THE PROPHETESS: ELEMENTS THAT MIRRORS SOCIETAL TRUTH
The Prophetess, Ajoke(Toyin Abraham), who practices using craft in a small rural town makes predictions about the future of people in exchange for large amounts of money. Toyin Abraham is a screen goddess, no doubt.
She became an overnight sensation among the Nigerians when she correctly predicted both the Arsenal’s triumph at the UEFA Champions League as well as the winner of the Big Brother Naija television reality show during an Instagram live session with a social media personality.
According to Sodas ‘N’ Popcorn, “the flaw with Prophetess is that much of the humour looks to be a product of the acting, and not the film. If the acting is great, the lines are far from it.”
Below are dominant themes in the movie:
- LOVE AND FORGIVENESS WITHIN A FAMILY:
Forgiveness, without which no love can be lasting, is one of the central themes in The Prophetess. It is very easy to identify the strains of anger, resentment and hate between Ajoke and Labake. Labake resented her sister for 7 years as said in the movie but the anger and hatred has been lingering in her heart since they were young because their mother favours Ajoke more.
Beneath the sisters animosity, there is a strong undercurrent of love, as can be seen when they were trying to escape and Ajoke had an epilepsy attack, Labake tried all her best for her to rise again.
When Ajoke came back home, their mother tried resolving their issues but it seemed unresolvable as Labake was not ready to hear of it. Labake’s heart seemed to be made of stone as their mother had to kneel down for her, but her mind was made up not to forgive her sister.
It took the Wonder Boyz winning before she could forgive her sister or better to say that their mother’s death drew them together.
2. RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS:
Nigerians believe so much in religion, especially prophecies. It is brought to play here in The Prophetess, as religious sentiment led to decision making. We could see a lot of people putting huge amounts of money into betting because a prophetess predicted a football club winning.
3. EMPLOYER EMPLOYEE RELATIONSHIP:
When employees have a strong, healthy relationship with their employers, the entire company benefits. Buntus is seen to be at the mercy of his boss, Eze-Ego(the owner of Sure Banka betting company), because he trained him at Harvard. The boundary between the professional relationship and the personal relationship was not put into check. He kept blaming him for things that went wrong instead of identifying areas for improvement, which is the antithesis of good relationship-building.
4. SOCIAL MEDIA TROLLING:
This is the deliberate saying of inflammatory and offensive things, especially by fans and followers. Dipsy started an IG live video during his visit to the prophetess, with the intent of provoking his fans and followers into displaying and commenting emotional responses.
He purposely caused confusion to other users online, for no reason at all.
5. MOB MENTALITY:
People seem to lose their sense of individual identity and they follow the actions and behaviors of their peers when in large groups.
In The Prophetess, the residents of Layole started rioting and demonstration, which led to destruction and a lot of lives were lost.
6. SPORT BETTING:
Over 50 million of the country’s population are involved in sport betting. This movie explores what goes on behind the scenes in the lives of those who bet and those who run the betting companies. Interwoven with the religious side of life
7. SPORT FANDOM:
It is the state or attitude of being a fan or spectator. During the match between Wonder Boyz and Gidi FC in The Prophetess, a lot of people trooped to the stadium to cheer their team, especially Wonder Boyz up. They did this majorly because they didn’t want to lose their money.
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