Filmmaker and organiser of the Abuja International Film Festival, Fidelis Duker, is not happy that popular cross dresser, Idris Okuneye, aka Bobrisky, is being featured in Nigerian films. He stated that much on his social media page during the week.
Clarifying his position in a chat with Sunday Scoop, Duker said, “We should not glamourise such things. We have children who are growing. As a father, these are not the kinds of things I want my children to learn. It is alien to our culture. I don’t see any reason why a man would dress like a woman. Some people defend him and say he is only ‘acting’, but as for me, it’s not appropriate.
“For those who have featured him (Bobrisky) in their movies, they are only exploiting his popularity, especially on social media. They are not using him because he is a fantastic actor. It’s not good enough that we celebrate mediocrity. There are a lot of cases of rape and other vices now, and it is because of things like this. We need to understand that our moral values are very important to us. I expect that the movie industry should be a platform where morals, values and ethics should be the focal points. Unfortunately, what you find in most of the films is that they celebrate immorality.”
The Not My Will producer also insisted that all actors should undergo training. He added, “To be an actor, you have to be a professional. It’s either you’re trained or you learn on the job. If you are trained, you must have gone to school to study Theatre Arts, or you learn under an experienced actor or producer. In the days of Baba Sala and Hubert Ogunde, they had apprentices who learnt under them, and went on to do well. Even if you study Theatre Arts in the university, you still have to go into the world to practice what you learnt.”
