Theatre icon, Dejumo Lewis, popularly known for his role in the classic drama, ‘Village Headmaster,’ has reiterated his distaste for the term ‘Nollywood’ used in describing the Nigerian film industry.
The legendary actor said at the weekend that Nigerians were copying the wrong things from the American Hollywood instead of carving a niche for themselves.
“Hollywood in America is the cradle of film making and it is a physical location. Where is Nollywood in Nigeria? I absolutely condemn the name Nollywood and I have the highest aversion for that term.
We are just copy cats even though they have very good things we can copy, but we copy the wrong things. People keep on complaining about the general content coming out of the so-called Nollywood.
“The word Nolly implies negativity. I studied Latin and the word nolly means nothing. It is a negative thing. They say that the term has been established all over the world but I reply them saying that there is corruption all over the world, just like Nigeria but are we not doing something about it?
Are we not trying to fight and correct corruption? So we can also correct that colonial mentality and make our industry known globally as Naija movie industry,” he said.
