Van Vicker, John Dumelo, Majid Michel, Jackie Appiah, Nadia Buari, Yvonne Nelson, Martha Ankomah and almost all those who graced our screens with their substandard acting, repetitive facial expressions and fake accents promised us of a Hollywood breakthrough.
In fact it was more than a mere promise, they assured us and constantly talked about their main aspiration and ultimate aim being to take Ghana’s name to Hollywood—as if all there is in movies is to go to Hollywood.
Interestingly, some even made trips to Hollywood to take photos in front of the famous hill mounted Hollywood sign, telling us they will soon leave behind our mediocre Ghanaian movie industry and join Denzel Washington, and the others to rock the Hollywood shoulders.
Instead of our actors and actresses taking some classes to improve themselves so to help build the little industry we had back home, it was all about Hollywood. We even learnt Nadia Buari purchased a house somewhere in West Hollywood and was preparing to move (it turned out to be one of the many lies we hear)…
There was an era you could not read an interview with any of the aforementioned Ghanaian actors/actresses without reading about how they want to go to Hollywood, ignoring how they want to take classes to improve their bad acting or how much they hate the fake accent they pour out on our screens.
This era came with our actors/actresses chasing Hollywood actors to take photos with them. It was all about, Ghanaian actor-A spotted with Hollywood star-B…Some of our Ghanaian actors/actresses spent huge sums of money and flew to several ‘not so Hollywood’ events in America. And others even visited some Hollywood studios, posing in photos and telling us; we will soon be working here.
Fast forward things and we are here today. As usual, Hollywood is booming and the penetration hole as become even smaller. But the worse thing is; even though the Hollywood talk has ceased back home, our movie industry seems to have disappeared too.
The years when we will be bombarded with 20 mediocre movies which gave these actors/actresses their false Hollywood hope and platforms to continue bothering us with ‘Hollywood this, Hollywood that’ has ended.
At the end of it all, none has been able to come REAL close to Hollywood, except the photos some of them went to take beside the hill mounted Hollywood sign and on the Walk of Fame.
As Ghanaians, we seem to ignore what is necessary and focus so much on nonsensical dreams, no matter how unrealistic it is at the time we are orchestrating the dream.
Lesson learnt; if wishes were horses, beggars would ride! Real work must be done before thinking about a jump. Even if you decide to think about the jump first, be ready to do the real work…
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