The Rebellious Man and the Courageous Woman: Social Criticism and Gender Relations in Iranian Film Production before and after the Islamic Revolution

Abstract

Since the beginning of indigenous film production in the 1930s, Iranian film has developed into an internationally acknowledged cultural phenomenon. Before 1979, Iranian feature films and movies were often no more than poor imitations of foreign ones. Even in Iran, success often remained limited. The rise of new critical attitudes in Persian literature in the 1960s, however, had a great impact on the visual media of the time - an important factor in Iranian film production up to the present.

The Islamization of Iranian cultural politics after 1979 did not simply lead to a complete break with existing traditions of representation, but it made way for a conscious use of the visual media, which now had to convey new values and, as a result, developed new modes of expression. The female roles in particular were subject to cultural supervision. They received a great deal of attention and became objects of critical analysis. Furthermore, female filmmakers gradually gained acceptance in a hitherto male-dominated profession and they, for their part, had a great impact on the development of the visual messages and critical concerns - an achievement that brought them much credit internationally. This paper contributes to the discussion of continuities and discontinuities in the perception of modernity and tradition among intellectuals through a comparative analysis of Iranian films before and after 1979. It highlights the process of negotiation between imagined “modern” or “Western” concepts and Iranian “realities” and needs, which takes place in the making of Iranian films. The analysis focuses on the differences and similarities in the representation of gender and forms of critical expression by comparing the Iranian films Qeyṣar (1969) and Rusari-ābi (The Blue Scarf, 1994) with Hollywood movies of the same period. The representation of gender roles, social community and religion as well as the use of symbols are examined in order to determine changes in social understanding and visual representation. The paper ends with a discussion of the impact of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 on the representation of gender, negotiation of values and social criticism in Iranian movies in relation to “Western” concepts.

After the publication of Āl-e Aḥmad’s treatise on the “Westoxication” of Iranian society in 1962 and its critique of “Western” values at the latest, Iranian artists and filmmakers had to face the question of how to deal with such criticism in their film projects. Seen as a genuinely “Western” product, film expressed and conveyed “Western” cultural norms. It played a crucial role in the modernization process during the Pahlavi era, when “Western” norms and values were widely considered “modern”. The Hollywood film industry had dominated Iranian cinematography for a long time, and the simple adaptation of popular Hollywood films had led to the emergence of the commercial so-called film-farsi in Iran. To use this “Western” medium as a means to criticise “modern” and “traditional” structures was a challenge for Iranian intellectuals and artists.

The films chosen for the present study are not of the same genre. It is not the aim here to discuss the development and characteristics of Iranian film genres before and after the Iranian Revolution.1 The analysis focuses on film as a means of making a discursive contribution to the dialectical process of determining the meaning and significance of “das Eigene (the indigenous)” and “das Fremde (the extraneous)”. Even though the Iranian examples appear to be very different from the American films that are considered genuine models of modern values and lifestyle, they have adapted certain methods and tools from the foreign model in order to criticize Iranian traditional cultural norms and conventions. Iranian filmmakers crossed conventional genre boundaries for the purpose of social criticism and created something new. The commercial success of Iranian movies may be an indicator for the “Zeitgeist” before and after the Revolution. Their images illustrate the specific flaws, contradictions, needs and hopes of a society seeking to find its way between a “Western” way of life and traditional conventions. This goes in tandem with the development of a genuine Iranian model of visual expression, symbols and meaning which deals with the conflict between “modern” and “traditional”, the individual and the community, as well as with gender representation.

Gender representation and relationships form an integral part of the concepts of religion and community. While in the Pahlavi period (1925-1979), religious traditional forces still favoured a patriarchal social system with conventional gender roles, the government promoted a modern idea of society with a more equal social position for women. Women were allowed access to education and public life. The official prohibition of the veil in 1936, which ignored religious feelings and conventions of honor and shame, created conflicts and popular protests, especially under Reza Shah (1925-1941), and slowed down the modernization program in Iranian society. Although the secularly oriented Pahlavi dynasty conceded to women new rights and more freedom, this did not much weaken the dominant position of men in traditional Shiite society, as Upton argued as early as 1960.2 The legal status of Iranian women in particular did not change until the second half of the 1960s under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, when the Family Protection Law was introduced. Even though the new rights afforded modern urban middle-class women a more active, participatory lifestyle inspired by modern ways of life, patriarchal culture and customs still dominated Iranian society, and gender inequality continued both among traditional social strata and the westernized, educated middle class.3 The following analysis and comparison of Iranian films argues that Iranian society before the Islamic Revolution represented a more traditional, patriarchal order informed by religious beliefs. As Friedland notes, family and faith were considered the pillars of the social order. In post-revolutionary Iran, on the other hand, the social and political participation of women was not a result of patriarchal power, but of the primacy of the family.