FOREIGN SOAPS KILLING LOCAL CONTENT

The fascination of Ghanaians in watching the Mexican, South Korean, and Indian soaps has gone from ridiculous to worry. It is laughable to see a country once colonised, in the process of development, and still bemoaning the loss of most of our cultural values sink so low, aided and abetted by the media which has decided to break instead of make up for our cultural loss. The movie industry is a very powerful tool in every country. It is the tool used to showcase a country’s culture, which include values, morals, language, fashion, beliefs,  beauty, to mention but few. Ghanaians however, have chosen other country’s culture over ours, stifling the Ghana Movie Industry. The Hong Kong Movie industry stands at a whooping US $1.65  billion, Nollywood Film Industry is worth US $ 3.5 billion. With Hollywood grossing over 10 billion dollars annually, and South Korea’s movie industry drawing many tourists to them, why must we graze our own down to nothing? 

In today’s Ghana, hardly will you get a television station showcasing only one of these soaps, some run as many as four at a time and during prime time too. It is a fact that most Ghanaians take in what is given and end up getting obsessed with it. So I am not surprised when children burn because their parents go on telenovela hunting. Try listening to names of some children born in this era to telenovela enthusiasts.

The Ghana I grew to know was a place where decency was revered. It was an abomination to see couples kissing in public, married or not, let alone wearing inappropriate clothes in the name of fashion.

Now what do we see? Not only do women copy what they see through these telenovelas exhibiting their follies in the name of love, they also inculcate into their minds the low morals carried by these soaps. Now ridiculous happenings like two sisters fighting over a man, a father and son killing each other because of a woman, people loving their roles as antagonists caring less about what society considers ill, rule. I believe the most dehumanizing aspect is that people sit, with very prominent people who serve as role models to discuss these soaps on national televisions. And oh the killer; some stations even translate into the local Akan language infusing our cities and locally made products into them in their bid for advertisement. Is this not brainwashing? I would not be surprised if a mexican city is shown to telenovela enthusiasts in an exam and the singular answer turns out to be “Accra”. What are we doing to our country? 

Why will a Ghanaian help another Ghanaian to see himself or herself in a white frame? The very frame whose major population considers us inferior? And oh sometimes, the hyperbolic language translations and the pronunciation errors  pollute students whose parents can’t control them because of the fact that the soaps are everywhere. 

I know the media is a huge factor and may not help out in stopping this menace seen as a money making venture for broadcasting corporations, but in putting a stop to this, the cost involved in watching these things online will make it decrease and with time, the generation polluted will fade out. 

I believe this is a national manipulation which fester on the needs of the lonely and fantasies of illiterates, semi illiterates and bored literates. I know some do have moral lessons but their way of living is different from our ways and this further deteriorates the erosion of our culture. Why do we still kick against homosexuality when we allow such movies on our national screens? Do we not know that homosexuality rule in Mexican soaps and sometimes South Korean ones? Some attitudes and way of life are picked from movies, a fact.

It takes a radical and brave hearted to put a stop to something that has already become the norm, but I believe if investors and the government come together to encourage movie makers to come up with series that will not be based on insults and horrific follies, and they come out like Shirley Frimpong Manson’s Adam’s Apples, and Kumawood’s “Kumasi Yonko”, Ghanaians will fully embrace and lift our flag higher on the international market. Loving everyone’s but ours is the worst form of slavery. A canker only the media can spearhead to move this nation forward.

Information on best movie makers culled from https://infotainworld.com/top-10-biggest-film-industries-world/