Funke Akindele – a joke taken too far

So I have without any choice been saddled to watching this very popular television series – Jenifa. So my last daughter is a rabid fan and she has decided to use my study as her place of choice. As I struggle to work looking for her school fees, I am forced to watch the series on the TV set in the room.

This got me thinking. The programme is so powerful that it draws millions of viewers on YouTube making it a very strong and potent force for social engineering. The Actress herself has so much social capital that when she flouted the pandemic rules the stories hit national limelight and even found its way to international media platforms.

The magic started when the original movie was released and it became one of the most watched and popular movies of all time. Not wanting to just let go, she has spooled the formula into this long running series that continue to endear it to the people. Now pushing varied social messages via its very interesting story lines is an added plus.

But my little problem is the Actress herself. The character she portrays in the series that continues to kind of rub off me the wrong way. The harried use of poor language, the stiffness in its characterization and the disconnect in costuming and location makes for a very confusing viewing.

So, the bad English doesn’t ever get better despite continued interaction with well spoken characters. Her dressing and living situation don’t tally with such badly spoken English and very annoying are the words that are artificial, hurriedly coined and basically very stupid sounding. Now this buffoonery is the main attraction of the series but its also pull down.

The character that is Jenifa is just so engaging that the soft target who are the main audience tend to lose the message she is trying to pass as a result of the expertise with which she pushes her clowning. So, this episode, the very beautiful lady who was the girlfriend to her cousin came across as being rude and terrible with house chores. The message was that a lady needed more than just looks to make a fine wife. My thirteen-year-old daughter with straight A’s in school watched and laughed her heart out. At the end, I asked her to explain what the message was. She said, ‘Joe, this Jenifer is funny o, see the things she is saying. How does she even get those words. They are hilarious. I asked her about the other Lady that what exactly was she doing wrong and she said, ‘which Lady? I almost fainted.

The lady shared almost equal screen time with Jenifa but the power of the character Jenifa blinded the target audience to the very powerful message that was being projected and instead of the viewer engaging on the message and also the entertainment, she focussed more on the entertainment which was just sap stick.

My point. This is a strong vehicle for social change and as such, a strong compromise be made to ramp up its potentials at that level far and beyond the buffoonery that is Jenifa so that we can begin to use vehicles like this as agents of mass mobilization

Thank you