Usual Suspects: Nollywood’s Tattoo Wahala By Onus Obinyan

I don’t have a problem with Tattoos or body art. Never have…Never will. I dey reason to position one “tat” for one coded corner for my body sef. The mistake too many Nigerians and black people make is believing that the tattoo culture is a foreign concept. NO! It most definitely is not. Tattoos/Body art are a fundamental part of the rich variance of our cultural cum traditional heritages across Afrika. “Na our Way!” It’s the same for the Europeans, Arabs (before it turned haram under Islam), Asians, North and South Americans etc.

Every tribe get dem groove. Wetin dey burst my brain na the smelly shit wey dey sup for the Naija film abi na home video industry. Check this; you call yourself a professional Actor, Actress and your real time…very real life tattoo escorts you into every flick you star, feature or appear in. Why? E make any sense? I shake that head in my mind trying to wrap my physical head around this consistent happening in the “make-believe” industry.

Yeah, they are celebrated stars, and I appreciate the talent and hard-work they put in to grace our screens, but truth remains that Bolanle Ninalowo, Rosaline Ufuoma Meurer, Ike Ogbonna and a host of others are usual suspects in this industry quagmire.

True True, many people nor dey reason dis mega error as issue or just choose to ignore it because they do not know better. But for those of us wey dey watch these productions with more than the two eyes in front of our heads, the “tattoo error” is too thick to be ignored and it kills the supposed verisimilitude that the productions are supposed to serve the viewer.

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It hurts so bad that whenever I jam these celebrated usual suspects in this Naija “make-believe” mishap on television and remote control dey my hand, I switch off or change the channel sharply. Yeah, my brain nor fit process am…’cos I find myself wondering how this happens non-stop.

In testament to this, Actress, Sotayo Sobola aka Sotayo Gaga in an interview with The Nation newspaper admitted to the limitations that real time tattoos bring to the job. She knows what’s up.

Are the Producers and Directors of these home videos so awe struck or desperate to have these actors that they forget to be the professionals that they claim to be?

Can’t these tattoos be covered up by make-up artistes or re-tattooed to look different? Do these usual “tattoo suspects” see these things that I see?

How do they feel when they watch themselves with their real time tattoos in different home videos? Do they really feel like the legit stars that their teeming fans see them as? Questions, questions, questions. I tire.

© Onus Obinyan

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