Persepolis

One realizes how unique the movie Persepolis is when noticing how simple the director, Satarpi, presents her ideas. The movie is actually based on the director’s book, and similarly consists of drawings in black and white that tell the story of how a young girl develops through the various changes occurring in Iran.

The grandmother is a symbol of the feminism spread through Persepolis. She offers Marjane advice throughout the movie. I saw a lot of similarities between Marjane and the grandmother in the sense that she is confident in attaining her liberties and freedoms and is up for the challenges that she faces with the political changes occurring in pre and post revolutionary Iran.





Marjane’s family suffered under the Shah’s dictatorship, and continues to feel such restrains in freedom when the Islamic revolutionaries are triumphant in their revolt. The political perspective of the events is conveyed impressively and the audience becomes aware of all the executions and terrors of war that occurred as a result of this series of unfortunate events. The beards on the men, and the veils on the women are drawn with pitch black colors, giving the audience the sense that they were being forced upon the individuals and taking away their freedom of choice.

Marjane is presented as somewhat of a drama queen, particularly when her parents decide to send her to Austria, and when she gets into European culture, falling in love with punk rock for example. This creates a dilemma for Marjane which many people who leave their countries of origin face. She begins to consider whether it is possible to sacrifice all her freedoms and return home, even if it costs losing her individuality.

The movie is able to show the direct implications of the Islamic revolution and the Iraq-Iran war on the youth. During the war, the Iranian army would come to various areas around the countries, the poorer areas in specific, in an attempt to brainwash the children and convince them that life is worthless if it does not involve them fighting for their country. They are taught that their death will be a fortunate event and are promised paradise with death. A key given to each of these boys symbolizes Paradise. The fact that the key is made of plastic and painted gold actually deflates the whole notion of serving one’s country. The Iranian army would exploit the poverty experienced by a large percentage of the population to get them to see the “benefits” of enrolling in the army and sacrificing their lives for their country.

The Iranians are misinterpreting the Islamic religion, falsely conveying that it demands the availability of child soldiers to fight for their country. Such actions reject the foundation of family, a pillar in Islamic religion, and only make individuals lose faith in their country and in their religion.

Rana's Wedding

The movie Rana's wedding, revolves around the title character Rana, and presents several themes. Rana’s mother dies when Rana is a young girl. Naturally, growing up in Jerusalem, Rana had to live under her father’s ways. From the beginning of the movie we figure out that Rana’s father believes that she is still too young for marriage, but if she insists on getting married, he formulates a list of “suitable grooms”. The men he dubs suitable are educated (either doctors or engineers) and come from a good and well known family. He tells her that if she doesn’t decide on marrying someone from the list by the end of the week (specifically Tuesday at 4 p.m.) she has to go to Cairo with him and study there.

Coming from the Middle East, it isn’t a surprise to me that her father has certain requirements pertaining to the groom his daughter is to wed. Usually, a father wants his daughter to marry someone from the same or higher social class. Being a doctor or engineer alone gives a groom an incredible advantage over any one else working in another field. Films always show how the Arab females always have decisions made for them instead of being independent. I thought this was going to be another typical movie portraying the view that women have no choice when it comes to marriage, or any other decision for the matter. It was refreshing to see in the end Rana is able to marry the man she wants, even though he wasn't on her father's list.

In the movie, Rana decides to leave her home, to go look for her true love Khalil, and bring him back so they can get married. She runs through the old streets of Jerusalem looking for him. She kept repeating to herself "I don't want to be scared anymore", yet during her search, she freezes in fear when she comes across a harmless looking stray dog. Another point I noticed when watching the movie, was the emphasis on the empty streets and religious symbols. A lot of Christian Crosses were shown painted on doors, or on necklaces and I felt that while Rana was running she was frantically rubbing her neck as if she had a necklace on, as if feeling like an outsider to the rest of the individuals in her community.

I didn't particularly like the film, I felt the topic had a lot of potential but wasn't properly expressed. Scenes like the rocks vs bullets (where the child was shot after throwing rocks at the Israeli soldiers) and the songs being played in the car to reflect Rana's thoughts are ("we've forgotten how to feel and love") could have been placed at different times in the movie so they can emit their full strength and message.Still, at least some sort of light is shed on contemporary issues facing not only women in the West Bank, but in the Arab World as a whole. These issues include social status, religious persecution, cultural traditions, and women's rights. The film is also able to help the Palestinian community, wish has the minimum amount of human rights, have somewhat of a voice in the global society.

Sukkar Banat

The movie, “Sukkar Banat”, or Caramel, depicts the lives of several Lebanese women, from different backgrounds. The audience gets to know these characters through scenes shot in a beauty salon, a symbol of the society of the Lebanese capital Beirut. In the year 2007, the movie was nominated under the Best Foreign Film category at the Academy Awards.

What one first notices is that the women, who are the main characters of the movie, are independent rather than traditional. I personally found the movie to be universal, unlike many others produced in Arab countries focusing on the historical aspects of the Middle East. However, Beirut is one of the most modern and cosmopolitan cities in the Arab World.

Each of the women’s stories is interesting and somewhat controversial. Nisrine, for example, is a Muslim woman who is engaged to be married. She fears the consequences that could occur if her future husband finds out that she is not a virgin. Rima, on the other hand, finds herself to be attracted to other women, and faces issues admitting her homosexuality in a conservative society. Layale, the owner of the beauty salon named Sibelle, finds herself attracted to a married man and has an affair with him, failing to control her feelings towards him. Jamale is an actress who faces a self-conflict in dealing with her aging. The movie thus transmits a message that the basic general understanding is that society believes that only women who are dependent on others will have fruitful futures. The male characters of the movies are placed in the sidelines, and gender inequality is highlighted throughout.

The movie, as a whole, delves into the pressures faced in societies such as the Lebanese one. The soundtrack to the film was also exceptional, in the sense that the director’s usage of the pop genre implies a crossing between modern views and traditional values. The film is critical of the culture’s gender inequality, but respectful of the cultural values upheld simultaneously.

Cultural Representation

Cultural theorist Stuart Hall tackles the idea of representation in Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices. “Representation is an essential part of the process by which meaning is produced and exchanged between members of a culture. It does involve the use of language, of sings and images which stand for or represent things. But this is a far from simple or straightforward process.” Hall focuses on the semiotic and discursive approaches under the constructionist approach because it has become the leading perspective taken into account when delving into cultural studies.

The development of mankind came with the necessity to identify object and events with the assistance of representations. They became the primary method of meaningful communication and categorization. The global society is composed of different cultures, and individuals usually link themselves to one or more of these, incorporating into their personality norms and traditions. Despite these differences in cultures, mankind is able to share similar conceptual maps that have unified the way we make sense of objects around us. Hall, however, points out that meaning does not really rely in the words we use. It is individuals that fix certain words to certain meanings, and in that way contribute to a culture. “Representation is the production of the meaning of the concepts in our minds through language. It is the link between concepts and languages which enables us to refer to either the real world of objects… or indeed to imaginary worlds of fictional objects.” When it comes to people who inhabit a specific culture, they are nurtured by it to belong to the same linguistic and conceptual universe. Their ideas are represented in the same manner, and even their view of the world becomes extremely similar.

Although this may seem like a simple issue, it is exactly extremely interesting when one ponders the intricacies of representation, and the miracle of communication and meaning. It took thousands of years for mankind to reach this stage, and the meanings we uphold today, and will create in the future, will all be produced by cultural practices, and become significant to certain circumstances we live in. Mental representations become connected to an organized system of meaningful categories. Language is the tool we use to convey the meanings we reach, and organize the signs into the various relationships we make with other individuals and objects. Social life depends on these factors. Without the development of representation, modernization would be an impossible task to continue.

Women and Divorce Laws in Islam

“Divorce Iranian Style” is an exceptionally rare film for being able to capture the realities of Iran and the divorce courts in the Muslim world using an angle that shocks the Western audience and provides them with some sort of a wake-up-call. Islam, I have to say, is a somewhat misunderstood religion, in the sense that not many non-Muslims know the details of the laws of Shari’a. For example, unlike most people think, divorce is not forbidden in Islam, and both man and woman have the right to take that decision. “Wives have the same rights as the husbands have on them in accordance with the generally known principles.” (Qur’an 2:228)

However, Qur’anic verses show that God views divorce as something that is not favorable and something that He would want his people to avoid in any way possible. The interpretation of Islam differs in various societies. The judge in the film states clearly that he considers all cases of divorce something to be frowned upon. It is also his opinion that both spouses would like to stay in their marriages rather than separating. The film depicts the cases of three different women who approach a judge providing viable justifications for wanting a divorce. Some of these justifications include abuse, the wish to complete an education, and the infertility of the husband. These justifications if brought forth by a man would immediately be taken into consideration. However, because they are brought in by a woman, the chance of success is almost immediately diminished. Failure of the wife to attempt to console her husband and attempt to resolve the issues between them means that she does not receive any benefits from the divorce. In one case, the judge shown actually tells one of the complainants to dress prettier for her husband and make sure the house is kept completely organized at all times.

Shari’a Law and the Qur’an clearly provide clear evidence of the equal rights that women and men have when it comes to marital relationships. The interpretations of these laws are flawed and the method by which they were integrated into the judicial system in Iran breaks the theme of gender equality that is highlighted numerous times within the context of the Qur’an. The film should have attempted to highlight the flaws in misinterpretation. The way the cases were depicted only heightens tensions between the West and Islamic World.

The base of this pattern is emphasized in Diane Singerman’s article, which is titled Rewriting Divorce in Egypt. She states, “People don’t know Islam; they say we must do this and that, but really they are very selective in what they identify as Islamic.”

The Dangers of Stereotyping

The issue of stereotyping continues to exponentially expand daily, creating images of parts of societies and degrading the members that fall under that category. There have been various efforts to combat the spread of stereotypes, which hit the religion of Islam and the Arab World the hardest. Queen Rania of Jordan realized that the matter was only creating more tensions in the Middle East, and took the initiative to tackle the subject in a humorous method to dismiss all the false stereotypes. Arabs and Muslims from different corners of the earth stepped in to help with the cause and highlight daily routines of Muslim life, creating a debate with individuals from other nationalities to discuss and answer questions appropriately. The link to Queen Rania’s channel is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFf897bUW2Y&feature=video_response.

Our world is getting smaller by the minute, with globalization acting as the catalyst fueling the fire behind modernization. As such, every individual has the power to spread his/her story with the touch of a few buttons. One such individual is Betty Mahmoudy, an American who was married to an Iranian doctor. She wrote a book, entitled “Not Without My Daughter”, in which she describes her husband as a brutal wife beater and evil man whose actions forced her to flee Iran and return to the USA. Her book gained worldwide recognition and was also made into a movie. Years later, a documentary entitled “Without My Daughter”, shows Dr. Mahmoudy and several other characters mentioned in Betty’s book denying some of the allegations presented in it. It is stories like this that then gain worldwide media attention, and create an image of Muslim men who do not believe in gender equality and a society in which deceit is typical.

It is such stories that are focused upon in cinema, cementing stereotypes of the Muslim and Arab World in the minds of global audiences. Gonul Donmez-Colin states in his book, “Women, Islam, and Cinema”, “The repeated portrayal of women as the sources and recipients of male anger and frustration, and the linking of violence and sex in people’s minds, have been food for cinema since its inception.” When one Arab or Muslim is portrayed as being a wife beater, audiences form an image of the majority of Muslim men, when it is actually the minority of Muslim and Arab men who act in such a way. Donmez-Colin provides evidence from the Qur’anic Sura An-Nisa (meaning the women), which he claims gives men justification for dominance over women. However, if he were to look at the Sura as a whole, he would realize that all of its verses are dedicated to showing the essentiality of respecting women and cherishing them. In no way do any of the verses actually justify the usage of violence. Unless writers begin to notice such trends, no changes will be made to the violent representation of Islam that has been engraved in the minds of so many individuals.

In her book “Filming the Modern Middle East”, Lina Khatib addresses this very problem. Unless drastic measures are made to change the way Hollywood movies typically portray Middle Eastern characters (as terrorists) living in a backward society where open-mindedness is absent, the stereotypes we face will never fade. A movement, such as the one initiated by Queen Rania must be focused on to appropriately falsify stereotypes in the Middle East.

The Ongoing Battle of West Vs. East

“Gender has been as essential part of the Orientalist Discourse. Orientalist notions of the Arab World are invested sensual and submissive females (The Harem), and violent, yet succumbing, males (the colonized). Lina Khatib’s introduction to her chapter on Gendered tools of nationalism paints the perfect picture of portrayal of Arab societies in Hollywood as those which lack freedom and equality of rights through the adoption of a backward perspective on everyday life. Still, she highlights the importance of understanding the different lives of women in various Arab nations. I was specifically interested in Khatib’s focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been going on for various decades now. Hollywood movies are constantly depicting the US as “the rational negotiator”, dealing with Palestinian extremist groups rejecting any ideas of peace, and Arabs objectified “as essentially uncivilized and uncontrollable.” Khatib clearly establishes that the Arab is most commonly America’s enemy in most movies, an image quite quickly carving itself into the mindsets of western society.

The short documentary, Hollywood Harems, cleverly shows the progression in depiction of women of different races and their influence in creating the stereotypes we all knowingly live by, yet try to remain oblivious to. Movie directors and producers must face this issue and realize the power of their productions in the modern era the world has entered. Viewpoints expressed in movies such as the one Khatib mentions become representations of whole societies. Through the decades, Hollywood’s films developed the Orientalist themes that have spread, and have created a derogatory and destructive image of women based primarily on their country of origin.

Still, I believe that to get the most personal approach to the issue of women representation in the Arab Word, one must refer to Rhoda Kanaaneh’s essay, We’ll Talk Later. She uses exceptional style and diction with the aid of real-life characters to establish a true image of the Palestinian woman living in the occupied territories. In a way, she uses her essay to express her views of her womanhood powerfully, and convey it as anything but a possession to be owned by anyone. No obstacle can stand in the way of her freedom, and others echo her voice as we saw in the Palestinian uprising (Intifada). Towards the end of her essay, she addresses her aunt, who she establishes a clear connection to. She states, “ Aunty, you tell me there is danger. I say you are so right. You tell me there are ways of escaping. I say yes, I could escape. You tell me it is hopeless because they will always find me and take me back. I say no! I refuse.”

The focus on Muslim extremists around the world climbed dramatically after the September 11^th attacks. Such groups tore apart the benevolent and peaceful representation of the religion, and created an image of Arab societies that lacked tolerance, equality, and respect for different religions and origins. I greatly believe that this distortion is due to nations holding on to the imperialist policies that are unfitting with the political and economic situations of global society today. With no alterations in generalizations illustrated through the various forms of media, false representations will continue to be taken to be factual, and no long-term improvement on global understanding will be attained.