As a continuation of my post about
“Clash of Civilizations,” I wanted to show how such a strict divide between US
and THEM that Samuel Huntignton creates is crucially wrongful. Further, it overemphasizes
essentialism of cultural differences that won’t under any circumstances allow
western and eastern/oriental people to agree and cooperate. “Not Without My
Daughter” is a great example of the horrific duality of Huntington’s theory. It
is a movie made by director Brian Gilbert, based on a true storybook written by
Betty Mahmoody. The book is a story of American woman Betty Mahmoody, who
married an Iranian doctor, Saed Mahmoody, who lived in America for more than
ten years. They had a wonderful daughter Mohtab (moon shine from Iranian
translation) and had lived in a happy marriage for seven years, until Moody
(name that Betty called Saed) asked them to travel to Iran to visit his
relatives, where the whole story tragic story begins. The movie was released in
1990 and immediately got many negative critic reviews, as offensive, overly
exaggerated and negatively portraying Iranian culture, people and country.
The movie is based on a book, where Betty Mahmoody is describing her
life story when she was asked by her husband to visit his relatives in Iran for
two weeks. However, when they arrived to Iran Moody decided to stay in Iran,
because of feeling guilty leaving his country during difficult time of Iranian
Revolution. He felt it was his duty as a doctor to stay and to help his people,
although Betty didn't want to stay in Iran. Moody started to abuse his wife to
make her to submit and became very violent, as book describes. Betty decided to
leave, but Iranian laws wouldn't let Mahtob (their daughter) to leave with her;
therefore, she decided to plan an escape with her daughter. After 18 months
spent in Iran, Betty finally escaped with Mahtob, and neither Betty nor Mahtob
saw Moody again.
The story of Betty and Mahtob Mahmoody with out any doubts is a tragic
story, but the way the movie portrays Moody, his family and the country as
whole, gives an awful expression of mentally degraded and cruel society of
Iran. Very understandable that Betty went through many painful situations, both
physical and psychological, but she was not the only member of the family that
was portrayed to be abused by other members with viciousness and cruelty.
Absurdly, all the members of Moody’s family were constantly arguing with each
other, Moody, as well as Betty. More over they yell, scream, disrespect and
abuse each other on the day-to-day basis. Such portrayal makes one question if
family that was long waiting for Moody to return, would they be so angry and
violent even towards him and each other in front of him. Literally, every
family scene that was shown in the movie was a scene of fights or arguments,
and so violent that family members reminded me of some kind of devils, with
their ugly and angry facial expressions and scary voices. For a person that has
no idea about Iranian culture, or more than that, Islamic culture, this would
be an exact kind of image and message that they straight-forwardly receive.
The Iranian Revolution was a difficult
time in the country, but in the movie this time is overly exaggerated and blown
out of its proportions. As a curious person, after watching this movie, I read
decent amount of literature and interviewed couple of my Iranian friends, who
lived at that period of time in Iran. Iranian Revolution happened in 1979 and
by that time it was very developed and modern country, you can call it
“westernized” if you want. In the movie armed patrols were on every corner of
Teheran streets, which is not true based on the reality. There were no women
running around the streets with guns in their hands. It's true that women
weren't allowed to be uncovered outside of their homes, but they weren't required
to wear headscarves at home as it was shown in the movie. All these facts juxtapose
the reality, which leaves a totally different expression to American people
about Iranian culture.
The media has a great impact on the image
of the Islam World for American society. Such movies as “Not Without My
Daughter,” portray Islam countries as “...backward and primitive country.”
Moreover, for an American director Brian Gilbert, who isn't a scholar or an
expert of Islam World, or has no or very limited knowledge of that region and
its cultures it was too irresponsible to make this kind movie with such a
strong message. Gilbert overemphasized his abilities, because he couldn't
express Iran and it's culture as it is. However, it's been a story of a cruel
country with people who don't know anything better than abuse.
No comments:
Post a Comment