[ 2016-07-29 ]

Grace Omaboe

Insults in ‘Twi’ movies have lowered standards of the industry - Grace Omaboe
Veteran actress and television personality, Grace
Omaboe has lamented that modern depictions of Twi
language used in some local productions has
lowered movie standards.

Speaking in an interview with Hitz @1, the
veteran actress noted that the constant depiction
and excessive use of the Twi language as a tool to
disrespect and insult others is damaging to the
film industry.

“It’s really bad,” she said. “They think
that the more you can insult, the better you
become a star.”

Asserting that ongoing tropes are inauthentic,
she alluded to past times when scripts would
“polish the language,” comparing it to a
recent increase in offhand use of strong
language.

Madam Omaboe noted that, increasingly, more
people use disrespectful terms on a regular basis,
without considering their potentially harmful
impacts.

Her comments are consistent with Jim Awindor, a
lecturer at the National Film and Television
Institute (NAFTI), who speaking in an interview
with Hitz @1 recently expressed worry that current
filmmakers are producing movies without
consideration for the cultural values of Ghana.

Sharing recent observations of local dialect
films having resulted in an opinion of Twi as a
“language of insult,” Mr. Awindor suggested
that filmmakers make conscious efforts to be
mindful of what they present to the public.

Echoing Mr. Awindor’s observations, she
remarked that comedic delivery has influenced the
flippant use of severe insults, such as the terms
“kwasia” and “aboa.”

She clarifies with another comparative example:
“[In the past] if you tell your husband [that he
is kwasia], you are in trouble… The man can even
divorce you for that.”

Using such terms, in her opinion, is still very
degrading and further misrepresentation of the Twi
language and its speakers, especially when
accounting for current film making trends.

Source - Myjoyonline.com

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