Controversy over British actor Idris Elba performing lead in ‘Things Fall Apart’ film adaptation

By Godwin Okondo

NZEBU Nlebedim’s post on Facebook provided the trigger for the appropriateness or otherwise of starring British film star Idris Elba as lead in the proposed making of Things Fall Apart (TFA) instead of an actor of Igbo extraction. And it caught on, as many informed commentators weighed in. Indeed, it’s part of a long conversation about the validation cultural productions from the West provide with their financial power and cultural institutions that keep tempting and wooing African creatives to seek Western platforms for cultural expressions. The Caine Prize for literature (short story) and now Netflix for films may just be two powerful cultural institutions from the West shaping cultural productions in Nigeria and Africa.

“Those gloating about this news — as to the presumptive lead to be favoured towards an Igbo Nigerian male — don’t exactly get the simple rule of sales in showbiz: global optics. Sure, our 9ja (Naija) Igbo actors may kill the role of Okonkwo, but c’mon, the west always wins best optics,” Nlebedim said in his post.

In reacting, Nigerian academic Soji Cole says his concern is the ‘Africanness’ of the story and how difficult it will be for a foreigner even in black skin to able to carry the sociological weight of the story that is steeped in Igbo cosmology without messing it up.

“I have a problem with this,” Cole said. “I always have. It is also part of the problems that I have with the creative concept of afro-futurism. An African story may be a Black story, but a Black story is not an African story, unless it expresses the tendency of “Africaness”. I agree with the clout stuff, and the West is deliberately manipulating that clout to show self-help sympathy to the story of colonialism–that is what it is all about! Otherwise, apart from providing support (financial mostly) for a lofty project as this, what in the world is Idris Elba leading again? As lead actor or as the main director? Idris is a brilliant actor but does not have the artistic clout (again I return to clout) to deliver as lead of anything artistic in this kind of project.

“Apart from the theme, Chinua Achebe’s TFA is substantially a cultural manifesto of the Igbo people. Idris cannot uplift that cause, otherwise Achebe will be whimpering in his grave. Again, my argument can be nullified when we begin to ask questions of the support our film industry is getting from the grassroots. Why are our film-makers looking up to foreign producers? Why are they rushing to produce for Netflix as proof of their artistic validity? What is the system providing to support film-making, and in turn how is the film industry generating revenues and also providing well-meaning jobs for people? These are many questions with subliminal claims that can undermine my argument. So many headaches here…”

But Nlebedim doesn’t quite agree with Cole, insisting that the global financial politics always trumps such considerations. “Yes, I understand your argument, and I know it’s sad for me to even be stating it, but bringing in an “indigenous” Nigerian (Igbo) actor to play the role of Okonkwo in this film wouldn’t exactly give the project the notoriety it deserves, not on a global scale,” he says. “And again it’s sad that Nigeria hasn’t reached that level where it can pull enough clout to finance and sell this film globally. In the end, it’s business.

“The need to retain the cultural nuance of that film will never measure up to the financial mathematics of it all. For instance, the Bandele-directed Half of a Yellow Sun may not have gotten the clout it got had Chiwetel Ejiofor not starred as Odenigbo, or Thandie as Olanna. It’s all the (nasty?) politics of it. And the upholding of cultural righteousness has never been very relevant in the midst of financial politics. It’s a sad one for us, my prof, but we are where and what we are.”

British actor Idris Elba primed to plat lead role in Things fall Aaprt

Nakata Edwardson’s reponse to Cole situates the conversation in the context of acting as make-believe rather than the real life (after all, TFA is a fictional account of a non-existent Igbo society), “Are we not going to talk about the fact that they are making a movie, and that actors are actors because they pretend to be other people and are good at it? People keep saying “respect the cultural value, respect the cultural value.”

“They’re not modifying the Igbo culture or disrespecting the Igbo culture by making a series (which I believe will stick appropriately to the original story) by hiring “actors” to perform it. As a matter of fact, they are amplifying it and praising it because they respect it! The cultural value of the movie industry is finding credible actors to play particular roles regardless of who they are and where they come from. People are so sentimental it gets embarrassing.”

Cole is not done and argues for the need for cultural purity, saying, “I find it hard to agree with this sentiment even if it has its value. I spent three years’ doing research in Canada on Indigenous North American Drama. I stopped. Why? I couldn’t provide an adequate response when I was questioned several times about my positionality, except that we share colonial history. That is the English word that is always put forward–positionality. The Indigenous story is a sensitive story of colonialism. You dare not delve into it without having been culturally certified to do it, otherwise you’ll receive a backlash from the Indigenous people. I believe that the African colonial story is a more SENSITIVE history than even the North American Indigenous story of colonialism. The North American Indigenous colonial story was not steeped in the Middle- Passage experience where slaves were moved on the sea through the Mediterranean and then through the Atlantic.

“Our stories (and that of colonialism) have been told and twisted by white people (like we read that Mungo Park discovered the Niger River or Mary Slessor stopped the killing of twins). Now, as if that is not enough, we are moving to that era where our stories, written by our own people to counteract the white history of colonialism is now going to be retold by the white in the guise of using a black! That is what is happening to our stories and our books now! It is not about actors and acting — at least film and theatre are professions that I’ve been an insider for over 20 years! This is about the culture of a people!

“Kelvin Hart played a lead role in A man from Toronto. Torontonians came out to tongue-lash the producers that Hart and the other leads messed up their accents because those are not the ways Toronto people speak! The producers came out to apologize publicly. That is to say that film has moved from being merely an aesthetic method to a sociological instrument. Achebe wrote the book not only as a writer but to document the culture of a people. That fact must not be pushed aside. Those who are not happy with the unconfirmed news of Idris playing a lead in TFA have got very strong reasons to be!”

According to journalist and writer, Anote Ajeluorou, “Game of Thrones, Troy, 300, King Arthur, etc are mostly European histories/legends, etc that Hollywood made movies about. I didn’t hear the Greeks or Europeans moan about cultural correctness or otherwise, because they didn’t/couldn’t make films out of their own cultural wealth. So this noise about TFA is baseless. If a Caucasian is the one playing the lead role (say Okonkwo), then we may have a conversation going. Chinua Achebe’s TFA has since become a global cultural product. Nothing stops a Nigerian from remaking it the ‘Igbo’ way, if he could; many versions of the same filmic project is not a taboo.”

Film critic Oris Aigbokaevbolo does not agree less in his submission, but introduces a radical element i what he sees as the true ownership of TFA as belonging to the British who are not angling to make a film out of their cultural product. “My hot take in this Things Fall Apart debate is this: Things Fall Apart is more of a British book than a Nigerian one. The book even came out before Nigeria was an independent country. Things Fall Apart is British.

“I know it is a Nigerian name, an Igbo name, on the cover but as a product, that book is about as British as a pound sterling.

“Publishing that book was business, risky business for a British outfit in 1958. Heinemann didn’t exactly have a model. When they were marketing (Chimamanda) Adichie, they were referring to her as an offspring of Achebe. Achebe didn’t have readily marketable forebears. But that British outfit figured it out. Many books have been published in Nigeria. How many are you people fighting for?

“If that book was consumed by only Nigerians or mostly by Nigerians, would it sell more than a handful of copies? You know the answer. Is there a single thing with global resonance that has gotten there with our money and resources?

“As a country, we should be more concerned with our inability to produce anything that relies on us to go beyond regional success. As I wrote on Twitter, “The UK gives and the UK taketh away”.

“In 1958, an ambitious 29-year-old wrote thousands of words, and one British entity came in and made Things Fall Apart what it is today. If, decades later, another British entity is looking to produce a series out of a book that they cultivated to unprecedented and probably unsurpassed success, I daresay there’s a symmetry to the story.

“I understand the sentimental attachment to it: To generations of Nigerians and Igbo people especially, even those who haven’t read it, Achebe’s book is a sort of sacred artefact. Except that it isn’t. Stripped of your emotions, Things Fall Apart is just another pricey item in the market. And when things are that pricey and of global importance, Nigeria can never compete.

“My only hope is that Idris Elba learns how to say Igbo words Igbotically and “Nigerian words” Nigerianically. I was not pleased with his voiceover on that Asake promo video. But even that episode explains how the game of business works. If Asake, a master of the Yoruba language, listened to Idris Elba destroying his father’s language and still released it to the public, you should know that clout is more important than authenticity. It is attention over tradition. Learn that from Asake.

“If Idris Elba ends up mispronouncing “Okonkwo”, his own character’s name, and “Ikemefuna” and “Obierika”, we will frown and complain. But somewhere in the cosy comfort of their home, the Achebe family will look at their bank balance and the global media attention, smile and thank their chi.

“In heaven, Achebe sef go dey smile.”