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Dear Academy, “Lionheart” Is The History Lesson You Lack
#OscarsSoDumb
Nollywood became a huge deal while I was still a resident of New York City, and the rise and rise happened in the early 2000s. Less than a decade later, this Nigerian-American was proudly showing up with friends in tow, for celebratory screenings, located at spacious eateries that introduced newbies to the array of deletable dishes that resembled my childhood diet.
I was born in San Francisco, California, and right after my birth, my Nigerian parents were forced to drive back to the Midwest. Kansas City, Missouri to be exact, after the job opportunity that my dad was banking on, suddenly evaporated.
We settled there until the final move back to Nigeria when I was 8-years-old, and my brother was 4. And the reasoning behind the planned uprooting from all things familiar, was the patriotic allegiance to a homeland that was in no shape to live up to the expectations set forth by my naively optimistic parents, who were committed to a non-existent dream.
Adjusting to our new life in the thriving metropolis of Lagos was not an easy feat for a young girl, who sounded funny enough for relentless mockery by curious classmates. It was hard to assess the complexities of being manufactured in a place that was no longer reality, and then bearing the task of…
