Today in class there was a complaint that though the film, Pray the Devil Back to Hell was a great film, what was the connection between watching a film and writing an essay about literature or art?
Good question.
Some students are struggling with MLA and citations because they don't have materials in their possession and others are just rusty. In any event, no assignment is a throw away assignment. To make a film one has to be able to write and in a critique we look at themes, thesis or plot, character, etc., many of the same elements we have been looking at for fiction and plays, not to mention the social/political psychological aspect of the tale.
The theme is: Women and War. What makes one's writing compelling and interesting is what one brings, as in experiences, to the topic. The film I showed you is a awardwinning film that expands the story in Ruined. It is also topical, as in Liberia there is an election now.
If anyone finds the information about Layman Gbowee's book tour, please post it.
We spent a moment developing a potential opening sentence in a short response to Ritcker's film. We stated that it is about a peace movement started by a woman, Gbowee which is remarkable in that it united women cross culturally and cross other ethnic, religious and economic lines.
We started to draw parallels between Laymah and Mama Nadi looking at how sex is used as a tool to stop war and establish peace, even if their motivations are viewed similarly by all.
Safety for the women and their families, safety for the patrons in the brothel--safety for the nation are places where the two stories also overlap.
Not many students saw altruism as a characteristic of Mama Nadi, except Nick who mentioned Mama Nadi's agreement to let Sophie stay. Other student countered this with Mama Nadi's dependence on Christian for girls and goods and how she needed to continue to cultivate his favor.
Ruined
Ruined is also topical as next week is Congo Week.
We read up to Scene 5 and a part of Scene 6. We will finish the play on Tuesday and talk a bit about poetry. Students should also bring in their books they are reading, the point of reading a play aloud was to give students an opportunity to read their book.
8 comments:
Adetona Adewale
Professor Sabir
English 1B
16 October 2011 Film Response
The film, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” addresses the problems of woman suffrage, war, and peace. This reality centered film has many of the same elements that the play “Ruined” does because they both take place in Sub Saharan Africa and they both have to do with war and people trying to find peace. Some notable characters in the film and the playwright were Leymah Gbowee and Sophie and Mama Nadi because they all strived for peace in different ways.
Leymah Gbowee single handedly led the Woman of Liberia Mass Action for Peace movement which she started in Liberia as well. Leymah began protesting with her many supports outside of the Presidential Palace in Monrovia the capital of Liberia. Leymah brought Muslim and Christian woman together to protest against war in Liberia. The protest she led was entirely nonviolent and centered on unity. Because the peace movement was about bringing peace this reminds me of Mama Nadi’s brothel and although it was a whore house many of the woman found a sense of solace together. Her movement became so well known in West Africa that they were able to go to Accra the capital of Ghana and protest the cause to many other heads of states of different African nations. She and her peace movement eventually played a big role in bringing the peace talks to a conclusion for good. In addition, to that she helped get Ellen Johnson Sirleaf the first African female elected as president to happen in Liberia.
During the peace movement in Liberia the woman used sex as a tactic to persuade the men to stop warring, but it ultimately took the exile of their former president Charles Taylor to end the war. Moreover, she and her followers wanted the war to end because they wanted their sons to come home and they wanted fairness so that they could survive. They ended up putting off the peace movement for the time being, but vowed to pick up right where they left off if things became bad again.
Works Cited
Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. .
Ruined. By Lynn Nottage. 16 Oct. 2011. Performance.
Wikipedia. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. .
Alexander Jung
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 201B 9:00-10:50 T/Th
17 October 2011
Free write on Women and War
The film Pray to Devil back to Hell shows the struggles and the peace movement that takes place in Liberia. The struggles that the people of Liberia face is the continuous war that takes place within the country due to the government troops fighting to put down rebels and the rebels trying to seek power. The two opposing groups only care about their own agenda and aren’t concern about what happens to the citizens of Liberia. Both groups even bring harm to the people. One woman states that the government and the rebel troops would rape women when they get the chance and even amputate body parts of people (Pray the Devil back to Hell). With the constant war and despair coursing through Liberia, the women of Liberia decided to take a stand against war and create a peace movement.
The women who decided to start and lead the peace movement was Leymah Roberta Gbowee. She was sick and tired of the war and problems that were occurring in Liberia and began to speak out to the public that the war should end. Gbowee especially spoke out to women who would be the crucial factor in ending the conflict in Liberia. Gbowee insisted that the men created the war and that the women should put an end to it through nonviolence defiance. The beginning of Gbowee’s peace movement started out as a protest on the side of the road where the president of Liberia could see them. Gbowee stated that they would continue to sit there and fast as long as necessary (Pray the Devil back to Hell). This was only the beginning for she was eventually able to eventually broadcast her voice across a radio station and was able to rally a huge majority of the women of Liberia to take part in the movement. Gbowee’s voice was able to touch the hearts of many, even outside of Liberia that eventually it lead to a peace conference to indict the president of Liberia to step down from power and also convince the government and the rebels to stop fighting. Once the peace conference took place, Gbowee took control of the peace conference by having the women control the peace conference building. She stated that they would keep doing this until the peace conference made progress (Pray the Devil back to Hell). This eventually led to the peace conference achieving its goal of establishing peace in Liberia. This success was followed up by a female elected president of Liberia.
The action that took place in Liberia can connect to the play Ruined that we are reading in class. The conflict that takes place in the Congo is between the government and the rebels. Both sides are fighting for their own purposes and don’t really pay too much mind to the public. From a certain point of view Mama Nadi, the owner of the brothel in the play, can be compared to Gbowee. Both are people who want what is best for the people in their care and are strong outspoken women. Both have great influence and are very tactful in what they do. Through their actions and speech, we can see the strength that these women have.
Works Cited
Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Web. 16 Oct. 2011. .
Ruined. By Lynn Nottage. 16 Oct. 2011. Performance.
Jacob Stabler
Professor Sabir
English 1B
17 October 2011
Freewrite “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”
I thought this film was really awesome. It was interesting to see these women bridge religious and cultural gaps to achieve a common goal. Peace is something that we all want and it’s something that we as Americans take for granted. We don’t see wars on the front lines and the media is good at downplaying the two wars we are currently engaged in. If our country was being ripped apart by an evil dictator, it would likely be a different story. But since our wars are being fought in countries that most Americans can’t find on a map, we remain willfully ignorant to the war machine that keep turning and making profits at the expense of the taxpayers.
Charles Taylor rose to power from a rebel guerrilla fighter to the president of Liberia. While in power, he and his rebel forces were responsible for some of the most unspeakable acts of human nature. Pare, murder and torture were very common. Leymah Gbowee was able to organize a mass peaceful protest movement to stop the violence. Her work, along with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the new and first woman to be the president of an African country, was able to force Taylor’s resignation. They were awarded the Nobel Peace prize for the non-violent movement.
Again, I thought this film was really great. It’s really inspiring to see people stand in unity and fight for a common goal, whether it’s the Occupy Wall Street movement, a protest against budget cuts to education or women organizing sit-ins in war torn Liberia. We all have something worth fighting for.
Tia Gangopadhyay
Professor Wanda Sabir
English 1B 9-10:50 AM
17 October 2011
A Reflection on Women and War
The film, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” directed by Gini Reticker, depicts the story of a peace movement begun by Liberian women of both Catholic and Muslim faith. By staging silent protests, the Liberian women, led by Laymah Gbowee, pioneered the country’s Civil War peace resolution. Simply through their courage and strength were the women of Liberia finally able to bring about change and end their country’s violence. The meager means of these women and their perseverance in face of overwhelming challenges is “inspiring, uplifting and most of all motivating” (Pray the Devil Back to Hell). A parallel to the experiences that the Liberian women face is the experiences the women face in Lynn Nottage’s play “Ruined.”
The women in Mama Nadi’s brothel in “Ruined,” are forced into submission because of their circumstances—circumstances over which they have no control and little say. The women: Salima, Josephine, and Sophie, are products of violence and corruption. The women in both the play and in Liberia use sex as a tool for change. Mama Nadi and her “girls” use sex to pacify the men and keep a neutral business during the conflict between the government and the rebels. The women of Liberia refuse sex to their husbands until they take a stand against the violence corrupting their country, proving that “grassroots activism can alter the history of nations” (Pray the Devil Back to Hell). In this way both the women of Liberia and the women of the brothel in “Ruined,” use sex as a mechanism to stop the violence and establish peace.
The leader of the Liberian women, Laymah Gbowee, has certain similarities to Mama Nadi. Both women are strong, assertive women who know what they want and are not afraid to take the actions necessary to achieve their goals. Mama Nadi’s primary goal is to run a business that is neutral and peaceful while protecting the women of her brothel and the patrons that visit. Mama Nadi does not hesitate to tell rude, trouble-making rebels who visit her brothel, the way her business is run. She asserts her own rules and standards at the brothel such as telling rebel soldiers: “You want to talk to her. Behave, and let me see your money” (Nottage 15). Similarly, Laymah asserts the rights of the citizens of Liberia by staging a silent protest outside the Presidential Palace, refusing to move until some sort of peace agreement is determined. Her main intent is also to create a safe country for her fellow women and all citizens of Liberia. Both Mama Nadi and Laymah create a safe place for women who have been traumatized and abused. The women of Liberia and the female characters in Nottage’s play, “Ruined,” create a parallel for women in war.
Works Cited
Nottage, Lynn. “Ruined.” Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2010. Print.
Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Web. 16 October 2011.
Nick Malecek
Professor Sabir
English 1B 9:00-10:50am T/Th
15 October 2011
Women and War
Women have been called “War’s overlooked victims”, and for good reason. For all the glorification of war we see in history books and stories, we rarely, if ever, hear about the extensive collateral damage in depth. These losses are treated as merely a footnote in the course of human transgressions. The effect war has on women is a substantial, yet largely ignored issue.
The fates of women in war-torn circumstances have been the subject of a spate of recent activity on the world stage. The 2011 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to three women “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work” (The Nobel Peace Prize 2011.) just earlier this month. One of these women is Leymah Gbowee, a Liberian who helped lead a large women’s pro-peace movement during Liberia’s tumultuous second civil war. During this war, women were frequently raped, mutilated, and killed by the fighters on all sides. A report conducted by UNIFEM outlines the heinous acts that women in the general region of West Africa have been subjected to in the immediate past:
[We were not prepared] for the horrors women described. Wombs punctured with guns. Women raped and tortured in front of their husbands and children. Rifles forced into vaginas. Pregnant women beaten to induce miscarriages. Foetuses ripped from wombs. Women kidnapped, blindfolded and beaten on their way to work of school. We saw the scars, the pain and the humiliation. We heard accounts of gang rapes, rape camps and mutilation. Of murder and sexual slavery. We saw the scars of brutality so extreme that survival seemed for some a worse fate than death. (Rehn, page 9)
These words speak for themselves in showing how serious this topic is. Every day women are tortured in the most unthinkable ways possible, and the world consistently marginalizes their pain.
Although the UNIFEM report attributes these occurrences over Africa in general, the depictions of women being tortured is spot-on to the circumstances portrayed in Ruined and Pray the Devil Back to Hell. The cases of rape and mutilation are almost verbatim to these descriptions. Yet in all three examples, it is noted that these women express a profound appreciation for life and find reasons to celebrate and smile in spite of their tremendous suffering. This is a testament to the strength of these women and their will to carry on. I found this unwavering optimism inspiring in its absolute sincerity.
I believe the recent focus on the suffering of women around the world will bring much needed attention to the issue and help facilitate the change that these women such as Leymah Gbowee started. Whether or not this will be true, this is an issue we all should seriously consider if we would like to create a better world.
Works Cited
Pray the Devil Back to Hell. Dir. Gini Reticker. Prod. Abigail E. Disney. Perf. Leymah Gbowee, Etweda Cooper, Vaiba Flomo, Asatu Bah Kenneth, Etty Weah, Janet Johnson Bryant. Fork Films, 2008. DVD.
Rehn, Elisabeth, and Ellen J. Sirleaf. "Women, War, and Peace: The Independent Experts' Assessment on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Women and Women's Role in Peace-building." Complutense University of Madrid. UNIFEM, 2002. Web. 14 Oct. 2011. .
“The Nobel Peace Prize 2011." Nobelprize.org. Web. 18 Oct. 2011. .
“War's overlooked victims." Economist 398.8716 (2011): 63-65. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 15 Oct. 2011.
Great responses everyone. I like the currency you bring to the topic Nick, your comparison of the two characters Tia.
Ade, I like your introduction of peace as a goal or by-product of Mama Nadi's brothel. All she wants is peace.
Jay your connection of the themes to the current Occupy American movement and Alex, your reflection on the events that lead to peace in Liberia and the tenuous parallel in Ruined, are both wonderful as well.
Jacqueline Diulio
Professor Sabir
English 1B
15 October 2011
Women War & Peace
In a series of episodes featured on the PBS called the “Women, War & Peace,” is about the women who were viciously raped and enslaved during the war in Bosnia. These women were forced out of their homes and were taken from their families against their will and required to stay in brothels to be beaten, raped, and sold. These rapes were used in “ethnic cleansing” of the Muslims from Serbs. In the city of Foca, Muslim men and women were marched into a field to be separated by sex (Chaudry PBS website). The women were forced into hotels, sports halls, and schools where they would be raped continuously and kept as slaves; whereas the men were lined up to be shot and killed.
A witness and survivor recalls being raped by her neighbor whom she had practically raised, and watched while he shot her father-in-law, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law. She managed to fight back and escape and hide in a nearby pumpkin patch where she then watched her once neighbor, burn down her home (Hogan. Film). These testimonies were the first of hate crimes against humanity heard in court by women. These women were strong enough to get up and fight back against those who had done wrong onto them, not only to fight back for justice but to show these war criminals that the women are stronger by fighting back without the use of violence and rape. The prosecutors of the trial helped not only to justify what had been done to these women but to also set an example to all others, that they too will be put on the stand in court if they are to treat women and children with such discontent in any ethnicity.
This series of films are very similar to the play “ruined” by Lynn Nottage. The play takes place in a brothel in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where the main characters of the play are women who were taken from their homes against their will from men like general Ratko Mladic, a Serb wartime general. Sophie, the main character of the play was taken from her village and was raped continuously by so many different men that she is now unwanted to all other men from her village. Sophie has no where else to go but the brothel where she is treated better then she would be if she were to return to her village as a “ruined” women (Nottage).
All of these stories are related to women and their fight to carry on during the most horrific consequences of war. Although it is impossible to find and prosecute every war crime done onto women, it is beneficial to start with one case at a time, serving justice to one criminal at a time. These women were strong enough to stand up and fight with their voices instead of guns and knives; they should be recognized as heroes instead of being humiliated for crimes they could not prevent.
Works Cited
Pamela Hogan. “I Came to Testify.” PBS WNET. Foca, Bosnia, 11 October 2011. Film.
Nina Chaudry. “Women War & Peace.” PBS WNET. New York, New York. 2011. Web.
Nottage, Lynn. “Ruined.” Dramatists Play Service Inc., 2010. Print.
Arjmand Khan
Professor Sabir
English 1B
26 October 2011
Comparison between The Film and The Play
The film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell” is very similar to the play we read, “Ruined.” They are similar because in both the movie and the play, the women are victims of war and are terrorized by men, especially soldiers. In these desperate times, the women look up to someone and feel secure under their care. In “Ruined,” Mama Nadi gives the women the security and a place to unite while in the film “Pray the Devil Back to Hell,” Leymah Gbowee plays a similar role.
During the war, women in both stories feel suppressed and used by their men. However, in the film, the women lead a protest under Leymah Gbowee. Like Mama Nadi, she does not discriminate against women from different backgrounds or the state they are in. Mama has shown to not prefer “ruined” girls but deep down, she does accept them. Unlike Leymah, Mama Nadi does not protest but quietly helps the girls grow strong.
Even though Mama Nadi and Leymah both played the roles of heroes in the lives of the women they met, they played their roles differently. Leymah united all women and fought for them against many obstacles that they faced. Mama Nadi did not fight on a bigger scale but she did show concern and shielded the girls when they were about to be taken advantage by men visiting her brothel. She shielded the girls from the cruelty that they would otherwise face if they were not living in brothel. In both scenarios, women under Leymah and Mama Nadi were able to unite and grow strong.
I personally liked the movie. It was deep, emotional, and helped me realized how strong the women decided to be against the odds. It also enlightened me about the many aspects of war and the power of uniting together to create a huge difference and to change the situation.
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