The depiction of invectives and violence in Kumawood movies

Abstract

Films are a form of entertainment that reflects everyday lives, which often accentuates on romance, humour, invectives and violent elements. The Kumawood films which is an Akan language movies are premised on these elements. Some scholars have argued that the Akan language movies are sub-standard and full of invectives and violence. This study therefore examines the delineations of invectives and violence in Kumawood movies using the qualitative approach and scrutinizes the elements of invectives and violence embedded in 16 Kumawood movies using qualitative content analysis as a research design. Through the aggressive cue theory, it probed into the types of invectives and violence in the movies and the degree of representation of these phenomena in the 16 movies. The study revealed three types of invectives and violence in the 16 movies: physical invectives, visual invectives, and sexotype invectives. Likewise, the study discovered physical violence, non-physical violence and sexual violence as the types of violence embedded in the 16 Kumawood movies. Findings from the study confirm that physical invectives and physical violence permeate the Kumawood movies, reinforcing the notion that such aberrant behaviours can be normalized in society. The study recommends that The National Film Authority of Ghana develop and ensure stricter censoring of the Kumawood movies to be devoid of excessive use of invectives and violence.