Islamic Fundamentalism and Gender: The Portrayal of Women in Iranian Movies

Abstract

Various political groups were involved in the 1979 Islamic Revolution of Iran, which led to the downfall of the Pahlavi regime. However, Islamic Fundamentalists gradually seized power and eliminated rival ideologies in the 1980s. In the late 1990s, Iranian Reformers won the elections and oversaw the management of the film industry for two four-year administrations until 2005. As liberals and religious democrats, the Reformers supported a modern portrayal of Iranian women in movies. The findings of this research challenge the previous studies that voiced optimism about the new individualistic portrayal of women in Iranian movies. The research methodology is based on Theresa de Lauretis's technologies of gender involving a narrative analysis of sixty-eight Iranian movies produced from 2001 to 2005. Given the political defeat of the Reformers in 2005, the main research question is to what extent has the portrayal of Iranian women gone beyond (or remained under) the ideological domination of Islamic Fundamentalism.