M.I.A’s Video “Bad Girls” shows Muslim women who are supposedly Saudi Arabian, doing male activities and breaking the laws by driving. This Video has been the subject of much controversy as many people feel that the video is cultural appropriation as they think that she uses the Muslim women as backdrops. However I disagree about this, for the past three years I had been living in Qatar, which borders on Saudi Arabia. Qatar was considerably more liberal that Saudi Arabia, women are allowed to drive, and go out in public without wearing an abaya (depending on the family). Where there was still considerably inequality present it was miles ahead of Saudi, where despite your religious beliefs you were forced to wear an ayaba failure could result in jail or in the case of expats deportation. Also women were banned from driving, the punishment for disobeying could be death depending on who you were, in recent years much debate has been opened on this topic due to pressure from the west, however the monarchy is reluctant to make changes.  When taking this into consideration M.I.A’s video takes on a new meaning, the phrase “live fast die young, bad girls do it well” takes on a new meaning.  These women who chose to disobey the oppressive laws of their society despite the risks, are truly bad girls, in the truest sense of the phrase. Therefore the video is political statement in favor of women’s rights all over the world, also considering her work for other aspects of humanitarian rights. It is clear that she is an artist who wish’s to use her art to make a statement about the injustices in the world. It is also important to note the oppression of women in Muslim countries is men manipulating the Quran. And that Islam itself has nothing against women. Another slightly unrelated point I would like to bring up is that wearing the abaya is not oppression being forced to wear it is however.  Many westerners view the abaya as a symbol of oppression and feel as though by forcing this women to take it off we liberate them. That however is false many Muslim women chose to wear the abaya or hijab as respect for their religion and being forced to take it off would be extremely offensive to them. Just because someone chooses to wear an ayaba, niqab, hijab or burka does not mean that that are not liberated or any less of a feminist. In conclusion M.I.A’s video is a powerful political statement, against the oppression of women in Saudi Arabia. Also if you want a analysis of the lyrics to the song rap genius has a fairly helpful one.

Is the film District Nine really as enlightened and politically scathing as it intends to be? Despite the goal of this movie which was to represent apartheid in South Africa, the representation of black people in the film is still as a whole fairly negative. To be fair the representation of almost all the humans in the film are unfavourable. Apart from of course the stereotypical white male protagonist Wikus who selflessly saves Christophers life. The only black character we see for prolonged periods of time is the Nigerian gangster Obesandjo who eats aliens and sells illegal arms. The barbaric practice of eating an alien in the hopes of consuming their powers is a barbaric notion and over exoticness the Nigerians as very unreliable, also the gangs belief in voodoo magic shows them as less advanced while MNU workers also preform experiments on the aliens in an attempt to harness their power they do it scientifically, therefore making them seem more rational. There have been outcries from the Nigerian government about the portrayal in the film which eventually lead to the film being banned by the Nigerian government. It would be wonderful if we could pass these actions off as equal treatment between white and black people saying that they are both equally evil. But unfortunately due to the negative representation of black people in mainstream media, their representation in the film is therefore perpetuating black stereotypes that they are lesser evolved, gun crazy, drug lords who are less advanced than white people, and is much more damaging towards their culture and perception around the world. So in light of this did district nine really accomplish anything in terms of getting the message of acceptance and anti-racism across? The answer is no is film is typical of Hollywood and only appears different on the surface. In this film the alien prawns are seen as more desirable and human then the black characters and in my opinion it would have been more effective to have the antagonist as a black person to counteract their representation in Hollywood, and really make a statement. In then end district nine falls short of being the barrier breaking film in pretends to be.