Malooned and Ninahs Dowry as Alternatives Narratives in Negotiating Identities in

Spaces of Marginalization and Differences

The paper is a reading of two filmic texts, Malooned and Ninahs Dowry set in Cameroon and
Kenya respectively. The interesting aspects of the two films are the ways that they frame
intervention in spheres/spaces that already define themselves as limiting certain identities and
subjectivities by their very explicitly inscribed and often manifested hegemonic ideologies and
attitudes. In the two films the spaces of marginalization and difference(s) functions mainly of
patriarchal domination as depicted in Ninas Dowry and politics of ethnic supremacy and
exclusion as portrayed in Malooned.

Our interest is the way that the two films seem to deliberately implicate themselves in the
project of intervention for the woman in Ninas Dowry and ethnic exclusion in Malooned.
The two films deploy different strategies to lay bare the dilemma and anguish of women in a
patriarchal hegemony and the exclusion from the nations economic participation of some
ethnic nations and ethnic community that wield political power and states instruments of
violence and suppression.

Furthermore, we decided to explore how the two films frame power and resistance, as well as
stigmatizing stereotypes and modes of their deconstruction. Ninahs Dowry is a poignant story
of a womans femininity objectified by traditional practice of bridal price that handcuffs her in
marriage defined by violence, brutality and terror. The title of the film Ninahs dowry
insinuates this patriarchal tradition that commodifies femininity and the womans corporeality.
The film though full of pathos also dramatizes Ninah, a one womans resistance against this
enslaving cultural practice framed in the film. She revolts the patriarchy system irrespective
of inherent power that constructs her existence. Malooned on the other hand is an
interventionist film which explores the two antagonistic ethnic groups in Kenya; the Luo and
the Kikuyu. It considers the politics of exclusion as a form of injustice that has created tension
and anxiety amongst these groups. The filmmaker uses the toilet as a metaphor of the
postcolonial Kenya to engage with identity politics. The toilet becomes an appropriate site,
where Kenyas history, both of political and economic exclusion is played out. All these issues
are played out through the actions and conversations of the two main characters; a lady Di,
from the Kikuyu ethnic community and the gentleman, Luther from the Luo ethnic community.
The tension in the film other than through the uncanny setting in the toilet is also framed around
the ethnic and gender suspicions.

Malooned: Stereotypes, stigmatization and Identity Politics

Show first slide

Malooned (2007) is a production of Kenyan Film maker Bob Nyanja. The title is compounded
from the word loo (slang for toilet) and which also plays on the sounds and meanings of the
words marooned (left alone in a place where no one lives, with no means of getting away;
castaway) and ballooned (inflated/vulnerable/fragile, easy to explode and also an urban slang
for impregnating a girl). The film revolves around two characters: Di and Luther. The two find
themselves marooned in a ladies toilet in the 15th Floor of a building. Before they end up in
the ladies toilet, Luther had met Di on the corridors where he had asked her for the direction
to the gents and which she rudely and arrogantly refused to direct him to. Luther finally finds
the Gents but it is unfortunately locked. Since he is pressed by the call of nature he decides
to use the Ladies. All this is happening on a Thursday evening, the eve of the long Easter
break/holiday. (The choice of the Easter season is significant as it marks symbolically both the
death and resurrection in the lives of the two main characters in the film and it is biblical).

Ala, the lady who takes care of the toilet as is the routine locks the toilet and leaves for the long
Easter weekend when both Di and Luther are already inside different rooms in the loo. It is
after the cleaner has left, that Di emerges from one of the rooms, to find the toilets door already
locked. In a state of panic and desperation she attempts to break the door while at the same
time screaming hysterically to draw attention to her predicament. It is at this moment that
Luther also emerges from one of the rooms. Instinctively, Di attacks Luther and accuses him
of stalking her. This moment of encounter marks the first moment of an uncanny experience.
There are several coincidences in this film that enhance the uncanny. A male and a female
finding themselves marooned in a loo. Luther accidentally dropped his cell phone into the
toilet hence its dysfunctional. Di on the other hand had left her phone in the office that is just
adjacent to the toilet and which keeps on ringing. The two are thus denied the opportunity to
communicate with the outside to seek for assistance.

The initial encounter between Di and Luther is marked by acrimony, tension, suspicion and
hostility mainly from Di who rightly feels that Luther has intruded into her space and has in
fact unsettled her sense of comfort and security. But as time progresses and there is no sign of
help coming, the acrimony, suspicion, tension and hostility subsides gradually and the two
characters begin to make conversation and to reveal more information to each other about
themselves. Luther reveals that he had intended to take his wife for a trip to Mauritius to redeem
his failing marriage while Di was to wed her Somali fianc on Easter Monday. All their
attempts to seek help are in vain though they do finally establish a cordial relationship having
realized that each one of them was definitely about to miss out on his/her intended plan for that
long Easter weekend. Through collaboration, they manage to retrieve the key to the toilets
main door, and together they walk out of their confinement in the loo.

There are many moments of uncanny experience in this film. The frightening moments for Di
in this confined space with a man that she is not familiar with. The fear of rape and even death
indeed creates an eerie moment. The moment when they try to use a hose pipe to get water to
flow out to attract attention fails and the toilet begins to flood threatening to drown. Then there
is the moment when they lit a fire to draw attention to the building and the toilet where they
are marooned but instead the smoke triggers Luthers asthmatic condition.

In this paper, we are not so much interested in these kinds of uncanny experiences, but more
so with the ones that have been repressed by the very illusions of nationhood and nation-ness.
What Atieno-Odhiambo as read in Grace Musila (2009: 45) refers to as the ideology of order,
which privileges political order as a prerequisite for the effective functioning of the state,
while implicitly masking a repressive political hegemony. Even though this film pretends to
be overtly romantic, a critical watching and reading of it, reveals that its main project is to
intervene against the ethnic suspicions, tensions and hostilities that were building up after the
Kenyas constitutional plebiscite of 2005 and the general elections that were coming up in 2007
and which were already indicating signs of ethnic animosity.

There are ethnic stereotypes played out in the film, which are apparently acceptable and seems
not to cause any discomfort, and there are those brazen and offensive ones that have remained
repressed and only come out through moments of uncontrolled and unguarded anger. In the
film we are confronted with the acceptable and palatable ethnic stereotypes. This is seen in
Luther, a Luo, flamboyant, pompous, a show off and full of himself. He has an expensive
phone, Laptop, takes his wife for holiday abroad, is well educated and Loves rhumba music;
We have the Luhya watchman who is contented with his lowly placed status; the Kamba
foreman who is a drunkard, lazy and exhibits an dont care attitude; the Kikuyu who do not
care about human life but only value money. (As a way of drawing attention to their
predicament, Di writes a note and wraps it around a five shillings coin and throws it down from
the 15th floor, an old Kikuyu man reads the note, throws it away and pockets the coin knowing
very well that someone is under distress and needs assistance; the other stereotype is of the
Kikuyu street boys and beggars. Once again Di throws down her shoes to draw the attention to
their plight and once again the Kikuyu street claim that this is manner from evening and only
thinks of selling the shoes to make money). These ethnic stereotypes are accentuated through
ethnic linguistic identities that pervade Kenyas comedic entertainment space on radio, TV and
live public performances. These have become accepted as part of the national culture of humour
and comic relief.

In this film the protagonists, Luther and Di are Luo and Kikuyu. These two ethnic communities
have been politically and ideologically opposed to each other since the time when the founding
President of the nation Jomo Kenyatta, a Kikuyu and the first Vice President Jaramogi Oginga
Odinga, a Luo parted way in 1966. The way that Di, a Kikuyu and Luther, a Luo relate doubles
and affirms this Luo-Kikuyu historical relationship based on suspicion and mistrust. It is
interesting to note that any conversation and discourse between the two that tends to comment
on Kenyas politic is always suppressed by Di. Di seems to be uncomfortable anytime that
Luther begins to talk about how politicians are destroying the country. She is comfortable when
politics is discussed in general terms and blame responsibility for tribalism, corruption and
insecurity. She proclaims that she doesnt care much for politics. Whenever Luther raises issues
of corruption and tribalism Di usually changes the trajectory of the conversation by claiming
that ever since independence it has been politics of survival. Di declares that she does not want
to engage in politics and that she is comfortable with the way things are.

However, the repressed suspicions, tensions and hostility between the two ethnic communities
finds its outlet after Di has just saved Luther from the asthmatic attack that had clearly
threatened his life. Di muses about the stereotype about Kikuyu women when she declares that
she was glad that Luther survived because if he had died newspaper headlines would have
screamed that a Gold digging Kikuyu woman kills a rich Luo man in the toilet. But the most
perturbing uncanny moment in this film is experienced when Di asks Luther to tell her sincerely
and truthfully which political party he would vote for. Luther responds by telling her that: my
people cannot vote for your people. This response seems to bring to the fore what has always
been repressed in Kenyas body polity when Luther rehashes the history of betrayal of the Luo
by the Kikuyu, reminding Di that Jaramogi sacrificed his ambitions for Kenyatta; that Kikuyu
are thankless; that Mboya was killed by Kenyatta. Di responds by accusing Luthers people,
who are Odingas people of being communist spies; for being uncut-uncircumcised and that no
one will follow uncircumcised man and that Luthers people are violent. For this Luther
responds that people from Dis community can vote for an Idiot from their village than
someone who is qualified and that DIs people suffer from superiority complex and a sense of
exceptionalism. Upon which Di angrily responds by claiming entitlement and ownership to the
liberation struggle and by extension the nation, by pronouncing that we fought for
independence. Luther in return responds by reminding Di that the liberation struggle was meant
to liberate the entire country and give back land to the people who had been disposed.

What is profound about this film as an intervention project is that it lays bare the beliefs and
myths about various ethnic communities in Kenya that have been repressed by the ethnic
stereotypes that have been sanitized and circulated through different mediums of entertainment
framed within the comedic genre and form. The more important aspect of the uncanny
experience is that it leads to individual transformation. Di realizes her self-identity that
apparently transcends the collective ethnic identity when she tells Luther that I am Diana
Wanjiku Mwangi and not an ethnic community. This position is coterminous with Freuds
when he notes that:

Uncanny horror films are aids to self understanding, thus accounting for the appeal;
they reveal to us a truth that might cause anguish such as the fact that we are burdened
with responsibility for our actions (374).

Nyanjas vision in this film is extremely romantic as it assumes that interethnic marriages are
the panacea for the repressed ethnic suspicious that threatened Kenyas sense of nationhood
and nation-ness in the post 2005 Constitution plebiscite and the pre-2007 national elections.
Predictably this vision was completely negated as there was serious ethnic violence after the
2007 elections were highly disputed.

Show second slide (a, b)

Ninahs Dowry: Of Masculinities and its resistance

Ninahs Dowry applies modern techniques in the filmic plot that directly address the camera
with folklore from oral African tradition to produce a film that reflects the best of both Third
World Cinema and the West in terms of entertainment and aesthetics. Unique in its style, the
film reveals an awareness of the importance of the media in reading femininity in modern
Africa, as well as acknowledges certain complexities on the audiences gaze. While some
filmmakers accept certain cultural practices that relegate women onto the periphery, Victor
Viyuoh, the director deconstruct the ideologies of patriarchy in modern-day Cameroonian
society by accepting the universality of certain references that puts women at the center-stage
of gender discourse and uses them to make his film appealing to all audiences, mindful of sex,
gender, ethnicity and race. The bride price, (dowry) which is the central theme in the film
binds the woman to her husband such that she completely becomes submissive to him. The
bride price is identified as one of the patriarchal modes of suppressing the woman and
objectifying her. This ideology of patriarchal oppressiveness has many structures that bound
some women in the African traditional context, but most are now resisting the torture, pain,
suffering and marginalization after having acquired some level of consciousness.

In the film, we encounter a young woman Ninah in her early twenties married to an abusive
husband who beats her at the least opportunity without giving attention to the gaze of his
children and that of the public. His mind is still in that frame of a patriarchal social structure in
which a woman is devalued and construed as an object and part of the husbands property.
Ninah faces oppression from her husband for 7 years but decides to leave the moment she gets
information that her father is sick and wants her to come and pay last respect. She sees this as
an opportunity to break away from a marriage that was contracted by her father without seeking
her consent. Determined to face the future, she meets her father on his dying bed without the
husbands approval. After the funeral, Ninah did not want voluntarily return to Memfi. Memfi
with his two friends brutally drags her out into the streets to her matrimonial home (Figure 2b).
While this action is going on, the camera cuts to the people in the quarter who silently watches
him intensify his violent masculine acts on Ninah.

Ninahs Dowry uses an imaginary emerging capitalist modern African society. Memfi works
for his boss and is paid a meagre salary. Unlike in a purely traditional patriarchal society, the
man is a king due to the fact that he owns property, has wealth, takes care of his family and his
wife is part of the wealth. In this society, Memfis boss occupies the hegemonic position.
Memfi feels demasculanized by his boss even though he would also want to perform his
masculinity. From a Freudian psychoanalysis reading and interpretation, the only way Memfi
could perform his masculinity is by projecting his own impotence on the weaker objects who
happens to be his wife and children. He therefore exhibits his masculinity on them through
misplaced frustration, anger and violence. As such, he attempts to reclaim the power that he
does not have. In real essence he does not have power because he cannot take care of his wife
and children without working for his boss. His boss treats him the same way he treats his wife.
Moreover, Memfis misdirected anger at his wife and children is because of their gaze when
he is demasculinized by his employer/his master. His relationship with his master is based on
an imbalanced power relationship that complicates his identity. He is therefore obsessed with
the desire to perform his masculinity which can be achieved through the violence that he directs
at his wife. He parades her for the public to gaze as he molest of her and paradoxically no one
question or intervene because she belongs to him as he had paid the bride price. He ridicules
and dehumanizes her in public. This is his way of reaffirming his own masculinity.

It would be interesting to note that in trying to negotiate his identity as a man, Memfi ironically
double play as a man and at the same time a slave. He is a slave to his boss who never
appreciates even if his job is well done and a slave to his wife because he keeps running after
her each time she rejects his violent behavior. That is why when she returns to her fathers
house, a friend comes to inform him that the wife is pregnant. He realizes that she might
actually be leaving for good and especially with the rumors that she is seeing another man, he
decides to get her back. At this point, there is the understanding that his action is as a result of
his masculinity being threatened at different levels; by Ninah, his boss and other men in the
community. This conventional reactions of other male characters around Memfi provide
affirmative responses to his domineering attitude towards Ninah.

What really is the Point of view of the filmmaker and motivation for this intervention?

Victor Vuyuos main objective in producing this film is to tell a story that is poignant and full
of pathos as an intervention against the culture of paying bride price that both commodifies and
objectifies a womans corporeality. The film is indeed based on a true story. As such it seems
that the filmmaker is interested in creating awareness about the injustices and cruelty of this
traditional cultural practice in Cameroon. In Cameroon like many other African countries the
debate about practices of masculinity has been a fertile subject for a long time. However, what
is important for us in this paper is how the filmmaker has deployed the filmic mode to intervene
against this practice. The filmmaker constructs the filmic narrative structure on explicit binary
oppositions of the villain and victim. The man (Memfi) is the villain. The woman (Ninah) is
the victim of his villainous acts. This binary opposition of evil and good is meant to influence
the audience to take a particular stance and identify with the victim. Memphi the villainous
husband is portrayed as unkempt, rude and looks like he is a demented personality. Ninah on
the other hand is beautiful, dignified and motherly. Though through regular brutality and
violence, she loses her comportment especially when she begins to resist. Her identity alters at
this point from the previous feminine to a more masculine identity. To elicit sympathy for the
violated woman the filmmaker deploys exaggerations and repetitions of both acts of violence
and acts of attempted escape and resistance. These exaggerated acts of violence and escape and
resistance makes the audience to identify with Ninah and loathe the husband.

The issue of bride price raised by the filmmaker captured the imagination of most African
writers in the immediate post independent period. The theme seems to still be disturbing the
contemporary independent writers and filmmakers. Most pioneer female African writers like
Buchi Emecheta (1976) dealt with the issue of bride price. The bride price was considered as
an African culture. In this film, Viyuoh sets out to show a key part of Cameroonian culture for
what it takes a woman to survive in Cameroon, especially in the rural areas. By addressing
issues that touches family dynamics, he portray the woman as bread winner of the family; she
is the one who spend time in the farm with the children working to fend for themselves, she
fetches water from the stream, firewood from the forest to heat up the house in the evening and
cook food for the family etc. While the man spend his meagre salary drinking alcohol. These
are key elements of the family that the filmmaker represent in the film. Another aspect of family
dynamics is demonstrated in the ritual when Ninahs father dies. He must be buried in a
particular traditional way. Despite the familys poverty, the filmmaker portray Ninahs younger
brother who now represent the head of the family stand to protect his masculine identity by
using the little money they have to lavish on the funeral service.

In mediating the filmic text of Ninahs Dowry, we could say that it takes only a script writer
who is ideologically inclined to read the text and knows exactly the kind of ideology that he
wants to create and transfer to the audience. Viyuoh creates his characters with a purpose. In
the film, we see the relationships, inter-relationships and family dynamics evolving at every
turn as the story unfolds. When we look at Ninahs father on the bed about to die, he still do
not get remorse about what he had done to the daughter. He had actually enslaved his daughter
into a marriage that was not working well for her. When dying he had the option to talk to his
son not to organize a lavish funeral because Ninah is in a troublesome marriage, in case the
husband continues his brutality or comes back to claim his money he can actually use the
money to pay off and get her freedom. Ninahs father gets to the point of vulnerability where
he would have seek for forgiveness from the daughter but he did not. Even in dying, he has not
yet accepted his quilt of what he had done to Ninah. One can argue here that the filmmaker is
very clear in his ideology of portraying patriarchal identity as an extremely selfish enterprise
even in death. He does this through out even in very subtle moments like when the shop keeper
comes out and looks at Ninah being brutalized by the husband. He turns his back rather than
offer a supportive hand. Considering that he runs a small business store in the square, in the
village standard, he is seen as an accomplished man. He looks modern, cosmopolitan and more
enlightened in gender balance, but his attitude is as if he doesnt see anything wrong with
Ninahs maltreatment. In this case the filmmaker want to show the difference in other men. In
his point of view it is a mans world. It would be difficult for any of these men to stand out
against him because by standing out it means undermining the other man, likewise your own
masculinity, thereby accepting masculinity.

The politics of Class Society in Ninahs Dowry:

Ninahs Dowry represent both the modern traditional and a class society in Africa. The peoples
silence towards domestic violence amply represents an elaborate picture of the culture and
traditions of the people of Cameroon and other sub Saharan African regions, both from the
rural as well as the urban suburbs. The way of life of the rural people of Kedjom-Ketinguh in
the North West Region of Cameroon as portrayed in the film are very similar, if not identical
to what obtains in other regions of Cameroon. Prominent among these modern traditional
practices is the funeral ceremony of Ninahs father. In Cameroon as well as the rest of African
continent, lavish funeral ceremony features in every family and/ or community. Ninahs brother
borrows money to add up to what the father left behind to provide food and drinks to the
mourners. He does not think about tomorrow. His major concern is to satisfy the people. This
depicts the importance that is attached to a funeral ceremony in Cameroon, like elsewhere in
Africa and reflects the fulfilment that comes with such celebrations. Also, as a man, he is
keeping up to his masculine functions in the community.

Insert next slide Memfi and boss

Furthermore, contrary to the poor life style of Memfi and his family, his boss is a wealthy man
who owns a cow ranch in the community. He represents the wealthy class who owns workers
in their farms and homes. This is a common phenomenon in Cameroon where the rich people
employ the less privilege to work in their farms for a meagre salary. They control their life and
money. In the beginning of the film, the camera contrastingly move from a shabby Memfi
seating in front of his small hurt watching his bosss cattle to Ninah in the kitchen struggling
to prepare food with no salt and oil. The camera cuts to a well-dressed, good looking man
speaking rudely to Memfi in the field. He is a symbol of the rich middle class in the society
while Memfi on the other hand symbolizes the lower class. The rich man ends up not paying
his allowance for the month because he could not protect his son from riding his horses. From
the dialogue between these two men, we get to understand that the rich man is his boss. He
pays him for taking care of his cattle and even provides the small hurt he lives in with his
family. Being the sole provider, he controls Memfis world (Maybe if we happen to find people
who are rich in this society like Memfis boss for instance, they would not give their daughter
on sale into marriage like Ninahs father did. He is a man who is well off and wouldnt do
that). In this light, the film is more of a class distinction and portray more of the peoples
poverty than culture. If Memfi was doing well, had a good job, he could not behaved the way
he did. The fact that he could not provide for his family gave him the feeling that his manhood
is being marginalized since his wife labours to feed the family. Moreso, when he goes out to
guard the boss horses, he shouts at him in the presence of his wife and children whereas in his
understanding of the patriarchal society, it is the man who shouts at the woman. Therefore, if
he is being shouted at, it means he is being feminized. To maintain his status as a man, he must
keep on reminding himself of his masculinity and the only way this can be achieved is by
ordering. In this light, masculinity can only be confirmed if there is a woman. That is why he
has to remind his wife that she is a woman and has to be put in a corner or in a box. At this
point, we see the way the filmmaker uses the different spaces that we meet the different
characters to carefully explore the theme of masculinity through class difference.

Frames of Masculinity and Femininity in Identity transformation:

Insert next slide Ninah on horse

In the film, the individual self is established through the quest to break through specific codes
of cultural coherence imposed on the characters by the society. In transforming Ninahs body
from a feminine identity to masculine, the filmmaker create images that reflects the characters
state of mind. Just like Memfi, Ninahs personality towards the end of the film changed to a
shabby and unkempt woman. She had the opportunity to change into a clean dress and look
womanish when she met her children after escaping from the neighbors house at night. Instead,
she rejects her former appearance and embrace masculine personality. She does not subscribe
to the orderliness inscribed by the society for women. Her dressing demonstrate the
transformed personality to that of a man who does not care what the public thinks. She defy
her femininity to perform this masculine identity. Moreover, her body is costumed in a rough
and unkempt manner. Ninah has to get out of the normalize cell which defines a woman as
delicate by daring these norms and creating her own subjectivity and break away.
Ninah is different from her friends and other women in the film form the manner in which they
each respond to the constructs of masculinity and femininity. By revolting against the
patriarchy system, Ninahs actions simply describe the traditional system as being vulnerable
at the margin to its members. Douglas posits that these social systems that are considered
vulnerable at their margins are also noted for being dangerous (1969) because the system is
internalized, it is incorporated in the society with its consequences to objectify the minority or
the voiceless.

Conclusion:

The fact that the filmmakers chose arts to point out this political questioning of patriarchy,
femininity in Cameroon and exclusion in the Kenyan society is also important to speak about
its relation with some other countries in Africa and the West concerning the question of
violence and exclusion. The struggles in Ninahs Dowry and Malooned are current issues. To
see that a young woman revolting against domestic violence is treated in her community like a
criminal provokes human sympathy. What is interesting in Malooned is how the narratives
unpacks ethnic struggles without necessarily exposing the trauma both ethnic groups
experienced after the 2007 elections. As such, what remains imprinted in the minds eye of the
reader is an image of people that has been victimized by their society without being given
opportunity to explain themselves. These films participate in an interventionist project,
exposing the trauma and suffering some people experience in Africa and beyond.