SOURCE:

Faculty: Arts
Department: Theatre And Film Studies

CONTRIBUTORS:

Aniukwu N. John
Utoh-Ezeajugh Tracie
Asigbo Alex

ABSTRACT:

The argument about the impacts of fantasy and reality films on child development is a topic that has generated interest in places like United States of America, Nigeria and other parts of the world. The presumed proposition that inapt behaviours, nonchalant attitudes, moral decadence, and violence among children are outcome in most fantasy films produced in Nollywood Film Industry calls for serious examination. Hence, to examine the effects which fantasy film contents could have on educational development and character formation of a Nigerian child is the aim of this study. Objectives include; to ascertain the potentials of fantastical and realistic based films in the child’s development, and to advocate possible ways through which Nollywood movies can be produced to achieve all round development of the Nigerian child. The study through the adoption of observation, survey, interview, and content analysis approaches of mixed research method, evaluated the impact of fantasy genre and fictional reality films on children and analyzed statistical data generated from the field. The study utilized Skolnick Weisberg theory of ‘Mise-en place, and George Gerbner’s Cultivation theory, in examining the impact of fantastical and fictional reality film environments in child’s learning and found out that most fictional reality children films in Nigeria have themes of Mischief, adult chauvinisms, hatred, demonic possessions, violence, among other social vices which pose serious threats to the child’s development. The study also discovered that most children films produced in Nollywood industry have the capacity of negative influence on the child’s mind that may lead to misconceptions of ideals that shape his views about the norms in the society and subsequently change his behaviour towards other members of the public. However, the study shows that fantasy films capture the child’s attention during learning sessions. The researcher therefore recommends that Nollywood filmmakers explore the utilization of fantasy genre in children films, as this would go a long way in helping children distant their attention from the imitation of bad tenets as observed in most fictional reality films and help them understand their basic roles in the society as seen in a fantastic film environment used in this study. The researcher also recommends, the establishment of a film unit that should provide adequate censorship of children films. The unit should be empowered to sieve, dissect and scrutinize all children film contents in Nollywood Film Industry so as to make sure that the filmmakers produce films relevant to the academic and character formation needs of children. The researcher concludes that fantastic film environment creates and captures children’s attention more than fictional reality films, and is therefore capable of influencing the child’s development.