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Thursday 29 August 2013

Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde: The biggest film star you’ve never heard of



Looking at it in a global perspective, is Omotola Jalade-Ekeinde underrated? A tricky question it is…
The Nollywood diva has covered Stella, a free pull-out magazine from UK’s The Sunday Telegraph. The editors at Stella have called Omotola the ‘Queen of Nollywood‘. That’s a big title, does she really deserve to be called that? Very debatable.

I was really excited to see Omotola on the cover of UK magazine (as I am anytime a Nigerian entertainer is profiled on the international scene) but as soon as the excitement wore from my eyes, I noticed a subliminal message close to the headline, in smaller and fainter texts. It read ‘The biggest film star you’ve never heard of‘. Now, you’d probably argue that the writer(s) were trying to create an euphemism for Omotola (who they say is not widely celebrated despite her ‘achievements’) but with the little experience I’ve been exposed to in journalism, I know writers always love to have some sort of double entendres and this my people was another witty one.

So in my opinion, ‘The biggest film star you’ve never heard of‘ really means ‘Yea, she says she’s big but we wonder why we’ve never heard of her…‘.

Now you can argue with the above statement but can anybody smell some heavy PR influence here? How well does the writer know the terrain of Nollywood or the film industry in Nigeria? (I don’t care about the yearly trips). When last did you watch a mind-gripping performance from Omotola? Doesn’t this look more like a popularity contest? You damn right she’s not been heard of!

It is also interesting to see that the cover shoot comes days after her lone rival Genevieve Nnaji, was featured on ELLE.com as one of seven ‘International Superstars‘ who are ‘The Next Big Crossover Acts for 2013‘. Omotola didn’t start it though, Genevieve was probably firing back at Omotola’s well glorified Time 100 iconic feature.

If you take time to read Genevieve’s feature on ELLE, you’d notice that the profiling was outdated! ‘in 2009 Nnaji was profiled on an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show‘, really, 2009! The only mention of 2013 was her supporting cast role in the ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ movie. It almost September, so please tell me how Genny is going to be a ‘next big crossover act for 2013‘?

What I see here is a two pretty good actresses with huge PR machines behind them playing ‘X and Os‘ and it’s getting sickening.

Omotola does this, Genny does that. These ladies (especially Omotola) love to over-glorify their positions. Like throwing us in a frenzy just because you got a five-second feature in a US TV series.

I’ll just sit right here, fold my arms and watch these big babes races themselves to the moon while the Ghanaian actresses like Yvonne Nelson and Juliet Ibrahim plot a Nollywood take over.

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