Women, Film and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran 1979-2005; A Perspective from Learning from Experience and Performance Theory

Abstract

Images in popular culture provide essential information about the socio-political situation and the self-realisation of gender roles in society. The transformation of women characters in Iranian films after the 1980s has occupied a certain space in scholarship, however everyday self-experiences in the streets and its relation to self realization and women figures are barely included into the analysis. Based on learning from experience, affect and performance theory, this paper focesses on two prominent female stars of Iranian cinema: Niki Karimi and Hediye Tehrani as image transformers in a period of cultural evolution and the smile of women that fades away from the streets. The analysis begins with a general examination of the interaction between politics and culture through the main currents in Iranian cinema. In this part, a periodization of the post-revolution era in Iran is presented through cultural products, especially Iranian films such as the religious era, the war and post-war era, the pastoral era, and the critical era. The last part compares two famous women's images, Niki Karimi and Hediye Tehrani, and shows how this periodization helps to understand the changes in women’s self realization and body politics in everyday life after the revolution.