The Cruel Cut: Social Issue Documentary - Analysis

This hard hitting documentary focuses on the use of FGM on young women in the world, which is seen as a cultural benefit for a woman if marrying a man, as she is seen as pure and more acceptable in the society within her culture. Leila Hussein who presents the show and was also a victim of FGM, confronts the taboo subject by showing the public what really happens to the young girls who go through this. With the shocking images we see and reasons which people think to do so, she goes on a quest to make this known to the world - ensuring that no other girl has to suffer this again. Although this documentary actually effected me emotionally, as a young woman, I feel the documentary lacked clarity. The first half concentrated on feeding information to people, letting them know what happens to the young girls so that they do not misunderstand. The second half of the documentary focused more on the government side of things - where the documentary took a downfall, as she contacted the MP Theresa May and was ignored when approaching her with this issue. Even with Hussein turning up to the office, she is turned away, where then practically the documentary ends with no resolution. Of course, I feel there is no resolution without demand - as a staggering 100,000 petition signatures would be needed for this issue to be brought into the House of Commons. I feel that this documentary has a very good use - to inform people about FGM and the effects we have seen it has had on the women throughout the documentary, but despite this I felt that the documentary lacked hope for the FGM victims and the possible future victims. The lack of persistence that Leila showed was quite off putting, as she basically ended the documentary with telling us to sign the petition.

As The Cruel Cut documentary focuses on a very sensitive subject that effects many women, this is typical of a expository documentary. Documentaries of this type usually focus on a particular subject that effects more than one person, which we delve into and find more information about, whilst also learning of the effect on individuals through interviews which victims of in this case, FGM. One of the biggest conventions used in this documentary the way in which we are fed information - which is through the victims expressing themselves and telling their stories. I feel this has a major effect on the documentary as a whole, as we see just a sample of the women who go through this terrible surgery and how much it effects their life, which made everyone in the room quite emotional when watching - especially when one of the victims expressed that the mutilation had stopped her from being able to have children, which as a woman I would feel extremely angry and sad about. Another convention is actually using a victim of FGM to present the documentary. This gives the audience and the people she talks to throughout the documentary, such as the young men who were clueless about FGM and formed their opinions based on incorrect information they had been told by family members, as she was able to show them what FGM entailed and how much it would effect a woman, especially if that woman was to be their future wife or their child, which shed a light to the young men and also the audience watching the documentary, due to her showing what is done to the vagina during FGM by using play-doh and using large scissors to show what pieces of the female genitals are removed during this process.

When looking at the techniques used to maintain the audiences attention, I noticed the part when she went into the public and asked people to sign a form against her personal beliefs in-particular. I feel she did this to show us how many people are ignorant about FGM, especially when informing them about it in a light-hearted fashion in which she did, as they signed it straight away with only one person rejecting her plead to keep FGM going. Although I felt this showed us how many people do not know the full extent to which FGM goes, I find it hard to understand how she could do it with such ease when she herself was a victim of FGM and it finds it difficult to talk about - whether she feels this would help shine a light on the situation within cultures, I feel it would be difficult for anyone to lie to people about their true feelings about something so serious which effects her life in such a major way. Saying this, it was a good way of enticing the audience to carry on with the documentary as it showed a contrast in opinion as she was going against something she believed in strongly for the sake of a documentary, which I feel pulled the audience in once again. Another technique to engage the audience with the documentary was the way in which she involved politics to show the movement of FGM and she was doing to make people release what a massive importance it was that people knew what was happening illegally within the UK. She did this by contacting the female MP Theresa May, who failed to reply to Leila, which then led us into the petition stage of the documentary - in which Leila involved the audience in and said that we as an audience could make an audience by signing the petition needing 100,00 signatures. The effect this would have on keeping the audience interested is that by including the audience, or giving them hope to believe that they as a person can make a change to FGM.

The purpose of this documentary as it focuses on a social issues - FGM, is to inform and make a change to what females go through such as her self and what can be done to stop it. The change it is campaigning is for the government to lock down on illegal acts of FGM, as although illegal within the UK, it is still a huge issue and young girls are taken out of the country just for this reason. I feel the other reason for this documentary is for the issue to be more known within the public, as although I knew what FGM was, I did not know it was as big of a issue as it was and how much damage it can have to a young girl and a woman's future. This documentary was very good at feeding important about how and what is done, who it is done to and why. I feel that a lot of the people within the UK are ignorant towards an issue such as this, as it is seen as a 'cultural' or 'religous' act, although known of the religious books say anything about FGM or mention that it makes a girl more pure if done. I feel that the public are too scared to say it is wrong, even if they think it as saying something about a religion is usually a bad thing and can start a lot of unwanted trouble. Leila Hussein has been able to inform both her own culture, such as the young Somalian boys about FGM - who originally had nothing against FGM into turning them against it whilst also informing the audience about it at the same time.

The target audience for this documentary I feel would be both men and women, from the ages of 16 and up. This is due to the importance of this documentary to both sexes, as I feel men and women should both know what FGM is especially those who know what it is and whose families believe is a good thing for the women in their families. I also feel that age wise, because of the nature of the documentary and the understanding of a younger audience, I feel 16 would be the right age to talk about this with a male or female as that is the age they generally become sexually active or know a lot more about the female anatomy than of a younger person. The graphic nature of what happens is also very difficult to talk about, especially if the audience are immature - so it would be good to have an audience who have a good understanding without taking FGM as a joke. The target audience would live mostly in the UK, I say this because I feel that FGM is more known in other places in the world such as South Asia (as this is where it happens predominately) and even though it is illegal within the UK, it still happens and people do not know about it - especially when children are taken abroad especially for it to be done, which  people should be aware of and look out for any signs of abuse such as this. Their interests would not come to an importance when looking into this documentary, other than having an interest in politics and/or being a feminist (women's rights movements etc.) - who can be male or female, as this is an abuse against women and some of the audience may feel strongly towards social issues such as this. The language of the audience will be English as the documentary is mostly in English, with some parts in Somalian with subtitles and the majority of the people within the documentary speaking in English.

By Leila Hussein's failure to get in touch with Theresa May, for whatever reason - lack of interest in matter etc. Leila basically tells the audience that the only thing that can be done is for the public to sign a petition to get the subject of FGM into the House of Commons, which makes me as an audience member feel as it is actually up to myself to shine a light on FGM and make it known to the MP's and the British Public. When watching documentaries such as this, the audience feel as though there is some hope to solving the issue, which Leila has clearly stated as the case and due to her own failure, makes us feel as though maybe we could do better/ or help Leila out. This is a way in which the audience have been targeted, as it is almost a 'feel good factor' as if the audience have already made a difference by watching the documentary in the first place.