Wadja essay

Saudi Arabian director Haifaa al-Mansour (right) and actress Waad Mohammed pose with a bicycle on the red carpet during the premiere of Wadjda during the 69th Venice Film Festival in 2012. Photograph: Max Rossi/Reuters

Wadjda desiring a bike has great meaning, in that a girl owning a bike is not culturally acceptable. Thus she, at an early age is going against the grain of what society tells a Saudi girl she is supposed to do and be. What is brought through clearly and simply is that the oppressive culture against women in Saudi Arabia creates two things.

But Wadjda, and the conversations around it, seem to be part of a wider debate over feminism, women's rights and the Muslim world – and it has several layers. One concern is that the Saudi example is all too often held up as some cookie-cutter of practices in the Middle East – when it obviously is not.

However, the women in Wadjda – and the titular hero especially – are not depicted as wholly passive victims, but rather come across as striving, enterprising and possessing some agency within the constraints imposed upon them.