Reads & Reels with lola

23BE032963           In the digital age of politics, a campaign poster is more than just an image—it’s a political message wrapped in color, typeface, and symbolism. The 2023 presidential campaign poster for Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) candidate, offers a rich example of how visuals attempt to shape public perception. With a polished photograph of Obi smiling confidently, a bold green color scheme, and a blend of logos and symbols, the poster presents an image of trust, competence, and modernity. But beyond the surface, a formal media analysis reveals deeper messages about national unity, identity politics, and political branding in Nigeria’s charged electoral climate. The most striking visual element in the poster is the color green, used prominently in the Labour Party banner, Obi’s nameplate, and the general layout. In Nigerian political visual culture, green evokes not just the national flag but also hope, growth, and unity. This reinforces Peter Obi...

23BE032963           In the 2018 Nollywood blockbuster Chief Daddy, directed by Niyi Akinmolayan and produced by EbonyLife Films, we are thrown headfirst into the chaotic aftermath of a wealthy man’s sudden death. Chief Beecroft, the titular character, is a Lagos billionaire with multiple wives, mistresses, and children, both “legitimate” and otherwise. Once he dies, his sprawling household is left scrambling for their share of his wealth. On the surface, the film plays out as a comedy about family drama and secrets, but beneath the glitz and gossip lies a deeper commentary about class, privilege, and inequality in Nigerian society. Through the lens of Marxist theory, Chief Daddy can be seen not just as a Nollywood family comedy, but as a reflection of how wealth, labor, and inheritance reinforce elite dominance and social immobility in postcolonial Nigeria.           At the heart of Karl Marx’s thinking is the idea that society is d...

23BE032963           On the night of October 20, 2020, something tragic happened in Nigeria that people are still trying to make sense of. Young Nigerians had gathered at the Lekki Tollgate in Lagos to protest peacefully against police brutality, especially the harsh treatment from a police unit called SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad). They were singing the national anthem, holding up flags, and asking for a better Nigeria. But that night, gunshots rang out. Videos and eyewitnesses said soldiers opened fire on the crowd. The government denied it, and people were left confused, hurt, and searching for answers. That’s when CNN released a powerful investigation called “How a Bloody Night of Bullets Quashed a Young Protest Movement,” which tried to show what really happened at Lekki that night. But not everyone saw the documentary the same way.           To understand why people reacted differently, we can use Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Dec...

23BE032963           Tiwa Savage’s Koroba isn’t just a hit song, it’s a bold statement. With its catchy beat and confident lyrics, the music video grabs attention. But beyond the glam and rhythm, it raises important questions about how women, especially how Black Nigerian women are seen in music videos. Is Tiwa showing her power, or is she being shown off for others to enjoy? This essay looks at Koroba through two big ideas: Laura Mulvey’s male gaze, which talks about how women are often shown through the eyes of men, and bell hooks’ oppositional gaze, which encourages Black women to take back control of how they’re seen. With these two views in mind, we explore whether Koroba is more about being looked at—or about looking back.           Let’s start with Laura Mulvey. She said that in most films and videos, women are shown in ways that please men. The camera often focuses on their bodies, showing them as sexy or desirable, not as full...

  23BE032963           Glo’s  “Feliz Navidad Nigeria!”  ad is filled with beautiful moments: families laughing, couples exchanging gifts, and friends dancing to Afrobeat remixes of Christmas songs. It’s colorful, joyful, and proudly Nigerian. But if we look closer—really closer—we might start to see that not everything is as cheerful as it seems. Using ideas from the late feminist and cultural critic bell hooks, this essay takes a deeper look at the ad and what it’s really saying about how Nigerian people, especially Black joy, are being represented. hooks often warned us that just showing Black people on screen isn’t enough—it matters how they are shown, and why. In this case, Glo’s ad may seem like a celebration of Nigerian culture, but in many ways, it uses that culture just to sell something. According to hooks’ lens, the ad ends up showing a surface-level kind of happiness while leaving out the more complicated, real ...

23BE032963           Glo’s “ Feliz Navidad Nigeria!”  ad is filled with laughter, love, and holiday sparkle. There are dancing kids, grinning grandparents, tech-savvy couples exchanging digital gifts, and friends connecting across borders. It looks like a warm, happy Christmas in a Nigerian setting—and on the surface, it’s hard not to smile along. But if we slow down and look at it through the eyes of Laura Mulvey, a feminist film critic who talked a lot about how women are portrayed in media, we start to notice a few things that aren’t as joyful. Mulvey believed that many films and adverts don’t just show women—they use them, especially for male pleasure, power, or to simply “decorate” the story. Even though Glo’s ad looks progressive, it still shows signs of this old pattern: women looking good, smiling sweetly, playing supportive roles, but not doing much else. This essay argues that while Glo’s ad presents women as beautiful and...

23BE032963   Unpacking the Gucci x Dapper Dan Narrative Through Stuart Hall’s Lens      In a digital age where branding dominates media communications, collaborations between luxury fashion houses and cultural icons have become powerful tools for shaping public perception. One such partnership—the Gucci x Dapper Dan collection titled  Made in Harlem —was celebrated as a landmark reconciliation between high fashion and African-American streetwear innovation. The behind-the-scenes video for  Numero Homme  magazine, which documents the creative process, was hailed as a visual love letter to Harlem, to Black creativity, and to justice long overdue. However, by applying cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s Encoding/Decoding model, we can interrogate the dominant narrative and uncover deeper meanings that challenge the glossy, celebratory surface. This performs an  oppositional reading  of the  Made in Harlem  campaign, revealing how...

  23BE032963   A Marxist Critique of the Gucci x Dapper Dan Video: The Illusion of Luxury and Hidden Labor   The Gucci x Dapper Dan behind-the-scenes video, positioned as a celebration of Harlem’s rich fashion legacy and cultural creativity, functions less as a tribute to community ingenuity and more as a polished instrument of capitalist marketing. On the surface, the video gives the impression that it honors Dapper Dan’s legacy—a man once shut out of the luxury fashion world, now embraced by it. However, through a Marxist lens, it becomes clear that the video operates to maintain and reinforce capitalist systems rather than challenge them. The creative process is romanticized, and Harlem is cast as a symbol of artistic genius, but behind this glamor lies the complete erasure of the laboring class that supports the fashion industry. Seamstresses, garment workers, factory employees—all the individuals who physically produce the garments—are never shown. This strategic omi...