Crew partitioning: Its effect(s) on female directing in Yorùbá video film making

Abstract

Yorùbá video film industry is dominated mostly by men. This, perhaps, might not be unconnected with the fact that the history of Yorùbá film, which dated back to Alárìnjó popular theatre, started with, and to a large extent by, men or that women in the literary universe were relegated. Crew partitioning in Yorùbá video film production seems to be a further proof or, put in another way, a giant, but unproductive attempt at solidifying this age long (deliberate or otherwise) subjugation of women in the industry; hence, directing is the crew in focus. This study critically assessed crew partitioning in Yorùbá video film productions in connection with female directing. It also looked, critically, the conceptions of scholars on women generally and their contributions to knowledge production. This is with the view to showing the sustainability or otherwise of female directing in the contemporary Yorùbá video film industry in relation to knowledge production. The method of conceptual clarification and rational argumentation were employed to analyze basic issues in the paper. A long time conscious attention and listening to adverts, monitoring captions both at the beginning and end of every Yorùbá video film watched and careful attention to the jacket trying to look critically at the crew were equally employed. The study found out that there was crew partitioning in video film productions and the Yorùbá case is not an exception. In addition, this crew partitioning is gender-sensitive. It also found out that directing, especially, has been tagged male crew activity. The paper argued and concluded that crew should not be gender sensitive; hence, directing should not be gendered, that is, it should not be male dominated crew.

Keywords: Crew, Directing, Gender discrimination, Female subjugation, Yorùbá theatre.