Monday's Girls provides a uniquely nuanced look at tradition 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 initiation ceremony as an honor, while Azikiwe, who has lived for ten years in the city, sees it as an indignity. They represent sharply divergent views of the relationship between the individual and traditional society in a changing Africa. The Iria ceremony itself dates from the 13th century and has marked the passage of well-bred Waikiriki girls into womanhood. The film's real interest is the young women's response to the rituals. Florence, who is Monday's granddaughter, welcomes the ceremony as admitting her to adulthood. For her, the Iria conveys status and provides an honorable identity within the larger community. Azikiwe, sees it differently. Her parents have promised her money to return for the ritual but she has agreed to participate only in the parts she likes. When she refuses to bare her breasts in public, the whole community feels attacked; the bowler-hatted chiefs meet, her father is fined and she is flown back to the city the next day. Azikiwe, distant behind her tinted glasses, defines herself through her freedom to make individual choices not her status in the community. "There are some traditions people should forget," she concludes.
    Monday's Girls challenges the idea of a single, "ethnographically correct" representation of tradition. Rituals are revealed as fluid, polysemous texts, dynamic social contracts continuously renegotiated between individuals and communities. But for Azikiwe and millions of other young Africans, tradition is increasingly seen as coercive compared with the often illusory freedoms offered by consumer society.