black titanic 91Rose. In Masoyiyata, Dion’s lyrics are replaced with semantically different
lines in Hausa. The song’s meaning changes. A touching remembrance
of a passed-away lover becomes an elegy about Binta’s dilemma of being
caught up between her own desire and obeying her parents per society’s
norms. “Near, far, wherever you are, I believe that the heart does go on,”
is overwritten with: “Iyayena sun ce, sam, ba zan auri wanda na ke so ba”
(My parents said, no way, I won’t marry the one I love). Lyrical alterations
similar to this one have a strong tradition in Hausa popular culture, from
religious bandiri musicians, who turn Indian film songs into praise songs
for the Prophet Muhammad (Larkin 2002), to the “playback ” studio sing-
ers of Kany wood, who also frequently draw on Indian film songs for their
own productions (Adamu 2007).
The third song-and-dance sequence, also less elaborate than the second
one and also nearly diegetic, shows Binta and Abdul together, sharing the
same visual space and singing about their love to the sound of a synthe-
sizer: “Yare yarena masoyina, ‘kauna gare ni” (Yeah yeah my lover, I am
in love). This number has to be understood as an allusion to the original
movie’s lovemaking scene, in the cargo hold, that Ashu-Brown cannot
show on a diegetic level as Cameron does. Instead Ashu-Brown shows the
couple entering a room while the camera remains outside, a closed door
filling the frame. W hen the couple reappears through the same door, they
start singing and dancing. W hile such sequences are some of the most
elaborate attempts at adapting Holly wood footage to local expectations of
decency, other modifications can be observed as well. There is Cameron’s
“first kiss” at the bow of the ship, a sequence which has since become a
romantic icon in Western popular culture. The k iss cannot be so much as
hinted at in Masoyiyata. This is in a social environment where stones were
thrown at the actress playing the female lead in the only movie that ever
dared to show an attempted kiss (Sauran ‘ kiris [Almost], 2000). Likewise,
Abdul cannot sketch Binta in the nude but must be content to capture her
in full dress.
Unlike Cameron, whose film revels in historical detail, Ashu-Brown
abstains from historicizing his setting with period-piece costumes and
props. Since he, too, frames the main plot with Binta/Rose in flashback,
this approach requires a certain degree of collaboration on the part of
the audience (Kilian 2012). The viewers have to accept the filmmaker’s