Nasty Blaq And Sexual Harassment Skits “For The Sake Of Comedy”
Nasty Blaq | Image: FLVibe
Barely a week after chastising the son of a governor for threats of sexual abuse, the Nigerian twitter space is once again aflame after social media comedian Nasty Blaq released his latest skit.
In the controversial skit captioned “This lockdown has affected my eyes”, Nasty Blaq is seen sitting at the doorstep of his house. In a short while, his neighbour – a lady clad in a pink bathroom robe appears. As she approached him, Blaq rubbed his eyes and it appeared that the lady was dressed in something else – a yellow swimsuit that did a poor job of covering her body over a white see-through shorts.
The lady asked to borrow some oil from a distracted Blaq who responded with “You mean oil? Something to make the body smoothie and juicy”?
The lady clarifies that she means “groundnut oil” and walks into Blaq’s house after he says the oil is inside his house. Blaq promptly walks in after her, but not before locking the door and disposing of the key.
The underlying meaning of Nasty Blaq’s actions in the skit is not lost on social media users who promptly called out the comedian for encouraging sexual harassment. But Blaq is not a first-time offender when it comes to such skits.
In October 2019, Kemen was found guilty by association for his role in a Nasty Blaq-produced skit. In the skit, Nasty Blaq and his woman were walking along a street when Kemen, who is draped in gym wear, inappropriately touched the woman as he walked past them.
Months later and no lessons learnt.
A Pupil of the Industry
Perhaps, Nasty Blaq is learning to replicate both the successes and failures of his predecessors in the Nigerian comedy industry. Nigerian comedians have often been rebuked for some of their jokes that are deemed inappropriate. They never seem to stray too far from jokes laced with homophobic, racist and “rapey” lines.
In 2014, Basketmouth posted a joke about the difference between dating “white girls” and “African girls”. He suggested out that white women would agree to sex after a couple of dates, but African women would keep holding out, so on the ninth date, a bit of rape is required. Five years later, his chicken came home to roost when the European Union removed his name from a list of nominees considered for an ambassadorial role on a campaign against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence.
Ali Baba, the well-respected godfather of Nigerian comedy once shared his thought on the spate of offensive jokes in the Industry, “There is a very thin line between being funny and being offensive; some people don’t know how to tread it because a lot of people have come into comedy because of the financial reward.”
All for the Sake of Comedy
Nasty Blaq doesn’t believe he has done any wrong in any of his skits. Per an interview granted to The Punch in December 2019, Blaq said his skits are done for the sake of comedy.
“I don’t feel we are harassing any girl; we are not harassing anybody. All we do is create content and females are aware and are part of the content. I am not promoting rape or sexual harassment. I can never do that. All I do is for the sake of comedy– for people to laugh.”
In the interview, Blaq admits that negative comments are inevitable but he doesn’t read comments at all. And he added that just like the praises he gets, he considers the backlashes to be “normal”.
But Not So Funny
But reactions to Blaq’s latest skit have been scathing.
A Twitter user, @iSlimfit said:
“That Nasty Blaq video or whatever he is called is a perfect representation of what rapists do. Even if you put on an overall to cover your entire body, it still boils down to the kind of picture they project about your body in their head. I hope he deletes it before it’s too late”
@umar_ayotunde
“What message was Nasty Blaq trying to pass across exactly? To take advantage of women for their little needs? To sexually harass them? To imprison them?
And Instagram folks were laughing and cheering him on,I’m still trying to find the Joke in the skit.”
@TheVolqx:
“And another enabling variable is the Lady in the Nasty Blaq skit , it’s not the first time , regardless you are paid for the role, you should know better as a woman that the message being passed is negative, you are doing as much harm as the lead actor & that’s just unfortunate.”
@tolutezzy_:
“The only person that will find that Nasty blaq Comedy skit funny, is a Rapist….”
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