Molaade Movie Essay

The motion picture Moolaade by producer Sembene Ousmane is a very emotional and inspiring movie. At the beginning of the movie girls are made to have female genital mutilation done which they know is very dangerous and painful. When four little girls run away from a purification ceremony where they get cut, they escape to Colle, a woman who refused to have her own daughter Amasatou circumcised. Colle Ardo is an everyday hero in Burkina Faso and by the end of the movie she saves the girls from having to get female genital mutilation. Also, she changes the views of people in Burkina Faso. One critic, Karen Lindo says, “Determined to protect four prepubescent girls from female circumcision, the key female protagonist Collé stands up to the Salindana (female practitioners of female gender mutilation) as well as to the larger patriarchal order represented by the Elders. Collé’s determination to protect these young girls marks the occasion to formally defend an expression of femininity that sets her apart from the other women in her village,
including the co-wives in her compound. Her conduct eventually offers courage and voice to other women’s visions in the village and, significantly, to key male characters.” I agree with what this critic says Colle stands up for all the women so that they do not have to endure the pain and suffering she went through because of having the female circumcision done. She is a hero and is very inspiring. Second critic, Jude G. Akudinobi said, “how Sembène creatively rethreads certain strands from the fabrics of culture and contemporary African women’s experiences to show that the social histories of African womanhood’s resistance to patriarchy are far more complex than are generally acknowledged. The heroines are not mere sympathetic figures or high profile personalities; yet their experiences provide inspirational basis for critical interventions. Each, within her limited means and circumstances, comprises facets of contemporary African womanhood, especially as each struggle dynamically to assert autonomous subjectivities and individual forms of feminism.” This critic is right she tells the main points Sembene made in the movie. This is a good movie to watch it’s very inspiring and shows us how other women have it in the world and how they must fight to just have some right over their own bodies. Colle Ardo the second of her husband’s three wives wouldn’t allow her daughter Amasatou to undergo the female genital mutilation because what she went through horrible pain and it sometimes have fatal outcome.
Six young girls fled from a purification ceremony and four of them showed up at Colle Ardo house seeking hiding and she gave them a safe place. Colle went against the traditions by giving shelter to these girls and invoking Moolaade which was considered as providing sanctuary to an individual, with the violation of such refugee being forbidden in society. The other two girls drowned their selves so they did not have to get cut. Female genital mutilation is very dangerous most girls dying during or after the procedure is performed. This scene is about everyday heroism because Colle wanted to save and protect the girls from being circumcised so they do not have to go through all the pain and shame she went
through. Colle and her husband started having sexual intercourse which it’s clearly causing her physical torment She keeps flashing back to the circumcision. When she is having sex it is like female genital mutilation because it brings unbearable pain. Her husband falls asleep, while she is unable to do so because the sexual intercourse brings insufferable agony for her opposed to pleasure. She keeps biting her ring finger, a symbol of her marriage and dares not say a single word even when her finger bleeds. At dawn, she is still awake so she gets up to wash her body, as well as her blood off the bed sheet. This scene shows the lifelong agony the circumcision causes. Colle was being the sacrificial lamb in this scene. The whole village is going to the middle of the village to watch Colle’s husband beat her even though Siri has never hit a woman before his brother in law is making him. He must listen even if it goes against his beliefs because he is his elder. One group of men and some of the women are yelling tame her, hit her harder, knock some sense into her. The other group of women and some of the men are yelling at her telling her do not resists Colle, do not say it, say nothing. The mercenary tried to stop him from hitting her and they stopped him and said it’s his wife stop. The women can never win but she never said anything to him for hitting her. The women cannot be responsible for their actions. Their husband or man must be responsible.
Earlier in the movie she took the girls in and stood up for them, then she took the knives to stand up for all the future girls. She was standing up to the Salindana to show them that they will not be cutting any other girls. Colle stood up to the men and told them that Islam does not require purification. This is a surprise because the women are not allowed go to church only the men. They must get their beliefs from their husbands. After that she stood up to the men and Colle told the men that they have already took everything from them their radios, the choice to make decisions and Colle said, “that you will not touch me. If you do, I will burn the town to the grown and cover it with blood. Her husband Siri is just shaking his head agreeing.” Colle also said as god as my witness no other girl will ever be cut”.
Moolaade showed how different other cultures like the one in Burkina Faso are from ours. Colle Ardo demonstrates acts of bravery that usually saves lives to keep future young ladies from having female genital mutilation done. She is a real inspiration by being a hero by saving all girls from female genital mutilation. This movie shows how a society can change from within. Change happens because you convince the right people at the right moment to make the change happen.