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Adjda: Prepared By: Md. Naimul Haque 2011-1-10 448

Wadjda is a 10-year-old Saudi girl who rebels against the social constraints placed on her gender by seeking to earn money to buy a bicycle, which represents freedom to her. The film highlights the repressed role of women in Saudi Arabia and issues of cultural diversity, identity, and freedom faced by ordinary people, especially challenges for girls to behave as socially expected. Wadjda's desire for a bicycle is discouraged due to beliefs it could compromise her virginity, and she faces reprimands at school for not behaving as girls should, with other female characters internalizing systems of control over women's visibility and voices.

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Naimul Haque Nayeem
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23 views2 pages

Adjda: Prepared By: Md. Naimul Haque 2011-1-10 448

Wadjda is a 10-year-old Saudi girl who rebels against the social constraints placed on her gender by seeking to earn money to buy a bicycle, which represents freedom to her. The film highlights the repressed role of women in Saudi Arabia and issues of cultural diversity, identity, and freedom faced by ordinary people, especially challenges for girls to behave as socially expected. Wadjda's desire for a bicycle is discouraged due to beliefs it could compromise her virginity, and she faces reprimands at school for not behaving as girls should, with other female characters internalizing systems of control over women's visibility and voices.

Uploaded by

Naimul Haque Nayeem
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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WADJDA

Prepared By : Md. Naimul Haque


2011-1-10 448

Wadjda, a 10 year-old middle class girl who cannot understand the constraints on her
life that the Saudi laws enforce. Being forced to cover up in public she is used to, but
why can she not ride a bicycle? Like all young children the world over she finds rules,
especially unfair rules, hard to bear, so she rebels; she wears western sneakers under
her black robes. When she asks for a bike and is refused, she decides to try to earn
the money herself to buy it. As we shall see, even that is not allowed.
The film takes on the repressed role of women in Saudi Arabia, but in a gentle way
that tries to teach rather than preach.

Issues raised
Identity: Wadjda is quite unconventional and something of a rebel. She challenges
rules and expectations of how girls should behave in school and in the society she
lives in.
Cultural diversity: In the film we can see the lives of ordinary people in Saudi
Arabia. There are many things that are different, but children there are also similar in
many ways to children in Britain.
Freedom: Owning a bicycle represents freedom to Wadjda

WADJDA, THE OPPRESSION AND LONG-IMPOSED INFERIORITY


OF WOMEN
Wadjdas mothers hesitations have a lot to do with her belief that the bicycle will
compromise her daughters virginity. Wadjda, an adventurous and outspoken girl, is
also repeatedly reprimanded for not knowing how to behave as a girl should.
Interestingly, these reprimands do not come from the men in the film but from the
other female characters. In a society where the interaction between men and women
so heavily censored, this makes sense. Women, like Wadjdas teacher, have
internalized the various messages and systems of control. The teacher, Ms. Hussa,
tells the girls in the school on various occasions to stay out of the sight of men and to
keep their voices down because a womans voice is her nakedness. You are not to
be seen or heard by anyone but the male members of your family.

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