I wonder what has become of our rich, unadulterated African culture and its values.

In the days of our parents and great grandparents, life had a value from a completely different perspective.

Before a man ever set his eyes on a woman’s nakedness, he first had to pay her dowry and be married through the appropriate channels. It was considered an abomination for a woman to expose certain parts of her body to the public. Incidents of rape and sexually transmitted infections (STI) were not that common in the time of our parents because of our conservative lifestyle.

It used to be said that the dignity of a man is in his strength and that of a woman is in her virginity. Young ladies were encouraged to protect their treasure and to maintain some sort of dignity and respect for themselves, and their family at large.

We had a very decent movie content in the past. The movie academy, for instance, was a booming business and acting was considered a noble profession.

Ghana from time immemorial used to be endowed with excellent actors and actresses that entertained the public with movies filled with life-changing stories that transformed our consciousness, teased our intellect and at the same time educated the general public immensely. We had original storylines that changed lives. My favourites were “Love brewed in the African pot” by Kow Ansah, “Heritage Africa” also by Kow Ansah, and “I told you so”.

Mr. Joe Eyison populary known in the time as Station master, Madam Margaret Quainoo, popularly known as Araba Stamp, Madam Alexandria, all of blessed memory were illustrious sons and daughters of our land that contributed immensely to get our industry to its present glory. The roles they played in the movies of their time have shaped our lives immensely till date. We still feed on the moral lessons harvested from those movies and certain folktales that we know today were brewed by these veterans.

One beautiful thing worth mentioning is that Araba Stamp, who was revered as the “Nadia Buari” or “Jackie Appiah” of her time and many other astute actresses in the 60’s managed to remain relevant in the acting profession because of their God given talents and there was not a single account whatsoever of any situation where they had to go naked before the camera to pose for a picture to show their cleavages. The talents and passion for acting was a natural phenomenon and it spoke for itself.

Today, not quite the same can be said of the movies we see. They are filled with a lot of sex scenes and filthy talks that lives much to be desired. Actors and Actresses have belittled themselves to the extent of posing semi-nude or completely naked coupled with pssionate love making scenes in most of the recent Ghanaian movies.

Abraham Lincoln, former president of United States of American defined democracy as government of the people, by the people, for the people, I believe one can now define Ghanaian movies as ‘pornography’ of, by and for Ghanaians as movies such as hot fork, love, sex and bullet, church sex, heart of men, Passion of the soul and other movies being produced now all seem to promote explicit content just like soft-core pornographic movies showcase.

Baby Blanche, Nikki Samonas and Yvonne Nelson and a couple of other “actresses” are just but a few perpetrators of this horrible act of going semi-nude in movies.

This to me is like a refined form of pornography. I have been of the view that acting as a profession in Ghana doesn’t pay that much and some actors and actresses who drive around in “big cars” must be doing some extra curricula jobs to sustain their extravagant lifestyle and livelihood but going nude in movies to stay relevant is a NO for me.

With the recent development regarding the crave for attention by movies stars using nudity, I can comfortably infer that some actresses especially are astute prostitutes disguised as actresses who are promoting their trade indirectly by using the media.

Apparently, everyone is hungry for attention and hence are looking to the wrong direction for the means to remain relevant. We don’t know whom to trust anymore and neither can we predict the kind of thoughts that runs through peoples mind.

Sex they say sells but I sincerely hope that movie producers can surmount all the courage to produce quality movies devoid of sexual scenes that sometimes shows off full nakedness of some actresses to the public. Movie stars especially the females should be ready to deal with the fact that, when people see them in movies going nude, they won’t see that talented young actress but see them as a mere sexual object that can be used to satisfy that burning desires.