Depiction of women in Iranian cinema, 1970s to present

Abstract

Synopsis This paper begins by focusing on the protege identity of Iranian women depicted in the Kolah-Makmali (velvet-hat) melodrama genre of the pre-revolutionary period, which created the paradoxical paradigm of a masum (naive/innocent) protege (mother, sister, and wife) vis-a-vis the fasid or gumrah (corrupt/misguided hence promiscuous) protege. In the war film genre of the late 1980s and early 1990s, women remained invisible, desexualized and submissive. This situation lasted until 2005, when Rakhshan Bani-Etemad, a woman filmmaker presented an independent, visible and outspoken woman protagonist in the film Gilane. Since the 1990s, women's cinema and productions by women filmmakers such as Bani-Etemad and Tahmineh Milani have challenged patriarchy in the film industry. They have critically questioned the female identity constructed by cultural and religious traditions. Moreover, they have called into question the existing laws and statutes concerning women, and depicted the physical, economic and psychological abuses faced by women in the society. This work examines these developments in Iranian women's cinema and cinematic productions.