Difret Movie Analysis

Analytical Thesis: Get Out is a psychological thriller that analyzes the racial issues in modern America through the use of visual rhetoric: such as film noir, symbolism and metaphors.

Women. This word creates an image- an image of a mother, a sister, a daughter. Women are of the basics part of life, they are essential not only to society, but to the human species. Therefore, women should be treated with equal importance and given the same rights regardless of gender. Society has come a long way since 1920 and giving women the right to vote. However, there a parts of the world where women are treated unequally in respect of men and are fighting for that equality- a basic human right. Women especially in the developing world struggle with unjust inequalities. Common abuses that claim women are sex trafficking and forced prostitution; gender-based violence, including honor killings and mass rape; and maternal mortality. Reportage and storytelling of these horrible abuses are combined in the nonfiction book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, where Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn argue that the oppression of women is the worst current global issue that calls for change.

The film “Juvies” really made me think about how the criminal justice system treats young children. Before watching the film, I was under the impression that children were treated fairly and with care when they commit a crime. After all, they are just kids. However, to my surprise, this was not the case. Many children have been cheated by the law because they are put through the adult system and are not given a fair trial. Meanwhile, these children are expected to make the rational decisions that an adult would make. There is biological evidence that kids do not have the ability to control impulsive behavior because their brains are underdeveloped. Thus, I believe this system is extremely unfair because children are not protected in adult prisons, which makes it very difficult for them to succeed once they are released back into the free world.

“Women aren’t the problem but the solution. The plight of girls is no more a tragedy than an opportunity” (Kristof & WuDunn, 2009, p. xviii). This quote does an excellent job of introducing the issues discussed in the book Half the Sky. In this book, Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn present us with the issue of the unjust and cruel treatment of women in today’s world. Women throughout the world are treated in unthinkably bad ways, but the majority of people are not even aware of the suffering these women face on a daily basis. According to Kristof and WuDunn (2009), “Women aged fifteen through forty-four are more likely to be maimed or die from male violence than from cancer, malaria, traffic accidents, and war combined” (p. 61). However, Kristof and WuDunn (2009) also point out that if something dramatic such as a school shooting or bombing takes place, it makes breaking news, and everyone is aware of it all at once (p. xiv). Plenty of women are being mistreated every minute of

In our culture, girls become women at the average age of 12. The right of passage is bloody underwear and feminine products that never seem to fit right. This means, as children, women are given a heavy responsibility: the ability to create a human life. While straddling childhood and adulthood, we are meant to learn how powerful that responsibility is and how to protect our bodies from experiencing it too early. Yet, in our culture, girls are sent so many different messages on how to accomplish this. The message sent loud and clear today is, “your body does not belong to you.” Through all the blood, tears, and sacrifice . . .my body belongs to my government and will be treated however middle-aged white men see fit.

“When Men are oppressed it’s a tragedy; when Women are oppressed, it’s a tradition” (Pogrebin). A tradition so universal that it has spawned a multitude of anthropological theories concerning its origin. Social anthropologist Gayle Rubin identifies “a systematic social apparatus which takes up females as raw materials and fashions domesticated women as products” and notes that “the exchange of women is a profound perception of a system in which women do not have full rights to themselves” (Rubin). This tradition represents such an ubiquitous phenomenon that the narrative women exists throughout the Western canon. Historically and in literature, the oppression of women, particularly the sexual repression, often results in symptoms viewed as

The oppression of women and girls in the developing world is this era’s most pervasive human rights violation. In the world today, being a girl means being sentenced to a life of poverty, abuse, exploitation and deprivation. Denied the most basic human rights, millions of girls and women are deprived of education, security, and most importantly, a voice. And yet, despite the cruel circumstances they endure, girls and women constantly strive to rise above their oppression. Marina Nemat, author of the memoir, Prisoner of Tehran and Meena Hasina from Nicholas D. Kristoff’s Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide are testaments of the bravery and willpower of women.

Black males have always had a negative portrayal in both society and in the media. This entire unit focused on both the portrayals of black males and females and showed how drastically they differed from the portrayal of a white male or white female. In an interview with brothers Reginald and Warrington Hudlin, Reginald stated that his hometown East St. Louis, Illinois was “the blackest city in America… It’s a fascinating place because it has a heavy profile of poverty and crime.” From Reginald’s statement, we can see there is a clear association between the presence of blacks, the poverty rate and the crime rate.

During the novel “A Thousand Splendid Suns”, which takes place in Afghanistan, the rights of women change dramatically, and at times they had no rights at all. In the extremely male dominated society women are not allowed outside without being covered, whereas in the public society women are allowed out by themselves, and uncovered. The societies in which these changes take place are very different, however in both, women are dominated by men.

The book “half the sky” opened my eyes to many women issues that occur around the world. Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn did a great job in making a series of essays and anecdotes that work together, to create two different types of arguments. Even though I enjoyed reading this book there where two stories that stood out to me. The first one is Rescuing Girls is the Easy Par, in this part the author talks about sexual enslavement in countries in Asia. Sexual enslavement is the exploitation of women and children, within national or across international borders, for the purposes of forced sex work. The author had a plan to set some girls free by going to a brothel and buying their rights. The first part of this plan was easy because all they had to do

Girls and women have made major strides since 1990, but they have not yet gained gender equity. Women are expected to bear children and remain devoted to their husbands. They are also expected to be obedient, indecisive and weak. The women are confiscated of everything belonging to them including their bodies, rights, identities and names. In the book, women’s bodies are abused , turned into prostitutes and are portrayed as sex objects throughout the book.

The plague of male dominancy and female oppression has spread throughout time and cultures like a pandemic infection, targeting women. Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy” and Janice Mirikitani’s “Suicide Note,” show the struggle and pain that oppressive forces perpetrated on women. Although, both speakers are oppressed the way they end the oppression and the cause of it are very different. Patriarchy has always existed, and it affects women all over the world. For example, banned bride abductions in Central Asia have continued to occur, and the women who resist abduction, risk death, or becoming ostracized from their country (Werner 2).

“When Men are oppressed it’s a tragedy; when Women are oppressed, it’s a tradition” (Pogrebin). A tradition so universal that it has spawned a multitude of anthropological theories concerning its origin. Social anthropologist Gayle Rubin identifies “a systematic social apparatus which takes up females as raw materials and fashions domesticated women as products” and notes that “the exchange of women is a profound perception of a system in which women do not have full rights to themselves” (Rubin). This tradition represents such an ubiquitous phenomenon that the narrative of the oppressed woman exists throughout the Western canon. Historically and in literature, the widespread sexual repression of women often resulted in symptoms viewed as hysterical,

Get Out (2017) is a Hollywood film in the Horror genre (Jarvis 2018, p. 98; Lally 2017, p. 60; McDonagh 2017) set in the United States of America in the present day (Henry 2017, p. 334). The film was written, produced, and directed by Jordan Peele (Jarvis 2018, p. 102) and it is his first feature film (Lally 2017, p. 60), which won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 2018). Jarvis (2018, pp. 102-103) contents that the film's narrative encapsulates the film's title by utilising ‘...subtext and paranoia…’; while Henry (2017, p. 333) asserts that the film effectively depicts ‘...the racial tensions, anxieties, and animus that has long beset the United States…’.

Throughout time, issues with equality have denied groups some of the most basic human rights. A common example of this is the right to one’s own body. The statement that people have the rights his/her own body is broad and rightfully so. It encompasses matters ranging clothing they want to wear, who they have sex with, and even what gender they want to be. In the film Difret, the ideas of gender equality, rape culture, and the right to one’s own body are highly prevalent. Addressed through the use of a documentary about marriage by abduction, rape, and a fight to regain freedom twice - once from the captors and then from the legal systems - these ideas present the viewer with one story about Ethiopian culture.