Tag: Iran

Motherhood and Monsters in ‘Under The Shadow’

With regular bombings being an everyday part of their lives, and a warhead landing in the apartment above them, the two of them live under the “shadow of war” in a very real sense. … The jinn, and the hauntings, also serve as a metaphor for Shideh’s own insecurities about motherhood.

Under the Shadow

This guest post written by Becky Kukla appears as part of our theme week on Women in Horror.

Set in the midst of the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, Under the Shadow focuses on the lives of Shideh (Narges Rashidi) and her young daughter Dorsa (Avin Manshadi) living in in a small apartment in the middle of Tehran. Early on, Shideh’s husband, Iraj (Bobby Naderi), is conscripted to the frontline of the fighting, leaving Shideh and Dorsa alone. As the bombing becomes worse, and their own apartment building is struck, both of them begin to experience ghostly apparitions within the apartments, categorized by their neighbors, and by Dorsa, as jinn.

The title, Under the Shadow, refers to both the literal shadow of war that Shideh and Dora live underneath on a daily basis and the ghostly souls which begin to haunt them. With regular bombings being an everyday part of their lives, and a warhead landing in the apartment above them, the two of them live under the “shadow of war” in a very real sense. The spiritual shadows known as jinn — supernatural creatures that exist in Arab folklore and Islamic mythology and theology — lurk in doorways and in the corners of rooms, never existing as more than a ghostly figure in the corner of one’s eye. These shadows descend on Shideh and Dorsa, aggressively destroying their lives.

The jinn in Under the Shadow have a basis in myth and legend. Like ghouls and ghosts, they are fantasy figures that may or may not exist. For most of the film it’s hard to know whether the jinn are really haunting Dorsa and Shideh or whether they are manifestations of their fear concerning their current situation. Dorsa, after being told about the jinn by a young neighbor, claims that they are in the apartment several days before Shideh begins to have any experiences with them. This could be Dorsa’s grief at her father leaving and her fears about being killed — as a child she has even less control of the situation than her mother does. When Dorsa loses her beloved doll, she explains to Shideh that the spirits have taken it. Again, this could easily be attributed to Dorsa’s fear of abandonment and death.

Under the Shadow

Under the Shadow straddles a very thin line between fantasy and reality. Writer-director Babak Anvari never explicitly reveals whether the haunting of Shideh and Dorsa is real or imagined, which means that the audience is kept in confusing uncertainty as well. Anvari based his debut film on his personal experiences as a child living in Iran during the war, as well as his own childhood fears about “the ancient myth.” Contextualizing the mayhem that Dorsa and Shideh are going through (they are living in a literal war zone) helps the audience to rationalize their heightened states of fear. On the other hand, some of the events that take place cannot be explained away logically, and we (like Dorsa and Shideh) are forced to confront the terrifying thought that not only has their city been invaded, but their home may be too.

The jinn, and the hauntings, also serve as a metaphor for Shideh’s own insecurities about motherhood. In the first scene of Under the Shadow, Shideh is at university in Tehran to find out whether she will be able to return to finish her medical studies. It is revealed that she was part of the Iranian Revolution before the war, and because of her liberal attitudes, the university will not permit her to come back and graduate. She leaves, deflated and angry. Later, in the film Shideh and Iraj have a heated conversation about why Shideh wants to return to her studies, and why she cannot be satisfied with looking after her daughter. Though Dorsa and Shideh get on well for most of the film, there are moments of tension between the two. The film’s themes of motherhood, hauntings, and trauma drew comparisons to The Babadook. Shideh, as someone who used to want to be a doctor and was actively involved in the revolution, is now trapped inside her apartment building. It’s a huge shift for her, and though she doesn’t blame the birth of Dorsa outright, there seems to be some resentment there. This resentment is only worsened when Iraj leaves — he is a doctor and his skills are needed. His departure partly serves as a reminder to Shideh that she is not qualified and due to the changing role of women in Iranian society post-revolution, she may only hold the title of “mother” for the rest of her life.

Under the Shadow

Shideh is also living at a cultural crossroads. In her apartment, she exercises to Jane Fonda workout tapes, wears Western clothing, and allows her daughter to watch videos. Outside, she must dress conservatively, predominantly in a chador. At one point she reminds Dorsa not to tell the neighbors that they own a video player, as they are banned. Her life is lived in secrecy, under a different type of shadow. These inner conflicts (mother/doctor, traditional/modern) all contribute to Shideh’s frustration and assist in her slow descent into the depths of fear in her current situation.

Ultimately, Shideh feels incapable of doing what it is widely believed that mothers are supposed to do: protect their children. She is unable to protect Dorsa from the war raging in their country just as she is unable to protect her from the spirits raging in their apartment. During the height of their haunting, Shideh receives a phone call from Iraj, who begins to berate her for being a bad mother, telling her that he knew she wouldn’t be able to protect their daughter. Of course, the phone call is attributed to the jinn playing games with Shideh, but they deliberately tap into Shideh’s biggest insecurity.

Real horror is difficult to convey in film; it needs the audience to truly identify with the main characters, to feel their fear as though it is their own. Under the Shadow is a film which bleeds horror from every frame. Not only does it have a strong narrative with an excellent cast, Under the Shadow succeeds in transforming our own self-doubt into horrifying experiences. We identify with Shideh as someone who is struggling, frustrated, and fearful for the future. Whether Shideh’s fears have manifested themselves as a haunted house of horror, or whether the jinn really do exist, is almost irrelevant by the end. All we want is for Shideh and Dorsa to be safe — from both the war and the jinn. 

Becky Kukla works in factual TV by day, and by night she writes about representation in film and television, and rants about politics on twitter. You can find her at Femphile or at Film Inquiry.

‘Starless Dreams’ Offers an Intimate Look at Iran Through Its Juvenile Detention Centers

In ‘Starless Dreams,’ we learn about the lives of teenage girls inside Iran’s juvenile detention centers, but we also learn how director Mehrdad Oskouei attempts to change hearts and minds in his own country. It’s an attempt that’s packaged for his fellow citizens rather than foreigners and, watching the film as an outsider is a complicated, multilayered experience.

Starless Dreams

Written by Katherine Murray. | Starless Dreams is screening at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival.

You can learn a lot about a culture by listening to the way its inhabitants discuss their disagreements – what they do and don’t say; how they couch their arguments; which topics are tacitly understood to be out of bounds. In Starless Dreams, we learn about the lives of teenage girls inside Iran’s juvenile detention centers, but we also learn how director Mehrdad Oskouei attempts to change hearts and minds in his own country. It’s an attempt that’s packaged for his fellow citizens rather than foreigners and, watching the film as an outsider is a complicated, multilayered experience.

The documentary, which has won multiple awards since its release, including the Amnesty International Film Prize, follows a group of girls who live in a correctional center outside Tehran. For the most part, the girls who appear in Starless Dreams could just as well be living in many other parts of the world. The stories they tell are all too familiar – they come from poor families where there faced violence and substance abuse; they got into crime through their husbands or boyfriends; they were molested, raped, or assaulted at some point; their futures look bleak and “pain drips from the walls.”

The detention center is, in some ways, an oasis from a world they don’t want to return to. Living communally in a dormitory-style room, the girls Oskouei interviews laugh, sing, and build snowmen together. They comfort each other and bond over their shared experiences, good and bad. Most are afraid to go back to their families or back to the street when they’re finally released. All of them harbor a dark, painful story about how they got to this place.

One by one, they open up to Oskouei with incredible candor, revealing that the brave face they put on masks a terrible loneliness and pain. They regret what they’ve done and what’s happened to them – what they’ve become because of what’s happened to them – and they speak to the camera as if this is the first time anyone has asked how they feel. Based on what we hear, it may very well be.

Starless Dreams

Oskouei doesn’t interview the guards or correctional workers, but we occasionally hear them speak off-camera, or see them drift across the screen. In one scene, one of the girls who’s just been released, tells a female guard that she’s afraid to go outside and see her father – afraid of what he’ll do, afraid she’ll have to run away again, afraid she’ll get back into drugs. The guard tells her, in a frustrated, exasperated tone, that she’s no longer their responsibility, even if she kills herself.

It’s not a very nice thing to say, but it’s reflective of the way prison systems work in many countries, including Canada and the United States. Prisons aren’t built to address the social, systemic factors that lead people to commit crimes in the first place – they’re just meant to punish criminals and send them on their way. The transition plan we see in Starless Dreams could be described as “putting child abuse victims back in the hands of child abusers,” since the rules require that someone from the detainee’s family come to retrieve her. One of Oskouei’s subjects initially refuses to identify herself because she doesn’t want her family to find her again – she says that she ran away because her uncle molested her and that, when she told her mother, her mother called her a liar and beat her. When she eventually relents and the guards contact her family, an off-camera voice says, “I’ll tell them they have to be nice to you,” which is the kind of intervention that doesn’t help at all.

It’s clear that most of these girls need a social worker more than they need a detention center, but that’s not what the system is equipped to provide them. I understand the guards’ frustration – they can’t be everything to everyone; it’s not their job – but there’s something heartbreaking about the way these girls hope the adults in their lives will help them, only to be disappointed each time. There’s a sense in which Oskouei, who they call “Uncle Mehrdad,” may be the only adult to take a genuine interest in their welfare. While he’s doing important work with this documentary, he also packs up his camera and departs after a few weeks, leaving us with the question of what happens after.

Starless Dreams

There’s a strange scene in the latter half of the film, where the girls are visited by an unidentified religious official. He leads them in prayer and then begins a discussion about “human rights.” We don’t see the whole discussion, but the girls ask him very politely – considering the circumstances – why it is that women have so few rights in Iran. He seems to respond by saying that we can’t do whatever we want in life and need to do what society expects of us. But the record scratch moment for me is when one of the girls, who’s been sentenced to death for killing her abusive father, asks why, if a child kills her father, the child is sentenced to death but, if a father kills his children, it isn’t even a crime.

Starless Dreams doesn’t explain or debate Sharia – or any part of Iran’s judicial system – directly. The problems faced by the girls Oskouei profiles seem – and on some levels, are – universal, but, for a foreign audience, there are occasional reminders that these universal experiences take place in a different social and political context. According to Amnesty International, Iran’s criminal justice system is a terrifying web of torture, mutilation, and execution – sometimes of minors – and women and minorities have few protections under law. Oskouei asked the government to let him make this documentary for seven years, and his stated aim is not to overthrow the judicial system, but to generate a greater feeling of compassion for the girls inside of it. This is how you couch an argument about the prison system in Iran.

One of the truths I’ve learned over the years is that you can’t change someone’s culture from the outside. You can’t do it without speaking the language – not just the literal, actual language of words and sentences and conjugations, but the tacit language; the language where you know how to talk about things within a certain political context. Mehrdad Oskouei speaks Persian better than I do, but I trust that he speaks Iran better than I do, too. Starless Dreams is a much more gentle, and gently melancholy film than I’d expect to see in this context, but maybe it’s the film we need. Maybe it’s one that will actually change the way Iranians see women and girls.

Starless Dreams is screening internationally as part of the Human Rights Watch Film Festival. If you miss the festival, this is a documentary to keep on your list in the upcoming months. It’s isn’t an easy thing to sit with, but it provides a rich entry point into some very complex questions about the state of human rights in Iran and the state of correctional systems internationally.

Katherine Murray is a Toronto-based writer who yells about movies, TV and video games on her blog.

Guest Post: ‘Women Without Men’: Gender Roles in Iran, Women’s Bodies and Subverting the Male Gaze

Guest post written by Kaly Halkawt.

The author Sharnush Parsipur wrote 1989 a novel that would become what could be called a modern classic in contemporary feminist literature. The book entitled Women Without Men is a story about how five women living in Iran during the 1950s end up in exile from the male-dominated society they live in that has in different ways deprived them their freedom. Although along their path into exile is not a simple one. They must all go through a painful metamorphosis and accept that the freedom they ask for alienates their bodies from society. All five protagonists come together in a garden which serves them as a space free from male domination.

This story has been visualized once as a video art installation consisting of five different videos by the artist Shirin Neshat. The video installation went under the name “Women Without Men” and was created from 2004-2008. The five different videos where entitled after the characters names; Mahdokht (2004), Zarin (2005), Munis (2008), Farokh Legha (2008) and Faze (2008). However the content of the entire constellation has varied based on where the installation has been exhibited.
Based on these five videos, Neshat retold the story once again but this time in a more linear narrative film. However this time she choose to exclude the story of the character Mahdokt, although one could argue that she appears in the film in form of a tree, but before we go into that I want to share my experience of the video installation that I saw at the Stockholm Culture Institute in 2009.
The video for Mahdokht was told through three different screens. Mahdokt fantasizes about planting herself like a seed in the garden and growing into a tree and literally erasing her body into the idea that manifests her spiritual character. Her desire is to through detaching her body from civilization, intellect and culture touch the freedom that seems impossible to gain with a female body in the world the way she experiences it. Mahdokt’s story can also be seen as a comment to the myth about the nymph Daphne who figured in Roman mythology. The myth of Daphne has been told in many different ways, but basically it goes something like this: The god Apollo is captivated by the beauty of Daphne. She refuses to give in for his sexual desire and as punishment the god Zeus transform Daphne into a tree.
A still image from the video Mahdokt

Mahdokt’s character can here be read as a representation of the female body and an attempt to erase the values and symbols the female body has embodied in mythology as the object. Parsipur/Neshat has rewritten the myth of the female body by making it the subject and not the object of the story. Mahdokt is the narrator of her story and she is not a victim. She actively chooses to offer her body to her ideal by becoming a tree in contrast to Daphne who is a victim who is being punished for not sacrificing her body.

Mahdokt’s action is stating that we can imprison bodies, but not ideas.
From a book to video installation and narrative film, Women Without Men is a work in motion. The adaptation for the screen that was directed by Neshat was highly praised by film critics all around the world and won the Silver Lion at the 2010 Venice Film Festival.

The film takes place in 1953 which politically is an unforgettable year in Iran’s history. The democratically chosen Prime Minister Mossadghe was overthrown by the CIA which created enormous protests. The political background story serves as a tool for creating what will be the revolution in the mind of the characters.

Shabnam Toloui (Munis)

In the first shot we see the character Munis committing suicide by jumping down from a roof, however she lives on in the story as the narrator. Later on in the film, we learn that one of the reasons for why she committed suicide was because she lived with a conservative brother who aggressively wanted her to stop following the protests by listening to the radio. He encouraged her to instead get married and “start a real life.”

The day of Munis’ suicide, we learn that her brother organized a suitable man that would come and ask for her hand in marriage. When Munis’ brother refuses to let her go out of the house, she decides to take control over the situation. By sacrificing her body for the sake of her integrity and political conviction, her death does not necessarily need to be read as a forfeit. Munis’ death leads to her freedom and becomes her politics. Its through her eyes after her death that we get to see the protests and demonstrations on the streets of Tehran.

 Pegah Feridony (Faezeh)

It is also Munis action that leads to the awakening of her friend Faezeh. From the beginning, Fazeh is portrayed as a traditional girl who wants to live a “normal life” aka get married and have children with Munis’ brother. However when she finds Munis’ dead body on the street and sees how her brother digs it down in his garden to prevent the news of her suicide spreading and leading to an official shaming of the family name, Faezeh’s world is turned upside down. She gives up the idea of marriage and men and just decides to look for her own piece of mind. Munis’ ghost serves literally as the guide and takes Faezeh to the garden and leads her into exile.

Arita Sharzad (Fakhri)

Fakhri is the eldest of the gang and arguably embodies what Second Wave feminism has criticized: upper-middle class ladies who are bored serving as some sort of poupée (doll) for their husbands. Fakhri’s journey towards change starts when she meets an old friend who reminds her of the freedom that can be the price of getting married. She remembers how she used to write poetry and hang out with people who believed in culture as a political tool for change, an opinion that makes her husband laugh. So in her own “eat-pray-love” escapade, she buys a big house in the garden and leaves her relationship so that she can put energy and time into rediscovering and recreating herself.

Jean-Auguste Dominique Ingres’ The Turkish Bath via Amiresque

The fourth character Zarin is a prostitute who decides to escape the brothel when she sees a client’s deranged face while they are having sex. Zarin never talks during the film and like Munis, she uses her body to free herself from the societal norms. Zarin is just her body, we don’t get her background history. I think one possible reading of why she is just reduced to a body in this film is a comment on the stereotypical images of women that have been created within the frames of Orientalism.

Some of the films key scenes are focused on Zarin. In one of the most visual scenes, Zarin is in a Turkish hamam (Turkish bath) and scrubbing her body until it starts bleeding. The misé-en-scene is an exact copy of Jean-Augustue Dominique Ingres’ painting The Turkish Bath (1862). This is a direct comment on the representational prevail of white upper-middle class men. This painting, among others, led to the creation of myths about women from the Middle East. Neshat literally tries to erase this myth in this particular scene.

Orsolya Toth (Zarin)

Another important scene that serves as a commentary for the male gaze is an image of Zarin floating in a river, alluding to John Everett Millais’ painting Ophelia (1852). In Millais’ painting, we see the suicide of Hamlet‘s Ophelia where she falls into the river and dies. Ophelia has been the subject of a lot of debate. How should we interpret her character? What values does she embody? This Shakespearian character is either referred to as a sick young damsel in distress or completely ignored and just seen as an object for male dominance in Hamlet. I think Neshat is trying to criticize the fact that Ophelia is almost never seen as her own character and only read in relation to Hamlet. Once again, Neshat tries to turn the female object into the subject.

Neshat uses Zarin’s body to criticize the stereotypical imagery of women in a few key scenes of the film by reproducing the exact same scenery as some historical paintings. However Neshat transforms Zarin’s body from object into subject, thus giving her the tools to go through a metamorphosis and take control over her body so that she can erase the values and ideas represented by men.

By giving each character their own voice to tell their story, Neshat questions the classical representation of women in Arab and Persian cultures. These women start off by being dominated in the patriarchy they live. Socially and politically, Munis is restricted by her brother. Intellectually, Fakhri does not have the freedom and the hope she had before she got married with an idiot (ie a man with power) and Zarin, before entering the garden, is just reduced to a sexual body used as a tool to control her position on a bigger scale since being a prostitute doesn’t always receive a lot of respect from society. But they all find their way to reinvent themselves in space free from male dominance. In case it’s not clear enough, this film is the queen of awesome films about women.

However one thing a bit fuzzy in Women Without Men is the portrayal of men. To sum it up, this is how Iranian men are characterized: men that live in Iran are uncultivated, uneducated rapists who crave control over women with no nuance of humanity in them. This contrasts with the Iranian men who have moved abroad, cultivated by the Western World and who see the value in educating women and treating them equally. But this is a post about the female characters so I won’t comment further other than to say the stereotype of men from Iran is not being questioned.

I never thought I would write an essay where I would find the female characters more well-written then the men. Deux point, Neshat.

———-
Kaly Halkawt is 24 years old and has a BA in Cinema Studies. Before starting work on her Master’s, she moved to Paris for two years, working as a Montessori Teacher and studying French at the Sorbonne. Planning a big academic comeback this semester, she is currently writing her Master’s thesis on a geneology of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope in Cinema Studies at Stockholm University.

2013 Golden Globes Week: Does ‘Argo’ Suffer from a Woman Problem and Iranian Stereotypes?


Written by Megan Kearns.

When I saw Argo in the theatre, I wasn’t really expecting to have a whole lot to say regarding gender in the film. In the majority of the trailer, all you see is men, men, brief glimpse of the women, and more men. Did Argo reaffirm my fears of making women silent and invisible?
Based on the 1979 Tehran hostage crisis, Argo depicts the true story of CIA operative Tony Mendez rescuing 6 American diplomats out of Iran. 
Argo is an incredibly well-crafted film. It’s taut, suspenseful and at times buoyantly humorous.  But style over substance weakens the film. Character development suffers. We never discover the hostages as people. Their lives, their views don’t ever really unfold.
Surprisingly, the hostages aren’t really the focus of the film. It’s Ben Affleck. Oh yeah and Alan Arkin and John Goodman, as a film director and make-up artist respectively. But we see Ben Affleck talk on the phone with his son. Ben Affleck agonize over decisions. Ben Affleck looking pensive.
While I liked the movie, I felt unease throughout. Argo depicts a white, male Eurocentric perspective. There’s no place for a complex depiction of women in this paradigm.
We’re never allowed into the lives or hear the perspectives or opinions of women. None of the women in Argo are given their own identity aside from how they relate to men. The 2 female hostages’ roles as diplomats were connected to their husbands. Because their husbands worked for the government, the women signed up for foreign service too. But that’s not why I have a problem with gender depictions in the film.
We never see hostages Cora Dijek (Clea Duvall) and Kathy Stafford (Kerry Bishe) talk to each other, aside from a group discussion with all 6 of the hostages. The women never reminisce together, never laugh, never express worry, never talk together – unless it’s with the men. Seriously, what is it with films NOT showing women talking to each other?! I’m gonna let you in a little secret, Hollywood. We women? We talk. To each other. Shocking, I know.

Nico Lang asks “where are the women in Argo” and asserts:
“I’m not saying they should create a new role for a woman or magically create a female spy (it’s not Alias, after all), but the women here deserve more than virtual silence. The film doesn’t take place at an all-boys’ school or a magical world in which all of the women have gone mute. It was the 1970’s, not Spike TV. There were women who had relationships to the story, and the film’s desire to marginalize them or cut them out completely shows how little modern Hollywood thinks of female narratives. Movies actually made in the 70’s had better roles for women than this, and the idea that Affleck gets let off the hook for sexism because he made a period piece is insulting…As a movie about movies, Argo wants to hold up a mirror to Hollywood and reflect the craziness of the industry, but in doing so, also perpetuates that industry’s rampant and systemic sexism.”
But what’s interesting is that when Affleck arrives to have the hostages take on fake identities in the film industry, as a Canadian production crew scouting for a film location in Iran, a stereotypical gender reversal occurs.
Typically in a crisis situation, it’s the woman or women who express hesitations or reservations or worries. Not here. No here it’s a dude who does. While Kathy looks (understandably) nervous and tense, the two female hostages remain calm and collected. I initially found it refreshing to see a non-stereotypical gender portrayal in such a mainstream, critically-acclaimed blockbuster. But do they remain calm because they barely have any dialogue? Hmmm, maybe this is a gender fail after all.
Beyond sexism, Eurocentrism permeates the film. At almost every turn, the Americans are placed at the forefront. That might not be such a huge problem if the hostages were actually the focus of the film.While so much was glossed over and inaccurate, I liked that Affleck at least attempted to provide a brief history of Iran. But why did every Iranian have to appear unhinged, brutal and savage breaking down the walls of the embassy? “Argo presents a country of more than 35 million in 1979 exclusively through the lens of terrorism and hostage-taking…” Argo “perpetuates the unfortunate contemporary stereotype that Iranians somehow “hate” Americans. When the hostages are driving through Tehran, surrounded by Iranians, you can feel the palpable tension, thick and constricting. Again they are seen as the frightening enemy. Iranians are lumped together as scary and barbaric.

Argo wants to show the merits of peaceful negotiations, that violent actions don’t need to be taken to resolve conflicts. So why not depict both sides – both American and Iranian – with nuance and complexity? I expected more from a supposedly progressive director and a producer (George Clooney) passionate about social justice.
“But throughout the film, the Iran we see in the news clips and the Iran we see dramatized are all on the same superficial level: incomprehensible, out-of-control hordes with nary an individual or rational thought expressed…Argo glosses over the diversity of opinion in Iran and the intellectual ferment before the theocratic lockdown, making the culture look exactly the way an insular American public has come to believe all Islamic countries look.”

Argo is a white film, directed by a white dude (albeit an awesome white dude), with mostly white actors, told from a white perspective. And I don’t necessarily have a problem with that. Except for the fact that Persians and Arabs face so much discrimination in this country. Yes, I love Homelandtoo. And I can’t wait to see Zero Dark Thirty. But do we really need yet anotherfilm or TV show perpetuating Arab and Persian stereotypes?
We know how American women are depicted. So how are Iranian women depicted in Argo?
A woman narrates the opening of the film, providing context of Iranian history. This same woman also speaks for the Iranians holding the American embassy hostages to transmit to news agencies.
The only other Iranian woman we see is Sahar (Sheila Vand), the housekeeper to Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor (Victor Garber – aka my boyfriend Jack Bristow, yes I’m obsessed with Alias) and his wife Pat Taylor (Page Jeong). Sahar eventually helps the hostages, lying to Iranian troops to protect their cover.

Interestingly, Ben Affleck told The Huffington Post’s Michael Hogan that the filmmakers changed the gender and nationality of the Taylor’s housekeeper:

“I changed it because I wanted to represent a Persian character that wasn’t a fanatic, that wasn’t railing against the United States, but that’s just somebody like all of us who’s trying to go to work and feed their family and do all the things they need to do, and who’s kind of buffeted by the political winds that are kicked up by others, particularly by others that are higher up than them.”
In his article I quoted earlier, Nico Lang doesn’t expect Affleck to create another role for women. Yet that’s precisely what he did. While I always love more female roles, sadly Affleck’s gender reversal doesn’t fix Argo’s gender (or Eurocentric) problem.
Jennifer Epps calls Sahar “the most important Iranian character in the film.” But she warns:
“But calling her the most important Iranian character is not saying much — and neither is Sahar. Over a handful of scenes she may have a grand total of 3 lines. In this case they are translated, because they are relevant to the plot. Her character, however, is defined by her attitude toward the Americans. She also may be the only kind of Iranian the movie is interested in individuating because she is separated from her society, ensconced in a Western household.”

Yes, Sahar – an Iranian woman – ultimately helps save the Americans. But her employers are suspicious and distrustful of her motives once they think Sahar has discovered their secret of harboring the American hostages. Again Iranians come off as the ominous “other,” to be feared or not trusted.

Just like the other women in Argo, Sahar’s opinions and views are erased. Her importance truly lies in how she relates to men.

Unsurprisingly, parts of Argo are fabricated and not historically accurate. After all, this is a fictionalized movie, not a documentary. But then why not make the hostages more interesting? Why not develop the female characters – show their perspectives and feelings – as people, not just mere props or sidekicks to men? Why not give women a voice?

Argo shows how far we still have to go in gender equity in film. Sure, it’s a well-made movie. But that doesn’t inoculate it from sexism or racism. Awards indicate the art, culture and opinions we value. Just like somany Golden Globes and Oscar-nominated films, Argo revolves around men. Women deserve better. We’re not just satellites orbiting dudes.

Like many Hollywood films, Argo reifies who truly matters in our society. White men.

Women in Politics Week: ‘Persepolis’

 
This piece on Persepolis, by Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on July 1, 2009.

I rented Persepolis before the recent Iranian election, and have been thinking ever since about the film.

Persepolis is adapted from the autobiographical graphic novels written by Marjane Satrapi (which I haven’t read), and represents the first graphic-novel-as-film. Other graphic novels have been made into films, but none (to my knowledge) have remained as true to form as this. Visually, the film is lovely, stark, and at times deeply disturbing.

In Persepolis, we meet Marjane, a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden.

While the film is a personal story, it does offer a concise history of modern Iran, including the U.S. involvement in the rise of Islamic law and in the Iran-Iraq war. This time in Iranian history is especially important right now, with the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ensuing protests. One scene in particular depicts a group of people protesting when a young man is shot, bleeds to death, and is hoisted over his fellow protesters’ shoulders–eerily reminiscent of what happened with Neda Agha Soltan, whose public murder has rallied the Iranian protesters and people all over the world.

The history of Iran, while it determines the course of Marjane’s life, really is a backdrop—especially in the second half of the movie. In other words, the film is more about the experience of one woman than a documentary-style account of Iranian history. Once Marjane escapes the society she grew up in, her problems become much more ordinary for a Western audience, more commonplace. She vacillates between different crowds of people. She falls in love and has her heart broken. She feels angst and confusion over who she is and what she wants. She goes home to Iran for a time and, like so many others, ultimately finds she cannot return home.

As evident in the film, Satrapi grew up in a wealthy, educated, progressive Iranian family. They sent her to Vienna as a teenager so she didn’t have to spend her adolescence in such a repressive society, and because they feared what might happen to such an outspoken young woman there. While acknowledging her privilege, not many women in circumstances other than these would be able to accomplish what she has. Satrapi isn’t afraid to show missteps she makes in growing up, either. Young Marjane learns that her femininity, even when repressed by law, offers great power—and shows how she misuses that power. Missing her mother’s lesson at the grocery store about female solidarity, she blames other women for her troubles (“Ma’am, my mother is dead. My stepmother’s so cruel. If I’m late, she’ll kill me. She’ll burn me with an iron. She’ll make my dad put me in an orphanage.”), and falsely accuses a man of looking at her in public to avoid the law coming down on her.

Persepolis is, in every definition of the term, a feminist film. There are strong, interesting female characters who sometimes make mistakes. The women, like in real life, are engaged in politics and struggle with expectations set for them and that they set for themselves. They have relationships with various people, but their lives are not defined by one romantic relationship, even though sometimes it can feel that way.

As much as I like this movie, I can’t help but write this review through the lens of an interview Satrapi gave in 2004, in which she claimed to not be a feminist and displayed ignorance of the basic concept of feminism. I simply don’t believe gender inequality can be dissolved through basic humanism — especially in oppressive patriarchal societies like Iran. I wonder if feminism represents too radical a position to non-Westerners, and if her statements were more strategy than sincerity. Making feminism an enemy or perpetuating the post-feminist rhetoric isn’t going to help anyone. That said, this is a very good movie and I highly recommend it.

A couple of good articles about women’s role in the recent Iranian protests:

The Nation: Icons of the New Iran by Barbara Crossette

Feminist Peace Network: Memo to ABC: Lipstick Revolution FAIL

——

Amber Leab is a Co-Founder and Editor of Bitch Flicks and a writer living in Asheville, North Carolina. She holds a Master’s degree in English & Comparative Literature from the University of Cincinnati and a Bachelor’s degree in English Literature & Creative Writing from Miami University. Outside of Bitch Flicks, her work has appeared in The Georgetown Review, on the blogs Shakesville, The Opinioness of the World, and I Will Not Diet, and at True Theatre.

Biopic and Documentary Week: Persepolis

This piece on Persepolis, by Amber Leab, first appeared at Bitch Flicks on July 1, 2009.


Marjane can’t hide behind ABBA
In Persepolis, we meet Marjane (Satrapi), a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden. 
While the film is a personal story, it does offer a concise history of modern Iran, including the U.S. involvement in the rise of Islamic law and in the Iran-Iraq war. This time in Iranian history is especially important right now, with the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ensuing protests. One scene in particular depicts a group of people protesting when a young man is shot, bleeds to death, and is hoisted over his fellow protesters’ shoulders–eerily reminiscent of what happened with Neda Agha Soltan, whose public murder has rallied the Iranian protesters and people all over the world. 

Movie Review: Persepolis


Persepolis. (2007) Written and directed by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud.

I rented Persepolis before the recent Iranian election, and have been thinking ever since about the film.

Persepolis is adapted from the autobiographical graphic novels written by Marjane Satrapi (which I haven’t read), and represents the first graphic-novel-as-film. Other graphic novels have been made into films, but none (to my knowledge) have remained as true to form as this. Visually, the film is lovely, stark, and at times deeply disturbing.

In Persepolis, we meet Marjane, a young girl living in Iran at the time of the Islamic revolution of 1979. The society changed drastically under Islamic law, as evidenced by Marjane’s teacher’s evolving lessons. After the revolution, in 1982, she tells the young girls, who are now required by law to cover their heads, “The veil stands for freedom. A decent woman shelters herself from men’s eyes. A woman who shows herself will burn in hell.” In typical fashion, the students escape her ideological droning through imported pop culture: the music of ABBA, The Bee Gees, Michael Jackson, and Iron Maiden.

While the film is a personal story, it does offer a concise history of modern Iran, including the U.S. involvement in the rise of Islamic law and in the Iran-Iraq war. This time in Iranian history is especially important right now, with the disputed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the ensuing protests. One scene in particular depicts a group of people protesting when a young man is shot, bleeds to death, and is hoisted over his fellow protesters’ shoulders–eerily reminiscent of what happened with Neda Agha Soltan, whose public murder has rallied the Iranian protesters and people all over the world.

The history of Iran, while it determines the course of Marjane’s life, really is a backdrop—especially in the second half of the movie. In other words, the film is more about the experience of one woman than a documentary-style account of Iranian history. Once Marjane escapes the society she grew up in, her problems become much more ordinary for a Western audience, more commonplace. She vacillates between different crowds of people. She falls in love and has her heart broken. She feels angst and confusion over who she is and what she wants. She goes home to Iran for a time and, like so many others, ultimately finds she cannot return home.

As evident in the film, Satrapi grew up in a wealthy, educated, progressive Iranian family. They sent her to Vienna as a teenager so she didn’t have to spend her adolescence in such a repressive society, and because they feared what might happen to such an outspoken young woman there. While acknowledging her privilege, not many women in circumstances other than these would be able to accomplish what she has. Satrapi isn’t afraid to show missteps she makes in growing up, either. Young Marjane learns that her femininity, even when repressed by law, offers great power—and shows how she misuses that power. Missing her mother’s lesson at the grocery store about female solidarity, she blames other women for her troubles (“Ma’am, my mother is dead. My stepmother’s so cruel. If I’m late, she’ll kill me. She’ll burn me with an iron. She’ll make my dad put me in an orphanage.”), and falsely accuses a man of looking at her in public to avoid the law coming down on her.

Persepolis is, in every definition of the term, a feminist film. There are strong, interesting female characters who sometimes make mistakes. The women, like in real life, are engaged in politics and struggle with expectations set for them and that they set for themselves. They have relationships with various people, but their lives are not defined by one romantic relationship, even though sometimes it can feel that way.

As much as I like this movie, I can’t help but write this review through the lens of an interview Satrapi gave in 2004, in which she claimed to not be a feminist and displayed ignorance of the basic concept of feminism. I simply don’t believe gender inequality can be dissolved through basic humanism—especially in oppressive patriarchal societies like Iran. I wonder if feminism represents too radical a position to non-Westerners, and if her statements were more strategy than sincerity. Making feminism an enemy or perpetuating the post-feminist rhetoric isn’t going to help anyone. That said, this is a very good movie and I highly recommend it.

The official trailer:

A couple of good articles about women’s role in the recent Iranian protests:

The Nation: Icons of the New Iran by Barbara Crossette

Feminist Peace Network: Memo to ABC: Lipstick Revolution FAIL

Post your own links–and thoughts about Persepolis–in the comments.

Preview: The Stoning of Soraya M.

The Stoning of Soraya M. (2008). Directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh. Screenplay by Betsy Giffen Nowrasteh & Cyrus Nowrasteh (based on the book by Freidoune Sahebjam). Starring Mozhan Marno, Shohreh Aghdashloo, and James Caviezel.

Read The Huffington Post’s laudatory review and Jezebel’s excellent coverage of this timely film, which debuted in the U.S. this past weekend.

Watch the trailer:

Reminder

Tune into your local PBS station tonight for the premiere of ARUSI Persian Wedding on Independent Lens.

Description from Women Make Movies:

For filmmaker Marjan Tehrani and her brother Alex, growing up Iranian-American has always meant being caught between two worlds. With unique perspective, intimate storytelling, and rich historical footage, Tehrani brings to life a compelling examination of U.S.-Iranian relations through the personal journey of her brother Alex and his fiancée Heather’s trip to Iran to hold a traditional Persian wedding. The young couple embark on an amazing trip, set against a fascinating history, in this heartfelt film that reveals a rare glimpse of Iran and its people beyond politics.

Update: My local PBS stations aren’t airing this tonight. If you can’t watch tonight, check tomorrow (Wednesday). If you do catch it tonight, leave your thoughts in the comments section.

Documentary Preview: Arusi Persian Wedding

From the Independent Lens website:

When the Tehranis are finally granted their Iranian passports, Alex, a photographer, and his American bride, Heather, an art gallery administrator, decide to make a trip from New York City to Iran to have a Persian wedding—just as Alex’s own Iranian father and American mother did in 1968, when Iran and the U.S. were still allies. But traveling to Iran is complicated. As the couple prepares to leave, they must face the mixed reactions of their parents and friends, reports of war in the Middle East, bureaucratic headaches and their own nerves. In ARUSI PERSIAN WEDDING, Marjan accompanies Alex and Heather and documents their journey on film.

From Women Make Movies, see the premiere of Arusi Persian Wedding on PBS’s Independent Lens on Tuesday, March 17th. Check your local listings.