138 african appropriations
It’s modernity.... The audience likes the way we get down in the films.
If not, they would not buy them. If a film is to show all the girls in hijab
[Islamic dress] and not getting down, I swear, the film will flop.... But if
you make a trailer of a film showing nubile girls dancing and getting down,
the audience will whoop with approval; yet those who abuse us are those
who will go to the market and buy the films. (quoted in Adamu 2007: 93)Some of the films produced in 2004 and 2005 mirror this double moral
standard referred to by Mansura Isa. Gidauniya (2 004) is a pa r t ic u la rly apt
example of the moral ambiguity of such films. The movie’s cover catches
the eye by depicting three actresses in more or less tight-fitting, and thus
provocative, dresses. At the same time, however, its plot mimics the public
discourse on the transgression of female propriety by women who wear
such clothes. Hence, the film’s images and its overall message contra-
dict each other. One sequence is particularly revealing: Amira (Maryam
Abubakar), the main character, visits her elder sister ( Jamila Haruna),
together with two of her female college friends (Farida Jalal and Rukaiy ya
Umar). All three of them are clad in apparel associated with the West. As
an additional marker of their deviation from a Hausa way of life, the girls
greet Amira’s elder sister in English: “Hi, Auntie, how are you?” The sister,
herself dressed in local attire, shakes her head in disapproval, and speak-
ing in Hausa, points to the first girl: “Get up, let me see your dress!” The
girl smiles, stands up, and obviously comfortable in her rather tight-fitting
blouse, slowly turns around, presenting her dress to Amira’s sister—and
the spectators alike—as if on a catwalk. Amira, dressed in jeans and a
snug top, and her other friend, who sports straightened, uncovered hair,
are asked to do the same. “Now, for God’s sake and for the sake of the
Prophet, what do you think you look like?” asks the sister. The girls answer
in unison: “Like cool ones!” W hen she realizes that the girls are far from
ashamed, she starts admonishing them: “As children of Muslim parents,
you walk around all the time with this type of dress: no shawl, no scarf.”
Two of the girls protest, pointing to their “scarves” (which look more like
fashionable fish nets and are therefore more revealing than concealing),
and then blame the third girl, who is wearing no scarf whatsoever, for
arousing “Auntie’s” disapproval. “If you, as Muslims, continue to wear
such dresses,” Amira’s sister continues, “you are neither cool, nor warm,
but hot [as hell fire]! By God, if you don’t stop wearing such clothes, who