The Gendered Contribution of Neria to the Repertoire of African Filmmaking
Abstract
In an epoch-changing moment in Zimbabwean film history, Neria was produced by Media for Development (MFD) in 1991. It was the first locally produced film to portray relatively strong black women as shown by the titular character who resolutely fights her greedy in-law for her late husband’s estate. Neria remains Zimbabwe’s most popular film and has elicited analyses in books, films and reviews among other commentaries. Though they note empowerment of women in the film, most of these studies tend to pit women against men yet male and female characters support Neria’s cause. Hence, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the contribution made by the Neria film in promoting gender equality in an African cultural context. Womanism which asserts that abuse of women is an aberration from African culture provided theoretical grounding to the paper. Research questions that guided the study are: (i) What is the representation of male and female relationships in Neria? (ii) To what extent does this reflect Zimbabwean society? (iii) What are the factors that influence this portrayal? The research methodology adopted for this study is qualitative and purposeful sampling since it involves visual analysis of the film that is reported in words. Research findings are discussed thematically using eight themes that emerged from collected visual data that is presented qualitatively. The findings revealed that Neria exposes gender inequality in Shona traditional culture and calls for its integration with western culture albeit at times it seems too moralistic. Apparently due to the film’s external funding, it fails to link moral decadence to materialism brought by western cultures. This paper recommends concerted efforts from the government, individuals and organizations in training film personnel and funding films without undue interference. Moreover, films like Neria ought to increase the usage of indigenous languages such as Shona and Ndebele with English subtitles especially in emotional scenes for them to be more comprehensible.
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