he is so much more.
Since I’ve spent so much time and space on the gateman tonight, I will save the first wife for later. Until then, I leave you with this question: Who’s watching your gate?
Note: I realize the Nigeria I am watching is fictional. I am aware that Nollywood is mostly comprised of Igbo affluent who have a tendency to cast Igbo people as the rich political giants and business millionaires as well as the hausa-speaking gatemen to keep with the true events as seen on the street socially and historically. I realize that they are actors acting, and like our own Hollywood, there is more to the casting of these stereotypes politically.
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