Moolaade

Summary

Moolaade is based on a village in Senegal where like in other parts of Africa there has been a tradition of cutting the girls genitalia to so call purify them. This purification is very dangerous and many times can even cause death. There are sometimes girls that get away without having to go through this procedure, however they are looked down upon and no one wants to marry them. Not a lot of people have challenged this tradition until we meet Colle'. Colle' had lost two of her daughters because of this tradition and wouldn't allow the same thing to happen to her third Amasatou. Knowing that Colle' stopped this from happing to one of her daughters a group of four girls run away to Colle's house to seek help. She agrees to help them and puts into effect a Moolaade which gives her the right to protect the children without anyone being able to take them away. Most of the women try and fight the moolaade and get the girls cut, however they are not successful and complain to the elders. The elders decide to take all the womens radios so they don't receive outside knowledge, and tell Colle's husband to stop the madness. The husband likes colle' most out of his two wives, however he is forced to whip her in front of the public because of his older brothers advice. She takes the beating and becomes even stronger after it. One of the mothers that kid ran away steals her back and gets her cut, however she dies. Then most of the women in town join Colle' and rise up to stop purification once for all. Amasatou being a un-cut women marries the heir to the tribal thrown that came back from France. This shows the new begging and an end to the purification.

Major theme

The major themes in this movie are tradition, wisdom, power, and knowledge. In the town Colle' lives in the tradition of having girls purified has been going on for centuries, but she is the only women who has the strength to challenge it. The men would be angered at this and try to stop her. The elders decide to take away the women's radio's to limit there knowledge of the outside world.

The power of the elders are also shown especially when Colle's husband has to listen to his older brother when he told him to whip his wife when she spoke out about the tradition.  

Reaction

This movie addressed the problem of purification in Africa very well. This tradition has been going around for a very long time and the movie does a good job exposing it. It's very sad that so many young girls have had to die because of this, and nothing good really comes out of it. I really don't understand why this tradition was ever brought up. My guess would be that it's was made to stop women from enjoying having sex so they won't have a reason to have it with anyone except there husband, because it won't be enjoyable to them. This movies also shows the way people actually live in Senegal. Showing the environment really well and houses, clothing, etc.