Challenging Gender-Hegemonic Narratives in Nollywood: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Kunle Afolayan’s Citation and Swallow
https://doi.org/10.24833/2687-0126-2026-8-2-76-96
Abstract
Existing scholarship on Nollywood extensively explores how female identities are constructed and contested. Though these studies have offered valuable data on gender portrayals, few studies have employed a detailed discourse-analytical lens to examine how female resistance is performed and narrated through language, especially in the context of institutional communication and economic power structures. This study examines how gendered power relations are constructed, challenged, and reimagined within academic and workplace environments in Kunle Afolayan’s Citation (2020) and Swallow (2021). It explores how language operates as a site of ideological contestation, where female characters negotiate institutional and interpersonal authority, resist patriarchal silencing, assert economic autonomy, and subvert traditional gender norms. Adopting a qualitative design, the study purposively sampled 50 discourse excerpts from the two films, focusing on scenes where women articulate agency, resistance, and self-definition. These excerpts were analysed using key elements of Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis, particularly the concept of lexicalisation, to identify how speech acts, lexical choices, and discursive positioning reflect and resist hegemonic gender ideologies. Five major themes emerged from the analysis: (1) power struggles and resistance to patriarchal authority; (2) challenging sexual violence and institutional silencing; (3) discursive construction and legitimisation of female professional authority; (4) economic autonomy and resistance to gendered dependency; and (5) subversion of gender norms and masculinities. The findings reveal that the female characters in both films are not passive recipients of patriarchal control but active agents who use language to assert their voice, reclaim space, and resist domination. Through strategic lexical choices and assertive discourse, these characters challenge the normative scripts of womanhood and reshape the ideological terrain of gender in contemporary Nigerian cinema. This study demonstrates how Nollywood, as a popular cultural medium, can function as a discursive space for gender critique and transformation.
About the Author
Aanu Jekayinoluwa Olowe
University of Ibadan
Nigeria
Nigeria
Aanu Jekayinoluwa Olowe holds a Master’s degree inEnglish Language from the University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. She earned her Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree in English from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun State. She is currently pursuing a second Master’s degree at the University of Stirling, United Kingdom. She specialises in discourse analysis, with a particular focus on gender discourse
Ibadan
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Review
For citations:
Olowe A. Challenging Gender-Hegemonic Narratives in Nollywood: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Kunle Afolayan’s Citation and Swallow. Professional Discourse & Communication. 2026;8(2):76-96. https://doi.org/10.24833/2687-0126-2026-8-2-76-96
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