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As a media scholar I have been researching the Nigerian evangelical screen world for over a decade. As I show in my latest study in the book Contemporary African Screen Worlds, the rise of evangelical cinema is tied to Nigeria’s Pentecostal boom and the explosion of Nollywood, the country’s vast film industry, in the 1990s.

Duke University Press

In the early days of Nollywood, films were distributed on video cassettes and shown in communal venues, including church halls. They spread to TV, where audiences embraced early Nollywood productions like Agbara Nla (The Ultimate Power) produced in 1993 by Mount Zion Faith Ministries International. Broadcast as a series, it dramatised spiritual warfare between Christians and demonic agents and became a national phenomenon.

The ministry, founded in 1985, houses Mount Zion Film Productions, the most prolific Christian film company in Nigeria.

Evangelical films blur the line between devotion and drama, prayer and performance. My study shows that they are not just niche productions aimed at church audiences. Their impact is far greater. The films reveal how millions of Nigerians imagine the spiritual world, how they navigate everyday crises, and how religion adapts to new technologies.

The Nigerian evangelical film culture also shows how a range of networks can build and push a cinematic culture forward, offering lessons to industries around the world about the power of leveraged networks.

How it all started

At the centre of this story is Mike Bamiloye, co-founder of Mount Zion Faith Ministries. Established by a small group of college graduates, it began with church stage plays before moving into video and TV.

Like the Yoruba theatre tradition from which it drew some of its inspiration, Mount Zion toured churches and neighbouring countries, staging plays and building audiences.

With fewer entertainment options available back then, TV audiences embraced Agbara Nla. The film tells the story of a village that is constantly punished by the forces of darkness because of a malevolent herbalist. God sends a young Christian missionary couple to battle him and deliver the community from evil.

What made Agbara Nla and similar films resonate was their familiarity. Nigerians had long been exposed to supernatural storylines. In the 1960s through to the 1980s, they occurred in Yoruba travelling theatre productions, a popular form of entertainment.

Later, the supernatural was kept alive in Nollywood’s many occult-themed films. Often involving witchcraft and magic, these films tend to tap into a blend of Christian and traditional Nigerian cosmologies. They revolve around the idea of spiritual warfare, of good versus evil and God versus the Devil.

Evangelical filmmakers simply retooled the formula, swapping out witchdoctors for pastors, charms for prayer, and gods for Christ.

The power of the gods on display in a Nollywood film. Bestvillage/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

In many evangelical films, prayer is not just words muttered in the quiet of the heart. It is dramatised, given visual form, and staged as a battle with unseen forces. A woman kneeling in prayer might suddenly find herself in a parallel “spirit realm” where angels and demons clash. Her whispered incantations are translated into fireballs, lightning bolts, or shields of protection.

The effect is powerful. For Christian audiences, these films make visible what is usually invisible: the spiritual consequences of prayer. They confirm a belief that prayer works, not metaphorically but literally, in the everyday struggles of life.

Social messages

These films are more than just entertainment. They carry social messages too. One striking feature I’ve discussed in my earlier research is their focus on women.

Women are often depicted as especially vulnerable to spiritual attack – but also as powerful prayer warriors. In many films, a woman’s reproductive life – her fertility, sexuality, or motherhood – is given spiritual significance.

This framing reflects Pentecostal theology, where sex itself is sometimes cast as an act with spiritual consequences. So these kinds of Nollywood stories both challenge and reinforce gender norms.

On one hand, women are shown exercising spiritual authority. On the other, their bodies are often treated as sites of moral or spiritual conflict.

Entrepreneurship of faith

Behind the scenes, evangelical Nollywood also illustrates a different kind of creativity: entrepreneurship. Many film makers juggle ministry with business innovation, building networks of production, distribution and audience engagement. Evangelical film maker Opeyemi Akintunde, for example, started with short web stories, moved into publishing, and went on to adapt her work into films circulated on YouTube and in cinemas.

A church screening of a Nollywood film. Courtesy Elizabeth Olayiwola

This entrepreneurial spirit is part of a broader pattern across Africa. Studies have shown how Pentecostal media – from films to radio to social media – are reshaping both religious practice and cultural economies.

In Nigeria, the church itself provides infrastructure, from funding and publicity to venues and technical equipment, making film ministry possible.

Beyond Nigeria

Studies have also shown how Nollywood is spreading, embraced by a global audience. The influence of Nigerian evangelical cinema is not limited to Nigeria.

Riding on Nigeria’s transnational churches, these films and their film-making style today reach audiences across Africa, Europe and the US. Diaspora churches screen them during services; people watch them on their phones for inspiration or moral guidance.

The story is told through previously unearthed archival footage and never-before-seen interviews with legendary players like Satchel Paige and Buck O’Neil – whose early careers paved the way for the Jackie Robinson era – as well as celebrated Hall of Famers Willie Mays and Hank Aaron who started out in the Negro Leagues.

Reason for optimism

Prior to its release, the producers of “Black Panther” faced questions about whether there was a market for a Black blockbuster film, even one ensconced in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

After all, since the Wesley Snipes-led “Blade” trilogy, which came out in the late-1990s and early 2000s, Black superhero films had experienced diminishing returns. There was one notable exception: the commercially successful, though heavily panned “Hancock” (2008), starring Will Smith.

Otherwise, Black superhero films such as “Catwoman” (2004) and “Sleight” (2016) either flopped or had a limited release.

Furthermore, until “Black Panther,” no Black film exceeded a $100 million budget, the average benchmark for modern Hollywood blockbusters.

Nonetheless, despite these early concerns, “Black Panther” earned the highest domestic gross, $700 million, of all films released in 2018, while earning $1.3 billion in worldwide gross, second only to “Avengers: Infinity War.”

“Black Panther” emerged at the tail end of what many industry experts considered to be a surprisingly successful run of Black films, which included the biopic “Hidden Figures” (2016) and the raunchy comedy “Girls Trip” (2017). Despite their modest budgets, they earned over $100 million apiece at the box office – $235 million and $140 million, respectively.

However, both films were mostly reliant on the domestic box office, especially the R-rated “Girls Trip,” which was only released in a handful of foreign markets. Conventional wisdom has long held that Black films will fail abroad. International distributors and studios typically ignore them during the presale process or at film festivals and markets, reasoning that Black films are too culturally specific – not only in terms of their Blackness, but also their Americanness.

Films like “Black Panther” and the Oscar winning “Moonlight” (2016), which earned more on the international market than the domestic market, certainly challenged those assumptions. It has yet to upend them.

Black films after ‘Black Panther’

What do those Black films released in theaters in the nearly five years between “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” tell us about the former’s impact?

The simple answer is that the original “Black Panther” has had no discernible influence on industry practices whatsoever.

Since 2018, no other Black blockbuster has emerged, save for the sequel itself. Granted, Black filmmaker Ava DuVernay’s remake of “A Wrinkle in Time” (2018) reportedly cost an estimated $100 million; however, while Black actors portrayed the protagonist and a few other characters, the film features a multicultural ensemble cast – which, as scholars such as Mary Beltran have pointed out, has become the primary strategy for achieving diversity in film.

Even if one were to include “A Wrinkle in Time,” the grand total of Black films with budgets exceeding $100 million is three, with the two “Black Panther” films being the others – all during an era in which there have been hundreds of mainstream films with budgets exceeding $100 million.

Otherwise, most of the Black films released in theaters between 2018 and 2022 typically were low budget by Hollywood standards – $3 million to $20 million in most cases – with only a handful, such as the 2021 Aretha Franklin biopic “Respect,” costing $50 million to 60 million.

Perhaps the most notable change has been the medium. Many Black films now appear on either cable networks that cater to a Black audience – namely Black Entertainment Television and, more recently, Lifetime – or on streaming services such as Netflix. Tyler Perry, the most popular and prolific Black filmmaker of the modern era, has released his latest films – “A Jazzman’s Blues” (2022), “A Madea Homecoming” (2022) and “A Fall from Grace” (2020) – directly to Netflix.

Furthermore, no other Black film has approached the financial success of “Black Panther.” Granted, several Black films have fared well at the box office, especially relative to their production costs. Foremost among them is Jordan Peele’s “Us” (2019), which cost an estimated $20 million, yet earned approximately $256 million worldwide despite its R rating and the fact that it was never released in China.

Whither Black film

Without question, large budgets and commercial success are not the only measures of a film’s value and significance.

As has historically been the case, Black film has managed to do more with less. The critical acclaim afforded to films such as “BlackKlansman” (2018), “If Beale Street Could Talk” (2019) and “King Richard” (2021) reflect this fact. All reflect trends in contemporary Black filmmaking – comedies, historical dramas and biopics abound, for instance – and were made for a fraction of the cost of both “Black Panther” films.

In truth, the zeal with which some cast “Black Panther” as a bellwether for Black films is part of continued haranguing over their viability, particularly after the #OscarsSoWhite movement that drew attention to the lack of diversity at the 2016 Academy Awards.

The four Black actors nominated for the Academy’s highest honor this year are longtime Hollywood stars Denzel Washington and Smith, in addition to Aunjanue Ellis and Ariana DuBose – who is also Latina.

These recognitions come on the heels of intensified scrutiny of equitable representation within Hollywood – and concerted efforts by the Academy to diversify. Although there have been winners of color, no Black person has won an Oscar for directing, and only 20 acting awards have gone to performers of color in 94 years.

Given the 336 Oscars for acting that have been awarded over the ceremony’s lifetime, actors of color account for roughly 6% of overall wins.

“While the Academy has made strides, we know there is much more work to be done in order to ensure equitable opportunities across the board,” Academy CEO Dawn Hudson said in 2020. “The need to address this issue is urgent.”

Her response was in stark contrast to former Academy President Cheryl Boone Isaacs, the Academy’s first Black president, who was elected in 2013. When asked about the #OscarsSoWhite campaign in 2015 and whether the Academy had a diversity problem, she responded, “Not at all.”

As a scholar of American pop culture and race in media, I can say Hollywood has come a long way.

Hollywood diversity

On Jan. 15, 2015, Twitter user and activist April Reign first tweeted “#OscarsSoWhite they asked to touch my hair.” Within that day, the hashtag became viral and many Black actors and social activists used the tweet to protest Hollywood’s longstanding racism.

To the Academy’s credit, it responded to #OscarsSoWhite criticisms by making steps to reconfigure its nomination process that had resulted in such a lack of Black inclusion.

In 2020, for instance, the Academy established new representation and inclusion standards that take effect in 2024. According to its official statements, the new standards were designed to “encourage equitable representation on and off screen in order to better reflect the diversity of the movie-going audience.”

But critics have observed how films with virtually no Black characters like “The Irishman” still meet inclusion standards by employing a white female casting director and a Mexican cinematographer.

Racist Hollywood history

Racial drama started early in Hollywood.

The first groundbreaking feature-length movie, “The Birth of a Nation,” released in 1915, celebrated the Ku Klux Klan. The first talking film ever released in 1927, “The Jazz Singer,”, featured white actors in blackface.

The Academy kept alive this tradition, with echoes of racist minstrel shows from the early 20th century, in 2008 when Robert Downey Jr. received a Best Supporting Actor nomination for his role in blackface in “Tropic Thunder.”

Indeed, during the early history of Hollywood, Black characters were openly denigrated by the stereotypical images that they portrayed. Black actors were usually given badly written roles portraying weak, poor or otherwise disadvantaged characters who were dependent on white characters’ heroism.

Hattie McDaniel, for example, became the first nonwhite actor to ever win an Academy Award in 1939 with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her sassy, but servile “Mammy” figure in “Gone with the Wind.”

In this 1938 photograph, Hattie McDaniel is seen in her role as Mammy in the movie ‘Gone with the Wind.’ Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

Despite McDaniel’s breakthrough Oscar in 1939 and Sidney Poitier’s 1963 Best Actor win for “Lilies of the Field”, it took more than 40 years before Halle Berry claimed the Best Actress prize in 2002 for her role in “Monster’s Ball” – a role that Oscar nominee Angela Bassett rejected due to her refusal to “be a prostitute on film.”

In 2011, Octavia Spencer won an Oscar – also for playing a maid like McDaniel – for her role as Minny in “The Help.”

Still, in 2002, when Berry won, diversity was center stage in Hollywood. That same year, the Best Actor winner was Washington for his uncharacteristically villainous role in “Training Day.”

In addition that year, Poitier received a lifetime achievement award, an acknowledgment for many of his groundbreaking roles throughout his career.

Actors Denzel Washington and Halle Berry pose while holding their Oscar statues in 2002. Lee Celano/AFP via Getty Images

A little progress

Yet, five years after #OscarsSoWhite, British actress Cynthia Erivo represented the lone Black acting nomination in 2020 for her role as Harriet Tubman in “Harriet,” leaving Berry as the only Black female to ever be awarded Best Actress.

Overall, of the 86 Black acting nominations over the Academy’s 94-year period, over 40% of the nominations have been circulated among repeat contenders like Washington and Smith. Major studios often favor established, sure bets at the expense of new Black talent when it is time to recoup their investments at the box office.

With only a handful of the same Black names garnering nominations, the pool of Black talent celebrated is actually smaller than what it appears.

While in today’s movie climate the quantity of nonwhite images has undoubtedly improved, it is the quality of such roles that remain problematic.

The struggle continues

For the same industry that can reproduce exacting replicas, orchestrate mass battles and fashion accurate costumes, it is alarming that such a creative industry cannot figure out how to create substantive diversity onscreen.

Alternative outlets like Hulu and Netflix are demonstrating that viable audiences are willing to support a wide range of diverse products featuring increasingly diverse casts – with “Bridgerton” and “Squid Game” as a couple of recent examples.

Poitier, who died at 94 on Jan. 7, 2022, broke the mold of what a Black actor could be in Hollywood. Before the 1950s, Black movie characters generally reflected racist stereotypes such as lazy servants and beefy mammies. Then came Poitier, the only Black man to consistently win leading roles in major films from the late 1950s through the late 1960s. Like King, Poitier projected ideals of respectability and integrity. He attracted not only the loyalty of African Americans, but also the goodwill of white liberals.

In my biography of him, titled “Sidney Poitier: Man, Actor, Icon,” I sought to capture his whole life, including his incredible rags-to-riches arc, his sizzling vitality on screen, his personal triumphs and foibles and his quest to live up to the values set forth by his Bahamian parents. But the most fascinating aspect of Poitier’s career, to me, was his political and racial symbolism. In many ways, his screen life intertwined with that of the civil rights movement – and King himself.

Sidney Poitier, center, marches during the Poor People’s Campaign in Washington, D.C., in May 1968. Photo by Chester Sheard/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

An age of protests

In three separate columns in 1957, 1961 and 1962, a New York Daily News columnist named Dorothy Masters marveled that Poitier had the warmth and charisma of a minister. Poitier lent his name and resources to King’s causes, and he participated in demonstrations such as the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage and the 1963 March on Washington. In this era of sit-ins, Freedom Rides and mass marches, activists engaged in nonviolent sacrifice not only to highlight racist oppression, but also to win broader sympathy for the cause of civil rights.

In that same vein, Poitier deliberately chose to portray characters who radiated goodness. They had decent values and helped white characters, and they often sacrificed themselves. He earned his first star billing in 1958, in “The Defiant Ones,” in which he played an escaped prisoner handcuffed to a racist played by Tony Curtis. At the end, with the chain unbound, Poitier jumps off a train to stick with his new white friend. Writer James Baldwin reported seeing the film on Broadway, where white audiences clapped with reassurance, their racial guilt alleviated. When he saw it again in Harlem, members of the predominantly Black audience yelled “Get back on the train, you fool!”

King won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. In that same year, Poitier won the Oscar for Best Actor for “Lilies of the Field,” in which he played Homer Smith, a traveling handyman who builds a chapel for German nuns out of the goodness of his heart. The sweet, low-budget movie was a surprise hit. In its own way, like the horrifying footage of water hoses and police dogs attacking civil rights activists, it fostered swelling support for racial integration.

Sidney Poitier, Katherine Houghton and Spencer Tracy in the 1967 film ‘Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.’ Photo by RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images

A better man

By the time of the actor’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference speech, both King and Poitier seemed to have a slipping grip on the American public. Bloody and destructive riots plagued the nation’s cities, reflecting the enduring discontent of many poor African Americans. The swelling calls for “Black Power” challenged the ideals of nonviolence and racial brotherhood – ideals associated with both King and Poitier.

When Poitier stepped to the lectern that evening, he lamented the “greed, selfishness, indifference to the suffering of others, corruption of our value system, and a moral deterioration that has already scarred our souls irrevocably.” “On my bad days,” he said, “I am guilty of suspecting that there is a national death wish.”

By the late 1960s, both King and Poitier had reached a crossroads. Federal legislation was dismantling Jim Crow in the South, but African Americans still suffered from limited opportunity. King prescribed a “revolution of values,” denounced the Vietnam War, and launched a Poor People’s Campaign. Poitier, in his 1967 speech for the SCLC, said that King, by adhering to his convictions for social justice and human dignity, “has made a better man of me.”

Exceptional characters

Poitier tried to adhere to his own convictions. As long as he was the only Black leading man, he insisted on playing the same kind of hero. But in the era of Black Power, had Poitier’s saintly hero become another stereotype? His rage was repressed, his sexuality stifled. A Black critic, writing in The New York Times, asked “Why Does White America Love Sidney Poitier So?”

President Barack Obama presents Academy Award-winning actor Sidney Poitier with the Medal of Freedom in 2009. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

That critic had a point: As Poitier himself knew, his films created too-perfect characters. Although the films allowed white audiences to appreciate a Black man, they also implied that racial equality depends on such exceptional characters, stripped of any racial baggage. From late 1967 into early 1968, three of Poitier’s movies owned the top spot at the box office, and a poll ranked him the most bankable star in Hollywood.

Each film provided a hero who soothed the liberal center. His mannered schoolteacher in “To Sir, With Love” tames a class of teenage ruffians in London’s East End. His razor-sharp detective in “In the Heat of the Night” helps a crotchety white Southern sheriff solve a murder. His world-renowned doctor in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” marries a white woman, but only after winning the blessing of her parents.

“I try to make movies about the dignity, nobility, the magnificence of human life,” he insisted. Audiences flocked to his films, in part, because he transcended racial division and social despair – even as more African Americans, baby boomers and film critics tired of the old-fashioned do-gooder spirit of these movies.

Intertwined lives

And then, the lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Sidney Poitier intersected one final time. After King’s assassination on April 4, 1968, Poitier was a stand-in for the ideal that King embodied. When he presented at the Academy Awards, Poitier won a massive ovation. “In the Heat of the Night” and “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” captured most of the major awards. Hollywood again dealt with the nation’s racial upheaval through Poitier movies.

Successful examples include Living in Bondage: Breaking Free, which has won major continental awards. Funke Akindele’s Omo Ghetto: The Saga is a sequel to Abiodun Olarenwaju’s Omo Ghetto. It is currently the highest grossing film in Nigeria. The sequels to Kemi Adetiba’s The Wedding Party and Toke Mcbaror’s Merry Men have earned nearly as much as their prequels.

Netflix has also joined in the action. The streaming company is currently distributing remakes of Zeb Ejiro’s Nneka the Pretty Serpent (1992) and Amaka Igwe’s RattleSnake (1995). It has also commissioned two new remakes of Ejiro’s Domitilla (1996) and Chika Onukwufor’s Glamour Girls (1994). Both releases are planned for late 2021.

These Nollywood classics have stayed popular due to their unique original storytelling, creativity and accessibility. They were cultural productions reflecting the lived experiences of Nigerians. They also expressed societal and cultural aspirations, while providing relatable entertainment.

1990s Nollywood classics also introduced a crop of talented actors who delivered performances that turned them into household names and international stars. Actors such as Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde, Genevieve Nnaji, the late Sam Loco, Sam Dede, Nkem Owoh, and others rose to prominence in that era.

These films were largely made by trained professionals. Prominent names include the late Amaka Igwe, the Ejiro brothers – Zeb and late Chico, Chris Obi-Rapu (Vic Mordi), Tunde Kelani, Andy Amenechi, Tade Ogidan, Okechukwu Ogunjiofor, Kenneth Nnebue, among others. Their works provided the growing industry with templates for effective storytelling. They inspired production houses to invest in similar storylines and plots.

For instance, after the success of Living in Bondage in 1992, the local market was flooded with multiple releases exploring satanic cult storylines and money ritual themes. Zeb Ejiro’s Nneka The Pretty Serpent (1992) inspired a string of movies stereotyping pretty young ladies as evil seductresses.

Among Nollywood films of the 1990s, Living in Bondage stands out. Not only did it contain enduring emotional resonance, its financial success also advanced the industry, providing a template for the Nollywood economic model, commonly referred to today as ‘old Nollywood’.

As Nollywood continues to grow and improve on output and professionalism, these old movies still retain a strong influence on the industry, except in terms of technology and budget size.

History of Nigerian filmmaking

The film industry in Nigeria can be traced to the colonial era. The first film (not video film) was exhibited in August 1903 at the Clover Memorial Hall in Lagos. Most early productions favoured documentaries and propaganda films designed to foster cohesion and orientation in the colonial framework. In the early films, local talents largely played only minor roles and transfer of technology was limited.

In 1947, a Federal Film Unit was established by the colonial administration, with the bulk of releases supplied from London, and distributed via the British Council and missionary efforts. These films were screened in makeshift centers, including school premises, village halls, open spaces, and civic centers. All it needed was a mobile film unit comprising a van, a 16mm projector, a reel of 16mm and a collapsible screen.

The 1960s saw the rise of feature films, with movies such as Moral Disarmament (1957) and Bound for Lagos (1962) produced for the Nigerian government. An oil company, Shell-BP of Nigeria Limited, also released a full length feature film titled Culture in Transition in 1963. And in 1970, Kongi’s Harvest, a version of a play by Wole Soyinka, was released.

After Nigeria gained independence in 1960, the federal government opened the distribution circuit to private Nigerians, while remaining the major producer, distributor and exhibitor. This led to the rise of cinema culture in Nigeria due to the influx of independent operators into the industry.

By mid to late 1980s, cinema in Nigeria began to decline for a number of reasons. These include, the rising television culture and the emergence of the Video Home System (VHS), oil boom, economic recessions, drop in cinema patronage (resulting from insecurity), rising cost of living and cost of film production in comparison to yield.

By early 1990s, cinemas were either closing down or being converted for other uses. This contributed to the birth of the video-film era which began in the late 1980s but became popular with the success of Living in Bondage (1992). Along with a number of other titles produced in the 1990s, Living in Bondage became a classic.

Why Nollywood classics still appeal to audiences

Nollywood critic Rosemary Bassey notes that a large number of films made in Nigeria in the early stages of video-filmmaking in Nigeria still appeal to a large majority of Nigerians. They told didactic stories which are deeply rooted in Nigerian culture. According to Nollywood researcher, Francoise Ugochukwu, this is the second major attraction for Nollywood diaspora audiences after language.

The nostalgia for these films therefore stems from their story-driven narratives, as opposed to the contemporary aesthetics-driven new Nollywood productions.

After a period of artistic impasse in the 2000s, today’s film industry in Nigeria is in a near-constant experimental phase to find new stories in a saturated industry. And central to this experimentation is a backward gaze to the past, when the classics dominated. Movie enthusiasts continue to discuss these old films with fond recollections. The opportunity presents itself. Why not cash in?

What this means for the industry

The most significant impact of Nollywood’s nostalgic obsession will be concerns over the industry structure and intellectual property protection. With a good economic structure, these remakes and sequels have the potential to revive earnings for the old films. I believe contemporary filmmakers will be motivated to take this seriously going forward.

Pushing the boundaries of language

In the past three decades there has been a movement among academics to find suitable terms to replace “slave” and “slavery.”

In the 1990s, a group of scholars asserted that “slave” was too limited a term – to label someone a “slave,” the argument went, emphasized the “thinghood” of all those held in slavery, rendering personal attributes apart from being owned invisible.

Attempting to emphasize that humanity, other scholars substituted “enslavement” for “slavery,” “enslaver” for “slave owner,” and “enslaved person” for “slave.” Following the principles of “people-first language”– such as using “incarcerated people” as opposed to “inmates” – the terminology asserts that the person in question is more than just the state of oppression imposed onto him or her.

Not everyone embraced this suggestion. In 2015, renowned slavery and Reconstruction historian Eric Foner wrote, “Slave is a familiar word and if it was good enough for Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists it is good enough for me.”

Despite such resistance, more and more academics recognized the limitations of the older, impersonal terminology and started to embrace “enslaved” and its variants.

The new language reached another pinnacle with the publication of The New York Times’ 1619 Project. In the opening essay, project editor Nikole Hannah-Jones eschews “slave” and “slavery,” using variants of “enslavement” throughout. However controversial the series may be, it is setting the terms of current discussions about enslavement.

“Enslaved person” – at least among people open to the idea that a fresh look at American chattel slavery necessitated new language – became the new normal.

What, then, to make of Barry Jenkins’ saying he wants to push past this terminology?

In that same NPR interview, Jenkins notes that “right now [Americans] are referring to [Black slaves] as enslaved, which I think is very honorable and worthy, but it takes the onus off of who they were and places it on what was done to them. And I want to get to what they did.”

I think that Jenkins is onto something important here. Whichever side you take in the ongoing terminology debate, both “slave” and “enslaved person” erase both personality and agency from the individuals being described. And this is the conundrum: The state of enslavement was, by definition, dehumanizing.

Above: Caesar, played by Aaron Pierre, and Cora, played by Thuso Mbedu, escape from the plantation where they were held as slaves in ‘The Underground Railroad.’ Kyle Kaplan/Amazon Studios

For artists, writers and thinkers it’s difficult to reflect on the dehumanization of masses of people without diminishing some of the characteristics that make them unique. And once you step onto that path, it’s a short journey to reducing the identity of the collective group – including their ancestors – to one that’s defined by their worst experiences.

Seeing slaves on screen

In some ways, because of the nature of their medium, filmmakers have fared better than their fellow artists at balancing the challenges of portraying the horrific experiences of enslaved people as a whole and elevating the particular experiences of enslaved individuals.

So where does Jenkins fit in the lineage of cinematic depictions of enslavement?

From the start, comparisons to “Roots” – the first miniseries about American chattel slavery – abound.

“Roots,” which appeared in 1977, was the first miniseries on American television to explore the experiences of slavery on multiple generations of one Black family. It also created powerful opportunities for interracial empathy. As critic Matt Zoller Seitz notes, for “many white viewers, the miniseries amounted to the first prolonged instance of not merely being asked to identify with cultural experiences that were alien to them, but to actually feel them.”

Some Americans might remember those eight consecutive nights in January 1977 when “Roots” first aired. It was a collective experience that started and shaped national conversations about slavery and American history.

By contrast, “The Underground Railroad” appears in an age replete with representations of enslavement. WGN’s underappreciated series “Underground,” the 2016 remake of “Roots,” 2020’s “The Good Lord Bird,” “Django Unchained,” “12 Years a Slave” and “Harriet” are just a handful of recent innovative portrayals of slavery.

The best of these series push viewers toward new ways of seeing enslavement and those who resisted it. “The Good Lord Bird,” for example, used humor to dismantle ossified perceptions of John Brown, the militant 19th-century abolitionist, and opened up new conversations about when using violence to resist oppression is justifiable.

A delicate dance between beauty and suffering

Looking at “The Underground Railroad,” I can see how and why Jenkins’ vision is so important in this moment.

In Jenkins’ films “Moonlight” and “If Beale Street Could Talk,” the director made a name for himself as an artist who can push past narrow, constraining visions of Black identity as one marked solely by suffering. His films are not free from pain, of course. But pain is not their dominant note. His Black worlds are places where beauty abounds, where the characters in the stories he tells experience vibrancy as well as desolation.

Jenkins brings that sensibility to “The Underground Railroad” as well.

Critics have commented on how Jenkins uses the landscape to achieve this beauty. I was struck by how the sun-soaked fields of an Indiana farm create a perfectly fitting backdrop for the rejuvenating love Cora finds there with Royal.

In “The Underground Railroad,” slavery – for all its horrors – exists in an environment nonetheless imbued with beauty. The curtain of Cora’s vacant cabin flapping in the breeze and framed by the rough timbers of the slave quarters evokes the paintings of Jacob Lawrence.

Above: Barry Jenkins’ Black worlds are places where beauty abounds. Atsushi Nishijima/Amazon Studios

In other scenes, Jenkins juxtaposes radically different landscapes and actions to emphasize the complexity of these characters’ experiences. For example, Cora works as an actor at a museum, where she plays an “African savage” for visitors; in one scene, she changes out of the costume and into an elegant yellow dress. Walking the clean, orderly streets of Griffin, South Carolina, she transforms into a picture of middle-class propriety.

Scenes portraying the manners and reading lessons offered by the faculty of the Tuskegee-style institute where Cora and other fugitives find shelter demonstrate the allure of these middle-class values. On first glance, it all appears promising. Only later, when Cora’s pushed by her mentor to undergo forced sterilization, does it become apparent that she’s landed in a horror show.

These vignettes are but a few examples of the thoroughgoing power of Jenkins’ aesthetic. Every episode yields moments of beauty. And yet at the flip of a switch, serenity can devolve into savagery.

Films as popular social texts

In Africa, films have become popular social texts. They are readily accessible and easily distributed, thanks to the internet and hand-held screen devices as well as the large-scale sale of pirated DVDs. The informality of circulation, coupled with the affordability of pirated films, has ensured that film has overtaken literary or text-based genres in influence in many parts of Africa.

Films like Inxeba (2017) and Rafiki (2018) can function as popular social texts in that they can ask questions about social issues – in this case queer lived experiences on the continent. Popular social texts appeal to large audiences. It is against such sociocultural and political backgrounds that the reception of the films Inxeba and Rafiki should be understood.

Inxeba was directed by John Trengove and was released in 2017. It tells the story of how queer sexuality is negotiated within the cultural space of ulwaluko, the Xhosa people’s rites of initiation into manhood. Two young minders engage in a gay relationship and a love triangle develops.

Rafiki was directed by Kenyan filmmaker Wanuri Kahiu. It centres on two young women who fall in love in Nairobi after meeting because their fathers are contesting the same election.

Inxeba presents picturesque images of the natural world. Rafiki offers a kaleidoscopic depiction of urban spaces. These vibrant and picturesque depictions contrast with the gloomy lived experiences of the protagonists.

State bannings

On its release, the South African Film and Publication Board banned Inxeba. The reason given, through a series of tweets, was “the perceived cultural insensibility and distortion of the Xhosa circumcision tradition (and) strong language in the film”.

Rafiki met a similar fate when it was released. The Kenya Film Classification Board said in a statement banning the film that its ending was “not remorseful enough, (making) it seem as if LBGT people can be accepted in Kenya”. The films were perceived as socially incorrect.

The reactions of these state boards highlight a reproduction of nationalist ideas that queer sexuality threatens African values. In thinking of these homophobic institutional reactions, it is important not to dismiss Africa as homophobic and primitive especially in relation to the West. In his book Kenyan, Christian, Queer, theology scholar Adriaan van Klinken explains that by considering Africa as backward and conservative there is a failure to reflect on the complex sociopolitical realities on the continent.

The upshot is that the legal measures of banning the films affected their circulation – both low budget films with seemingly limited distribution channels.

Viewers and festivals

Although Inxeba and Rafiki were banned in their home countries, they have received critical acclaim and numerous awards at film festivals the world over. In the case of Inxeba, there were vociferous threats and demonstrations, mainly by Xhosa-speaking men, who felt the film divulged the secrets of a sacrosanct ceremony.

The comments posted on social media platforms also make it possible to examine the reactions of viewers to the films. I illustrated this by focusing on the reactions expressed on Inxeba’s Facebook page. here’s a sample:

Reaction 1: “This is a disgrace to our culture…”

Reaction 2: “I didn’t like the story shame, I didn’t see the relevance. Sorry for being a party pooper.”

Reaction 3: “Thank you Lord … you have shown that you love us all regardless of what people are painting others to be, as if they do not belong or are just nothing.”

Using its YouTube page, Tuko TV Kenya interviewed Kenyans about Rafiki. Here is a sample of the diversity of views canvassed:

Reaction 1: “I think we are over exposing our children and our community … As a country, we are not ready for this.”

Reaction 2: “It’s a movie trying to include everybody into the society and bringing inclusion and diversity.”

Reaction 3: “I feel like the argument that it is influencing or promoting homosexuality to me feels ridiculous because that is not something that can be promoted.”

These reactions show that audiences are more complex than governments admit. Moreover, the reactions – and many others like them – prove that the films are popular social texts which operate to shape queer life and responses to it.

The screening of the two films (both were ‘unbanned’ on appeal – Rafiki for a brief period) has been important in initiating overdue conversations. Both films gesture towards the need for open discussion of queer sexualities and genders in Africa. They demand viewers to rethink not what it means to be queer in Africa, but what it means to be human.

Asking questions

Inxeba and Rafiki are invaluable additions to the growing corpus of African films courageously depicting queer lived experiences. Although initially banned, their reception by viewers in and outside Africa has shown that they can start conversations on diverse social issues relating to non-normative African gender and sexual identities.