For this project, I have chosen to investigate Ousmane Sembene's 1975 film Xala. The film raises a multitude of issues pertaining to post-colonial African government and culture. Sembene largely criticizes the incompetence of the new governments, using the sexual impotence of the film's main character as a metaphor. For the research portion of the project, I sought to answer the following closely-related questions: How have post-colonial African peoples navigated the dichotomy between tradition and modernity in the realms of gender, sex and womens rights? Is it even beneficial to think about this subject as a dichotomy? Not all of my sources pertain directly to this, but the majority lean heavily in that direction of thought.

Mushengyezi, Aaron. "Reimaging Gender and African Tradition? Ousmane Sembene's Xala revisited." Africa Today 51, Number 1 (Fall 2004): 47-62.

Aaron Mushengyezi’s Reimaging Gender and African Tradition? Ousmane Sembène’s Xala revisited is written in direct response to Ousamane Sembène’s film Xala. The article challenges Sembène’s polarization of Western and African influences in post-colonial Africa, setting out to raise questions about the director’s vision for the country. The author argues that Sembène romanticizes and idealizes as he reimages Africa for foreign audiences, demonizing Western modernity and idolizing the “purity” of African tradition. It critique’s Sembène’s views of gender, his reimaging Africa and the symbolism of the Xala in an attempt to uncover the director’s worldview.

The article questions whether Sembène includes gender in his list of polarized worldviews, as he depicts males as incompetent, greedy and weak, and females as redemptive, wise and more “masculine” in spirit than their physiological counterparts. Although each of the female characters is comparatively strong, they individually represent different point on the continuum between African traditionalism and Western modernism. The author gives special attention to Rama, Sembène’s idealized heroine - educated yet untouched by Western corruption, speaking her mind, both true to her African heritage and disapproving of her father’s polygamy. The author, however, cites Rama as the primary example of Sembène’s idealism. He argues that such a person does not exist in Africa. The author questions Sembène’s criticism of the paternal system of family and government, hoping to determine what he would suggest in its stead.

The article does admit that Xala raises important questions as to whether Western modernity is solely to blame for the impotence of post-colonial African government. At its conclusion, it explores the paradoxical metaphor of the xala as both a curse and a redemptive force in cleansing El Hadji, the main character, of his Western and African fetishes.