I watched one of the most beautiful but at the same time the most horrible film I have ever seen yesterday. The film is called Desert Flower and is based on the self-biography with the same title written by Waris Dirie, and tells the story of a young girl from Somalia and how she made it through the world and became a fashion model. The story does not only tell of her days as a fashion model but how she had to travel through the desert to get away from an arranged marriage to an old man when she was only 13-14 years old. The story continues in London where she lives on the street until she meets Marilyn a women who agrees to help her and at last she tells the story of women in Somalia how they get circumsiced at a young age.

This is a film I believe can be very useful in the classroom since it deal with political and societal issues as well as human rights and women's rights. Using Desert Flower in the classroom can initiate discussions about inequlities in other cultures and how different life can be for people. This is particularly portrayed in the scene where Waris, the girl from Somalia, believes that all women in the world get circumcised and is very confused when she realies that this isn't the case. She has a hard time understanding why it has happened to her but not to other women.

Today almost all classrooms are multi-cultural and understanding other cultures makes it easier to understand the people and what they believe in. It also takes away the stereotypes we have of other cultures, which is beneficial for our multi-cultural society today.