On Tuesday, November 19, my group went to see the film Wadjda. It is about a ten year old girl living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This film was directed by the Saudi Arabian director Haifaa Al-Mansour. Wadjda is best friends with a little boy named Abdullah. On their way to school, Wadjda always said how if she had a bike, she would beat Abdullah in a bike race. Every day she admired the bikes of all the boys in her village, and wished she had one.

One day, she saw a bike, and knew she had to have it. So she entered the Koran contest at her school, hoping to win the 1,000 riyal prize, the bike cost 800. She won the contest, but unfortunately, when she told her teacher what she wanted the money for, her teacher didn’t let Wadjda have the prize. In the end, Wadjda’s mother ends up buying the bike for her, and Wadjda finally gets to race Abdullah.

http://www.impawards.com/intl/misc/2012/thumbs/sq_wadjda.jpg

While this film is not directly about women in the media, I think it was still educational for my group. It almost displays the absence of women in the media in that culture. In the film, the only faces I saw on posters were of men. In the culture of Saudi Arabia, women are meant to be hidden away and work as housewives. I think my group should display this other culture in our teach-in to show how the representation of women can be different in different places.

This film really struck me. It was easy to connect with Wadjda and feel sympathy for her. It expresses the culture of Saudi Arabia through the eyes of a local. I think I learned a lot about Saudi Arabia as a whole, and the culture of many Muslim people. This was very interesting to see and a great topic to learn about.