Aliens, Monsters, and Beasts in the Cultural Mapping of Nollywood Cinematography

Abstract

The emerging field of monster studies has witnessed significant contributions in the
functions of monsters in the representations of human stories. In spite of the different creative
discourses in this new field, the cultural aesthetics and the strategic polemics of monsters in African
stories have largely remained unengaged. Drawing from recent development in monster theories
and the cinematic presence of monsters in Nollywood movies, the paper interrogates the cultural
aesthetics, ethno-polemics, and the moral constructs of monsters in Nollywood movies.
Specifically, monsters in Nollywood movies are not only the cultural equivalents of the aliens and
extraterrestrial creatures of Hollywood movies, but they occupied strategic importance in the
mapping of deviant characters, ethics, theodicy and the constructs of the “ethnic other.” Through
explorative method, the paper engages common cinematic motifs, social characterizations, and
cultural polemics of monsters in Nollywood cinematography, thus providing new insights to the
new field of monster studies.