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028 52 1139713|bKanopy 
035    (OCoLC)908378090 
040    CaSfKAN|beng|erda|cCaSfKAN 
043    e-fr--- 
245 00 Monday's Girls. 
264  1 [San Francisco, California, USA] :|bKanopy Streaming,
       |c2015. 
300    1 online resource (1 video file, approximately 49 min.) :
       |bdigital, .flv file, sound 
336    two-dimensional moving image|btdi|2rdacontent 
337    computer|bc|2rdamedia 
338    online resource|bcr|2rdacarrier 
344    digital 
347    video file|bMPEG-4|bFlash 
500    Title from title frames. 
518    Originally produced by California Newsreel in 1993. 
520    Monday's Girls explores the conflict between modern 
       individualism and traditional communities in today's 
       Africa through the eyes of two young Waikiriki women from 
       the Niger delta. Although both come from leading families 
       in the same large island town, Florence looks at the iria 
       women's initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, 
       who has lived in the city for ten years, sees it as an 
       indignity. Ngozi Onwurah, director of such feminist 
       classics as Coffee Coloured Children and Body Beautiful, 
       herself an Anglo-Nigerian, turns a wry but sympathetic eye
       on the cross-cultural confusions. The five week long iria 
       ritual is overseen by post-menopausal women headed by the 
       redoubtable Monday Moses (hence the title.) The girls are 
       paraded bare-breasted before the entire community so their
       nipples can be examined to determine whether they are 
       still virgins. They are then confined to the "fattening 
       rooms," their legs immobilized in copper impala rings, 
       where they are pampered and fed. Finally, the girls, now 
       women, are presented to society, wearing yards of fabric 
       around their waists indicating each family's wealth - and 
       suggesting pregnancy. The film traces the girls' 
       contrasting responses to each stage of the ritual. 
       Florence, who is Monday's granddaughter, comments at the 
       end of the ceremony, "I'm not fat, but I am grown up now,"
       but even she decides to postpone marriage until she 
       completes her education. Azikiwe refuses to bare her 
       breasts and, as a result, her father is fined by the 
       outraged villagers and she is sent back to the city in 
       disgrace. She concludes: "There are some traditions people
       should forget." "Skillfully blends relationships and 
       spectacles in a film that grips and moves...A shot in the 
       arm for ethnographic television." - Time In (London) "A 
       daring look at the negotiation of multiple issues of 
       gendered identities, individual versus communal voices, 
       traditions versus modernity." - Maureen Eke, Central 
       Michigan University. Monday's Girls calls into question 
       the idea of a single, "ethnographically correct" 
       representation of tradition. Rituals are revealed as fluid,
       polysemous texts, social contracts continuously 
       renegotiated between individuals and communities. For 
       millions of Africans like Azikiwe, tradition is 
       increasingly seen as a matter of individual choice not 
       social coercion. 
538    Mode of access: World Wide Web. 
650  0 Igbo (African people)|zAfrica|zNigeria|xRites and 
       ceremonies|xMarriage rites and ceremonies . 
650  0 Women|zAfrica|zNigeria|xSocial life and customs|xPuberty 
       rites. 
655  7 Documentary films.|2lcgft 
700 1  Onwurah, Ngozi,|efilm director. 
710 2  Kanopy (Firm) 
914    kan1139713