It is quite safe to say that Nollywood owes its existence to globalization processes. Widely available and affordable video technology, the ease in air travels and a nose for lucrative business1 have combined to create the industry that has toppled Hollywood as the premier provider of audio visual entertainment in Nigeria. Video technology equally gave birth to other `woods’ in sub-Saharan African countries such as Ghana, Kenya and Malawi and is the engine behind the revitalization of Nigeria’s and Ghana’s previously comatose national film industries. The accounts of globalization have, however, largely marginalized the subjective dimension of the impact on these countries’ culture industries of the globalization of the video technology and of culture. This article highlights this aspect of the impact of globalization but especially as it concerns the issue of identity. Using Segun Arinze and Steph-Nora Okere, two well known Nollywood actors as cases, and drawing also from interview excerpts with both actors2, the article employs critical discourse analysis to argue that a contradictory structure of feeling has developed in the actors in relation to Nollywood and social practices elsewhere, symbolized by Hollywood. This tension comes mainly from the reality of working in the country’s video film industry and the global ideals as imagined by the actors. The paper concludes by arguing that imagination has combined with wide availability of foreign cultural materials to foster mental migration in the two Nollywood actors.
