Response from Saudi citizens and government?

@bklea

I think you've confused my post. I don't run a film club; it was the poster I quoted who runs the film club and knew of a Saudi guy who had seen and hated it. In fact I agree with you that members of the group should be involved in choice of film to watch. I think the poster, who runs the club, making a decision not to show the film, because s/he thinks it might be disliked, is wrong.

I hope you enjoy the film. It's a fascinating country that's for sure.

I give my respect to those who have earned it; to everyone else, I'm civil.

I've seen the film and I've lived in Saudi Arabia, it's much worse than you might imagine, the society is extremely masculine, not to mention the insane Wahabist ideology, a boy is raised over there being taught that a woman is merely an object for sexual desires and breeding, the female is only seen in a sexual scope that's why she must be covered up head to toe, and must follow the will of her father and brothers, even younger brothers, they control her and get to lawfully beat her, and then once she's married she must fully obey her husband and do whatever he pleases, and when her husband decides to take a second wife, she gets no say in it, and even sometimes the husband forces her to look for his new bride herself.

There was a scene in the film where Wadjda's little male friend takes her to the Indian driver's home, he kicks his door and the man is scared of him, while we see him being extremely rude and disrespectful to Wadjda and her mother before, it's there to show the contrast between the power of a male and a female in the Saudi society.

Now why would a male hate the film? because Saudi culture is totally against any form of female empowerment, they wouldn't sympathize with a woman or a girl, they would watch the movie and the look at you and say, so what? you have a different reality and different morality and emotional system, a Saudi boy would KILL his sister if she had an extramarrital affair, and he wouldn't see anything wrong with it. For god's sake man, women are not allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia!

The Royal family is HUUGE!

Alwaleed bin Talaal is not part of a branch that has an impending chance at succession.

Also - Bin Talaal is also one of the richest people in the world. I believe he has a private airplane with a good portion of the inside laid entirely in gold. A lot of his wealth comes from combined oil money and his shrewd investment - in a LOT of western areas of business (there are portions of Islam that find speculating and investing such as you see in Western stock exchanges to be sinful).

I'm saying all this because this man is VERY Westernized because he knows there's lots of money in it and he enjoys what benefits it has to offer when you have the funding for it.

That said, the world would not be the same without Talaal. I've gone to two schools that had entire divisions named after the man because, as much as he flaunts his wealth, he also donates a LOT of it, too.

Ultimately, it doesn't surprise me that Talaal could fund this film with little consequence. He is among the younger, more Westernized royals and it is to be expected. But whatever dissenting opinion he is advocating symbolically by funding the movie, it doesn't much matter because he isn't set to succeed to the throne and he is well protected by a LOT of money and the clout that comes with it. (After all, would Saudi's opinions about anything much matter on the geopolitical scale if they didn't have their shrewd business and oil czars?)