VIDEOS IN MOTION - fasopo

access to, while distancing oneself from practices seen as not desirable for the localenvironment (2010: 110).As these examples show, then, the reasons behind audience's preferences are not transparent and thefactors that explain Nollywood videos's pan-African success are not self-evident.Within this context, the most relevant attempt to explain Nollywood's pan-African circulation is,in my opinion, the one that Moradewun Adejunmobi proposed through the formulation of a theoryof “phenomenological proximity”. As I discussed above, Straubhaar's concept of “culturalproximity” fails to explain a number of audiences' consumption behaviors. To overcome theselimits Adejunmobi suggests we move our focus of analysis from the sphere of the culturallysignificant to that of the experientially relevant. In fact, while they might not express shared culturalvalues, Nollywood videos refer to a field of experiences that is common to audiences throughout thecontinent. In Adejunmobi's opinionthese films travel so well across state and cultural boundaries in Africa because theconflicts they represent and the resolutions they offer are perceived to be experientiallyproximate for postcolonial subjects. The situations depicted are within the realm ofpossibility and could occur in the societies where the viewers live even if they have nopersonal experience of such crises. The stories are true to expectation if not precisely tohistory and cultural heritage (2010: 111)Nollywood videos create a platform of discussion about the phenomenological attributes of thepostcolony and people throughout the continent, no matter what ethnic group they belong to or whatlanguage they speak, tend to be familiar with them. “Africans may not all share the same weddingrituals, but most know what it is like to lead one's life in a place where the output of varioustechnologies is highly unpredictable” (Adejunmobi 2010: 116).Adejunmobi's point underlines the fact that Nigerian videos incarnate a form of modernity whichis phenomenologically proximate to that experienced in most of sub-Saharan African countries.While political, economic and cultural differences among African nations have persisted and evenwidened over the past few years, there is something about the way processes of modernization haveworked in Africa, something about the illusion of their achievement and the reality of theirprogressive failure, that makes videos relevant to audiences throughout the continent. Using aconcept made popular by Ludwig Wittgenstein's work, we might say that there is a “family145