Gender in Iranian Cinema

Abstract

Cinema has always been influenced by sociopolitical occurrences throughout its nearly 100 year history in Iran. As such, the 1979 Islamic Revolution also affects the cinema by its foundation of Islamic rules and values. Adoption of cinema as an ideological tool helped the Islamic revolutionary propaganda to expand retrogressive gender policy and practices in which women were represented as second‐class citizens who were to be kept at home as a housewife or a mother with the emphasis on modesty and chastity as the ideal features of a Muslim woman. However, throughout the following three decades after the revolution, and alongside wider sociocultural changes in Iran, the representation of women has been transformed toward reflecting on what women do in real social life and how they contribute to society. Asghar Farhadi, as Iran's most internationally acclaimed filmmaker today, represents examples of this transformation by setting new standards in reinforcing a real portrayal of women's life/role in current Iranian society; women who are crossing boundaries of gender segregation and inequality. This entry looks at the representation of Iranian women within the past 40 years, specifically in Farhadi's two movies, A Separation (2011) and The Salesman (2016), which were both celebrated by receiving Academy Awards for the best foreign language film in 2012 and 2017.