Nkemakonam Aniukwu (PhD)

Department of Theatre and Film Studies, NnamdiAzikiwe University, Awka.

Child education in Nigeria and most parts of Africa has become a serious subject matter in recent times due to some nonchalant and maladjusted behaviours witnessed in today’s kids and younger adults alike. However, in Nollywood today, the themes of hatred, deceit, gluttony, stealing, and other social vices are prevalent in some children films. This research is centred on finding out the reasons for such increase in dubious behaviours amongst the children and thus adopts content analysis approach of qualitative research method to evaluate a Nollywood fictional-reality film Two Rabbits selected purposively to see the level of imitation of the filmic events on the part of the children, and how such films influence the young audiences into modelling their behaviours and attitudes around the film characters. The study is hinged on the Screen Institution postulation that highlights the powerful nature of screen interface learning which could be positive or negative. The researcher discovered that children could be easily influenced by the child star actors (Chinedu Ikedieze and Osita Iheme) who have starred in most Nollywood films. And as such modelling their lives, attitudes and behaviours around that of the characters’ they see often in films becomes inevitable. The study concludes and recommends that Nollywood children film characters should be equipped with good characters’ traits and activities that project love, handiwork, courage, and bravery instead of the constant projection of the social vices as perceived in Two Rabbits and other Nollywood children films. And for a character who embodies these social vices, adequate punishment should be served so as to deter the young audiences from imitating such a character.

Screen Institution Postulation, Nollywood, Children, Fictional Reality.

.

11) Two Rabbits. Dir. Amayo Philips Uzo. Perf. Osita Iheme, Nkem Owoh, Chinedu Ikedieze. De-Blessed Mishack Nwonu Production. 2014. YouTube. 10 June 2022

12) Villani, Susan. "Impact of Media on Children and Adolescents: A 10-Year Review of the Research." Journal of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40.4 (2001): 392-401. PDF. 30 July 2019. .

13) Zochbauer, Franz. New gods. Problems of film-star worshid. In: Jugend und Film, Munich. The influence of the cinema on children and adolescents. UNESCO. Paris: UNESCO, 1961. Online (PDF). 21 October 2022

VOLUME 06 ISSUE 08 AUGUST 2023

There is an Open Access article, distributed under the term of the Creative Commons Attribution – Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits remixing, adapting and building upon the work for non-commercial use, provided the original work is properly cited.