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Cameroon: Luc Mebenga Tamba - 'Women Identify With Issues Raised'
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Cameroon Tribune (Yaoundé)
INTERVIEW
23 April 2008
Posted to the web 23 April 2008
Elizabeth Mosima
Luc Mebenga Tamba, socio-anthropologist, University of Yaounde 1.
How do you explain the success of Latin American films in our society today?
These series are some kinds of documents or small films which delve problems of people of the lower class; problems that can be described as vulgar. Our society today, in the face of poverty and unemployment, life has become difficult, etc. The problems addressed in Brazilian films and others are a way of giving more strength to these types of problems, mainly emotional problems, trouble between couples, forced unions, etc. These types of problems interest those who are jobless and have nothing to do. The proof is that it is mostly women and children who are always glued to TV screens everyday to watch these films.
Why according to you, do these Latin American series attract mostly women?
The films attract mostly women because they deal mostly with the problems of women. Particularly today where the population lives in poverty; those who are more touched by the problem of poverty are women. Those who are married no longer have enough money to feed their husbands well. This results in marital problems because husbands can no longer satisfy the wives by giving them enough allowance; children no longer eat to their fill, etc. This causes a lot of problems in the family. Those who are not married cannot afford living with a partner or otherwise keep relationships which are deceitful. All these boil down to the context of what I call poverty.
Do these films have a negative impact on our society?
Evidently there is a sociological impact and even anthropological. Because it means giving strength to problems that are supposed to be minimised or classified in the second rank. The question now is what they think of the real problems of their lives such as problems of education, health and employment. But spending time discussing about people having a union which separated after the unfolding of a lie, a pregnancy which is not a pregnancy, etc, all these are problems today that have taken over real problems of life. The impact is that people no longer reflect on their conditions of life. They spend their time valorizing what is not even very urgent today. At the cultural level, there are some attitudes which we learn through these films which are not necessarily the cultural order of African societies or Cameroonian society.
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At one time we are told there is no polygamy in European countries but through these films we see polygamy. There is also the fact that people actively participate in the destruction of marriages of others through lies, gossiping, people who claim to be relatives, in a way that there is no stability in the lives of couples. These are the lessons we learn in these types of films. Finally, we see our own practices changing whereas it was not the case. It is regrettable because it is our society that is highly affected.
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