Nigerian Popular Culture and Female Representation in the Digital Era: Reading Phone Swap (2012)

The representation of women in popular culture has become one of the most significant forms of socialization in the digital era. Such representation is what becomes a practical model to men and women alike on what constitutes the acceptable versions of the feminine or its gender aspirations. The stylistic devaluation of feminine capabilities is one prevailing factor which underpins the Nigerian popular culture to be methodologically different in its relation to men and women. This paper examines aspects of the Nigerian popular culture by critically analysing Phone Swap (2012), and exposing its representation of women in the digital era, using feminist film theory. This study is significant as it unravels aspects of female representations in the Nigerian popular cinema, using the case study of Phone Swap (2012). By so doing, the filmic text is x-rayed as popular culture with especial emphasis on its handling of gender representation, through a qualitative research methodology in analytical approach. This film is contextualised as a new-Nollywood film with commercial appeal. It is found that the filmmaker Kunle Afolayan portrays most female characters in subjugated frame that socio-culturally positions them to be lesser than their other.