Question

Throughout the semester, you have learned about several theories and practices of psychology across many different areas. This assignment will give you an opportunity to apply some of those major concepts, theoretical perspectives, and empirical findings. In completing this assignment, you will hone your critical thinking skills, recognizing and applying psychological principles, and communicating your understanding of individual, community, and organizational life experiences to a general audience.

Task:

For this assignment, you will write a 3-5 page paper based on a film or book that you will explore through the application of psychological theory and research.

Answer 1

MOOLAADE.

Directed by Ousmane Sembene (2004).

I must confess, the film erupted a deep sense of anxiety in me, even before I started watching it.The mere idea of castration of the female genital, to inhibit her sexual desires and the destruction of her agency (around sexuality), is troubling beyond words. It is not the physical pain alone, but the psychological imprints of depression, emptiness, helplessness etc, is equally at play. The movie had elements of the body of a women as a site of power, repression of modernity via the channels of technology(radio) and the role of African men as a sole agent for denying progression and modernity , in the post colonial society in Africa. I will use Freud’s psychoanalysis to analyse the movie.

•Body of a women, as a site of possession and display of power.
The film indisputably argues about the cognitive prism of the male dominant patriarchy, who describes a 'good woman’, based on her submissive traits and weights her character by her purity. The idea of ‘purification’ of a woman, has its own premises that they already exist a ‘a prior’ (Kant) category of impure woman (whose body needs purification), thereby concluding that origin of the essence of the woman is impure. The act of disowning of the body of the woman is itself is a mechanism of power play. The women bodies, as seen in the movie, is a material possession of the patriarchy.
Moolaade is a manifestation of the hegemony over the body of its women ‘in an African society wherein the oppressive tradition of excision is opposed by Colle, the female protagonist who protects four girls against female excision carried out by the Salindana; a group of elderly women who perform the ‘operation’. Moolaade is an ‘order of protection that holds a magical potency’ . It is Colle alone who can lift the Moolaade, thereby lifting the protection and allowing the group to 'purify' the girls. In the scene, where Colle ties up a thread outside the home as a symbol of the boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed over (by the children, who were to purified), the Salindana and other women in the community respected the symbolic thread of protection and refused to cross by to the other side. However, the male members of the community stepped the symbolic boundaries, without any inhibition , but certainly the exhibition of lack of respect. This movie certainly, reflects on the Thanatonic instinct of aggression as explained by Freud ( Psychoanalysis), where destroying the sexuality of the women and devioding them of achieving sexual pleasure reflects on the destructive side of the male psyche that emerges from the unresolved Oedipal complex and his anger towards women(while trying to identify with the male fatherly figure).
As I watched the film, I was reminded of the concept of “self abasement" by Spivak (social-cultural theory) i.e. the degree to which the society have assimilated the regressive devaluation of woman and their sexuality , which further have had a direct role is shaping of the woman's selfhood. This can be viewed throughout the movie. In the scene, where the men are seen discussing, how they would never let their son get married to a ‘non-purified’ girl or they themselves have and never, shall indulge in an intimate (physical and emotional) relationship with women who has not be subjected to excision. The idea that the women would be corrupted if she is liberated sexually is evident throughout the movie. The genital excision has its own physical trauma, for example, pain while urinating, infections, giving child birth etc. The indulgence in sexual intercourse is also reduced to a painful experience rather than a pleasurable one. The idea of ‘controlling’ the sexuality of the women via her body is prominent as well. In the scene, where Colle and her husband is engaging in sexual intercourse, the camera takes its own time to focus on Colle biting her finger in silence , that further leads to severe bleeding. The biting of the finger (in silence ) is symbolic of the silenced voice around the sexuality of the women and how this silence is weighted with patriarchal power (as Colle’s husband, who is uninterested in her pain, slides over and sleeps after ejaculating).

•The role of African men in denying progression and modernity, in the post colonial society in Africa.

This section is reflective of the classic case of collective unresolved Oedipal complex within men. As a child turns to age 5-7 , he develops unconscious sexual attraction towards his mother. He starts to view his father as a competition but fears his strength at the same time. He fears that his father will castrate him by cutting his private parts . Hence, to avoid the castration fear and anxiety he starts to identify with his father and dissociate with his mother. When this feeling is resolved, children gets fixated at this psychosexual stage if development and develops immense anger towards a female figure in general. The feeling is highly repressed (another form of defence mechanism) and has its outlet in supporting demeaning social practices against women and their sexuality. One of the example is female genital mutilation. The director is portraying how the patriarchal ideologies of the African men, in the post colonial era, has stagnated the progression of Africa and that women are the potent force in bringing the change. This is clearly visible throughout the film. In the scene, on the ban on the radio and television, Ibrahima argues the same, “We cannot cut ourselves off from the progress of the world.”The film ends with the display of resistance by the women community, specifically Colle, who was subjected to violence by her husband, while the villagers screamed, “Tame her, break her”. The triumph over the conquest and taking back the agency of her body and sexuality, is symbolic of the potent force of the African women community, which should be established for a progressive African continent.It was liberating , for me a woman to watch the virtual emancipation of the African women in the chromatographic colours of the film (virtual, yet not so virtual).

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