We spent the weekend watching a Yoruba movie, which is a top favourite for the locally born and bred, a.k.a abínibí. Figuring out the characters didn’t take a lot, and here’s how it typically goes down:
Nosy domestic staff
Even if the script writer didn’t include one in their story, you can trust that changes will be made during the movie production. There has to be a Kamoru in the movie who does nothing but open the gates or washes the cars thrice a day, and has a romantic relationship with the housemaid who giggles when he praises her for sneaking food to him. One of the starter pack of a nosy domestic staff is to speak horrible English. Where do you think the “Bonju le masi?” with strong H factor comes from?
Wicked mother-in-law
A Yoruba movie catalogue is incomplete without a mother-in-law that has decided to have no life asides from frustrating the family of her son. Extra points if she gives off witchcraft vibes. You just have to watch a few scenes and then you can predict the way the mother-in-law would put the family through all the seven hells in the galaxy.
The rich uncle
The uncle in these movies is typically wealthy (my-money-don’t-jiggle-jiggle energy) with a duplex mansion and kids that don’t speak the local dialect. The wife is often nice, but can’t prepare meals and has the most wonderful advice for you. The uncle just talks about contracts all day, and promises to get everyone a job once they’re done in school. Of course, he dies suddenly and everything goes to the gutters after that.
A saucy sister
Call her the defender of the defenceless, and the Khaleesi of the family. No good advice to offer, just to take it to the battleground of words and occasional punches. The saucy sister character of these movies spends most of her screen time being loud and also being yelled at to shut up. They’re quite pretty most of the time, so you won’t hate the scenes as much.
Promiscuous friend
The one friend or group of friends your mom warned you about; is always ready to party and link you to a sugar daddy. They are also an integral part of these movies, and more often than not, they’re as bad as your mom warned you about.
Spiritual solution providers
You can count off your fingers the number of movies that don’t have one all-powerful spiritual father. Once everything has crumbled and the characters want to find out how this happened through the evil mirror, they locate these solution providers. It could be a white-bearded herbalist or just very loud spiritualists that promise to offer you help from above.