Dirty Christmas, Ini Edo, and CAN censorship of creativity, by Leke Alder

I don’t know Ini Edo. I’ve never met her. What I do know about her is that she’s an accomplished auteur who has paid her dues and has now produced a movie allegedly banned by the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN). I hope this is not so because it takes Christianity back to the 7th century. Indeed, it is not Christianity. It is the simulacrum of another religion. Christianity does not have a cancel culture. That culture is antithetical to the very nature of Christ. He died for his enemies and forgave sinners. If we go this route, there will be many movies to ban.

What is troubling about this shebang is that the movie was banned just because of the title, “A Very Dirty Christmas,” not the content. It was deemed “spiritually offensive and disrespectful.” It’s obvious the title is a play on “Detty December” – the nation’s emergent homecoming tourism program. The movie was banned without preview. I doubt it’s anything remotely close to the production of Jesus Christ Superstar playing in theatres in London.

You can’t legislate righteousness. Christianity is not totalitarian. It is a freewill-based religion. We have agency. Rather than defend the faith, we’re alienating this generation. It’s a creative generation.

Why doesn’t Ini simply change the title of the film? If you know anything about making movies, you’d know that’s a horribly expensive recourse. You have to redo the opening graphics and opening scene, rewrite the script if the title is embedded, reshoot, and rescript the credits at the end. No wonder Ini cried. She raised money from investors. She might as well shoot another movie.

There are more important things for CAN to focus on. There’s the “non genocide” in the North, the crushing weight of multidimensional poverty on 130 million Nigerians, the sad existence of internally displaced Christians in IDP camps, the brand image of the clergy, and the inverse ratio of church proliferation to societal morality.

The CAN policy is wrong-headed. It is a superficial censorship of creativity, which does Christianity no good.