Female Genital Cutting

As Westerners, much of we see about other parts of the world tends to be diluted and transformed to reflect what we as Westerners would think about anything that is foreign to us, and this is no different when discussing Female Genital Cutting. While much of what we know about Female Genital Cutting comes from a western lense, Ousmane Sembène’s film, Moolaadé, provides a different perspective; we are, in a sense, getting the full story straight from the horse’s mouth. I say this because of the authenticity of the film.
The film is set in rural Burkina Faso and, for the most part, is in Jula. This alone speaks volumes about the validity and the authenticity of the story being told because of the lack of outside influence. The film starts with
This scene is powerful to me to because so much was happening at once. While Colle’s husbanding was beating the crowd continued to grow larger and larger and all the spectators chose a side. The men of the village were cheering on Ciré and yelling for him to beat her harder until she said the word the would end the curse. On the other side of things, the women of the village sided with Collé and yelled words of encouragement and told her to remain strong. This was a huge turning point because, at first, none of the women agreed with her protecting the girls form purification. This scene also stood out to me, because it continued to show the strength that Collé had been exhibiting throughout the entire film. It took a lot of courage for stand up against for the entire village and protect the girls in the first place and then for her to continuously standup against authority figures such as the women of the Salindana who perform the purification and her husband. To see her stand before the entire village and be brutally beaten but still stand up for what she believed in is truly a powerful thing. It not only showed her strength, but her opposition to Female Genital Cutting. This scene was also powerful because while Collé was being beat, the mother of the youngest girl being protected by Collé lured the child out of Collé’s house to be purified and unfortunately she died. This was a powerful scene because this caused many of the women to open their eyes the downsides to Female Genital Cutting and gave the women the strength to standup against the men of the village. Colle’s strength in this scene, caused all the women to band together, speak out against the injustices that they felt they were facing, and put an end to the reign of the Salindana over the genitals of girls in the