Panopticon surveillance on Iranian women during the Pahlavi era, with concentration on the visibility and invisibility paradigms: the case of Dead End by Parviz Sayyad (1977)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The essay tends to evaluate the surveillance mechanisms regarding the social status of women during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty and follows its representation in Dead End by Parviz Sayyad as a critical cinematic work. Reaching this objective, initially, the concepts of visibility and invisibility are studied as two main principles in the status of prisoner and guard of the Panopticon idea. Ideas of visibility and invisibility are investigated regarding women’s situation in modern Iran in order to reach an analysis about panopticon function applied by the Pahlavi government on Iranian women. Eventually, concentrating on Dead End, panopticon attitude toward the female protagonist in the film is studied to discover latent impalpable mechanisms of power (SAVAK’s agent). The survey reveals how the Pahlavi government defines a woman, who has become visible through surveillance policies, in the panopticon discipline structure and turns her to a deceived object for the government’s security aims.