GWSS 3307: Feminist Film Studies, Fall 2008

There is definitely a clear distinction between public and private life in the movie Persepolis. Marjane loves punk rock music; she walks around the streets covered in a veil, blending in with all the other women, but takes it off and headbangs to Iron Maiden the minute she reaches the privacy of her own room. One scene in particular shows the drastic measures taken to conceal "inner" life activities. This scene is the party scene in Iran. Marjane and her group of guy and girl friends are dancing, drinking, and the girls have their veils off and let their hair hang down. Soon the cops come to bust the party. The boys take off and hide. The women pour the alcohol down the toilet, put their veils on, turn off the music, and stand in a straight line like criminals. The cops start chasing the men across the rooftops and one of them falls to their death after not making the jump from one house to another. According to lecture this time was probably 1983 when strict public segregation of the sexes was inforced, public veiling required, and make-up prohibited. Everytime Marjane puts her veil on in the film she looks very sad and hangs her head. It's like having the veil on shows that she should be ashamed and hide herself. Early in the film she attempts to point the finger at the men.

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Posted by marsh410 at 11:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For Iranian women, being aware of the concept of “inner (andaroon) and outer (birooni)� is very important to avoid problems with the law. This is well depicted in the film Persepolis. In Persepolis at one point, Marji’s grandmother is overjoyed when she learns how Marji voiced her thoughts against the University regarding the inequality towards women in how they should wear their dress when men can choose to wear whatever they like. Then her grandmother says, “Take Off this fucking Cowl. It makes me claustrophobic.� Grandmother is referring to the veil that Marji is wearing and to her, the veil is almost like a hand-cuff or something that controls her from being who she is which she doesn’t want to see in their inner space.

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Posted by dorje003 at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The film "Persepolis" is a very strong minded film about a girl who is growing up during the Islamic revolution. The film centers around the idea of 'veiling'. In the film, Marjane is constantly fighting the norm. She wants to break free of what is expected of her and express herself. There are a few scenes that depict her breaking the code. She listens to western music and dresses differently than the others. The scene where she buys music of the street is extremely significant. This just adds to the idea that it is forbidden to listen to that type of music. If you have to secretly buy a CD from a complete stranger and bargain for it, it is obviously not legal. She also wears clothes that aren't approved of. The nuns at her bording school scold her for sporting such garments. She is "unveling" herself by not letting herself be supressed. She does what she wants, and surprisingly, gets away with a lot of it. It is interesting how, during Marjane Satrapi's interview, she comes off as the same kind of person. It just plays into the fact that this story was told from the heart and is a real descrpition of how life was back then. Life must have been so hard for a girl growing up with those kind of circumstances.

Posted by conw0077 at 3:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the scene where Marji’s grandmother takes off her veil when they are in their backyard shows how inner and outer workings with the veil work. With Iranian women, wearing the veil is so much a part of life that I think that it could somewhat cover and hide their personalities when seen through the eyes of an outsider. During that scene I think that Marji was forgetting about the whole issue with public and private. In public she must wear the veil because it is mandatory, but when in private she does not have to wear it. I think she was getting the whole issue with public and private somewhat confused and they were beginning to fuse together. Her grandmother mentions to her that just because she wears the veil in public that doesn’t have to be her life. A lot of Iranian women are accepting of wearing the veils while others are not. Some women are concerned that western influence is having too much of an influence of the way the fashion is made now. In the Youtube clip, Fashion industry thrives in Iran one woman says that the fashion’s that are available in the Iranian market are not acceptable as Iranian dresses. She also adds that if a design would be made with traditional Iranian thoughts that it would be a good idea. So, possibly if this was the case with most Iranian women maybe if they were given a choice of wearing something traditional it would be more acceptable to them to wear the veils, especially in public and they could still have their own identity, instead of getting put in a category with every other Iranian woman wearing a veil.

Posted by jcareykc at 2:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I think the scene when the mother’s friend is over at their house talking and quickly puts her veil on when the father comes home best represents the distinction in public and private life for Iranian women. Even though legally women have to wear the veils in public, that translates into some of the women’s private lives too. For Marjane, her mother and grandmother do not allow it to translate into their private lives, but for others, like the mother’s friend, the legally imposed tradition has infiltrated her own beliefs about what is appropriate dress for women in the presence of men. For the many factors discussed in our lecture, the youtube clip with the professor, and in our readings, wearing the veil has become very controversial.

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Posted by AJ at 1:34 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The film Persepolis offers a much more westernized perspective on the subject of veiling and throughout the film in general. This is evinced through the French language that is spoken and the western music and geographic locations that are sought for sanctuary or escape. Using this perspective, the film depicts a clear distinction between the Iranian people and the western-inspired freedoms they embrace and a government that restricts this expression. This barrier between government and people sets the scene for this duality of “public and private� or “inner and outer� lives that the Iranian citizenry must embrace. The veil is typically portrayed as an element required of “public� or “outer� life, as the scene with Marjane’s mother displays, when she takes off her veil and when she enters her home and expresses her discontentment with having to wear it. In this way, the film shows Marjane’s mother’s discontentment with the separation between her public and private life. This is also shown when her mother’s friend comes to her home and puts on her veil when Marjane’s father enters the room. At this point, the freedom of the conversation becomes restricted as well. This last example depicts the way in which even private life becomes restricted through the public mandate female veiling.
However, the reality is not this simplistic. As Nima Naghibi discusses in her article, “Bad Feminist or Bad Hejabi,� the process of publicly mandated veiling is the result of several political occurrences, but is also the personal (or private) choice of many women. Not only in term of religious embrace, but cultural and nationalistic embrace as well. She discusses complexities that also impact this argument apart from gender, which include religion and class. As Shahla Haeri of Boston University discusses in her Youtube clip, many women wear the chador—not just the mandated hejab—out of religious piety or to cover their poverty.
Naghibi also discusses the westernized feminist critique. In the NOW youtube clip, American feminists struggle to accept veiling as more than an example of patriarchal domination, as is evinced when one of the women laments her problems with being able to hear with her veil on, saying that it isolated her from conversation. However, Naghibi relates this to cross-cultural differences beyond east and west, but also along the lines of economic class—in the way that feminists in the past have worked to “embolden� and “mobilize� Iranian women out of an western elitist mindset that deals with public and private spherical clashes in different ways that to me, seem to be hypocritical.

Posted by J Kriegs at 12:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

When analyzing the private and public sphere, the scene most relative to Western culture was when Marji and her boyfriend were driving and holding hands. The action was abruptly stopped because authority drove by. In Western culture this is considered a private matter that can be taken public if desired. As shown in Persepolis, in Islamic culture couples are trapped in their apartment if they want to be affectionate. In Islamic culture, the private and public spheres are very separate and cannot mix. With force, these spheres are constantly controlled by the government. As discussed in lecture, veiling can mark identity as well as the power of seeing others and not being seen. Hillary Chute discusses how the chapter, “The Veil,� shows pictorial evidence of the psychological condition Satrapi portrays throughout her comic strips. Marji showed rebellion from this psychological condition by expressing Western influences and continually testing the boundaries set by the Iranian government. In Shahla Haeri’s video she discussed the difference between the full body cover of the chador and the head cover of the

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Posted by Katherine Jonas at 11:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Overall, I think Marji is a good example of someone who struggled with the public versus private sphere. She takes on many western concepts; she eats french fries and buys American music. In one specific scene in the film, Marji was wearing a punk jacket out in public, and two older women called her a slut and told her that by wearing those clothes, she was disrespecting her country, etc. Marji had to make up a story so that the women would leave her alone. When she got home, she played her music loud and rocked out.

I found it interesting that in 1939, veils were banned as a statement of modernization. Then in the late 1970s, women began wearing full veils as an anti-western symbol, and women were encouraged to participate politically. By 1983, there were strict segregation rules in place and veiling was required.

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Posted by Bute0023 at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We talked about in class how veiling is often seen by many westerners as oppressive, but veils can be worn to show solidarity, faith, protest, respect and modesty. In the film Persepolis we see that for Mariane and women in her life don't want to wear the veil because they also think it is oppressing them. We see her mother and grandmother wearing the veil out in the public but once they come home they take the veil off right away. You see the mother saying that she hates where the veil when she comes home. So we see that aspect of these women having to cover up out in the public but once the come home and are in their private places they don't wear the veil. We also talked in class about how the veil can be worn as a way to show upper class status, as much as it can be a way to hide poverty and still be respected in public spaces. I didn't know that before that the veil can be a symbol of class. Which is interesting in the film because we see that Mariane has money and are in somewhat of a upper class and they don't want to wear the veil. Which draws the question of why not? They never really touch on why they don't want to wear the veil but it is interesting that maybe because they are high in ranking they don't want to wear the veil.

Posted by breme071 at 11:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Persepolis Marjane Satrapi shows the audience a picture of life in Iran as she experienced it. As such, the politics of veiling which governed her actions and shaped her experience are presented to the viewer through her eyes. Her family is shown to be educated and of means. Like the men in her family, the women are opinionated and strong. Her family rejects the political ideology of the time and forced veiling, and thus, the audience sees the issue from the point of view of women who feel oppressed by it, desiring to choose the issue for themselves. This is obvious as each time the women return to the private sphere of home, they immediately take it off. In most of the scenes within private spaces, the veil (being a symbol of oppressive, public space) is an issue. In the scene where she is in her grandmother’s garden, her grandmother tells her to remove the veil saying it makes her feel “claustrophobic." Marjane’s response that she sometimes forgets she’s wearing it prompts her grandmother to caution, “Never forget that. Fear lulls our minds to sleep.�

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Posted by kafka at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The scene I chose is the when she stands up in her class when the students are being talked to about how the women should be dressing. First of all I feel that in this film the veil is supressing the females in Iran. Although some of the women view it as part of being a woman I don't think that the younger generations feel the same way about it. I think that this probably has to do something with how much the meaning of the veil has change in the past centure. With it changing so much I think that it has really lost its meaning to the younger generations and they simply do not recognize its traditions or value as a part of their culture. especially since our world is becoming ever more globalized. It is supressive to me because the women have no choice to whether or not they can wear it or even how it should be worn. Also, at the same time the men could wear what ever they wanted and not have to worry about any consequences regarding their clothing. I feel this also discriminates against them because they are singled out and told what to do while the men can do what ever they want.

Posted by bergm154 at 11:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Persepolis is filled with scenarios and situations that explicate the precarious balance between the public and the private that Iranian women consistently experience. The most obvious example of this, of course, is that of veiling - it quite literally physically and visually divides and classifies the time and experiences of women into indoor and outdoor, public and private. In the film, there is a scene where a veiled Marjane enters her home and comes into the garden where she meets her grandmother. Her grandmother immediately comments on the veil, demanding that Marjane remove it because it makes her claustropobic. She continues to say something to the effect that it is crucial that Marjane, and any other woman or Iranian citizen, never become passively accepting of the attempt to dominate minds and lives. This is a particuarly powerful scene that could be read in several different ways; it could be that Marjane's forgetting to remove her veil inside the confines of her own home could be just that - simply forgetfulness. It could also be what her grandmother says, a softening of the mind and will to be accepting of domination. Or perhaps it is just a moment where Marjane does not find it neccessary to seperate the inner and outer, to differentiate that particular moment from the one just before she walked through the door.

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Posted by allison at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In Persepolis, for women the distinction between private life and public life for becomes blurred. Wearing the veil became second nature to the female characters. An example of public life blurring into private life is when Marjane went to visit her grandmother and she was still wearing the veil in the garden. Her grandmother tells her to remove the veil and Marjane replies that she didn't even realize she was still wearing it. Although Persepolis presents to us that all females are being oppressed by being forced to wear veils, this is not true. Not all women consider veiling an oppressive action, and some women choose to wear veils, and they may where the veil to show their beliefs or even to hide their poverty. In the film Persepolis the veil itself represents the distinction between public life and private life, and the distinction between public/private life causes the women to portray two versions of themselves. In public they have to hide their true identities, but in private they can act normal. The continual change between personalities would be very taxing on a person and it would be a struggle to keep individualistic qualities about yourself, it would be difficult not to conform to societies standards.

Posted by conlo027 at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The connection that this graphic movie made about the hijab and the public vs privat sphere seems to me a continuous theme when it comes to this issue. The choice to wear a hijba seldom remains in the private sphere it seems. With the continuous politicization of the choice to wear a hijab comes the denial of a private connection to the decision one makes. This movie showed so many aspects of this debate that touched on multiple significant social issues: religious fundamentalism and political uses of religious symbols; oppression of girls and women; levels of immigration; discrimination and lack of economic opportunity for immigrant communities; however it is the term “they� that
Persepolis had continuously used that I want to look at more closely today. In the analysis presented here I would like to show that the politicization of the Hijab law supports the discourse of using the process of “othering� to create an antithesis to the western ideas of sexuality and standard of religious practice in everyday life. This movie shows that when a person diverts away from the social norms given to them by society, they lose the privilege of the private sphere. For example every time Marjane comes back to Iran she has to put on the hijab again the Public sphere that she is in during the airport collapse with a private choice because of the fundamentalist police officers that force the women to uphold to the Islamic law. This however doesn’t just happen in the extremist Iran, the same process is used in the “West�. If Marjane would decide “privately� to wear the hijab in Austria the visibility of that choice would move with her into the public sphere as well. In both the movie and contemporary society today one can see that this choice doesn’t remain private due to its consequences. The movie many times failed to complicate the idea that with the choice to wear a hijab or the refusal comes a gaze and visibility from the public that doesn’t allow you to keep this matter in the private roam. In many ways the movie reified the idea that it is only the oriental fundamentalism that blurs the private and public. A simple understanding such as this was able to create one classification of Muslim. This shows the Orientalist perspective of the idea that any manifestation of religion by a Muslim must be a product of coercion or group thinking, rather than a product of a reasoned decision by a Muslim individual. When we look at the individual agency and personal freedom to choose to wear a yarmulke by young Jewish boys one can see how rare it is that the choice is questioned or cited as a reason to deny these schoolboys access to the separation of the private and public.

Posted by Nami at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The main issue I noticed between the youtube clips and Persepolis with the veils. You see Marjane in Persepolis and the American women on the youtube clips wearing their veil more off their heads. Also, in Persepolis the mother came home and took her veil off, stating that she does not like to wear it. Iranian women are so brainwashed and have a mind set that they cannot show any part of their hair or body. In the youtube clips I enjoy seeing them look up to us; you can see that they want to be free, like American women, to wear whatever they want. I feel bad because we are able to express our own personalities and identities through our choice of clothing where as the Iranian woman are not. I cannot believe that a piece of fabric can challenge a countries power and religion. The only way I see veiling as good is when they understand that clothing option as a class hider. When women are wearing the veil they are not rich or poor, they are equal but not equal to men. The interview with the author of Persepolis says that the book was just not enough. Having it on a film not only shows emotions better but gives you a feel of being in Marjanes shoes during the Islamic Revolution.

Posted by lemme021 at 9:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The concept of private/public can be seen throughout Persepolis. However, there are specific scenes where it is undeniable that the ideas of inner and outer are often breached. When Marjane attends a party with friends, men and women, the police come to investigate. The party goers are forced to hide the men, dump the liquor, and the women have to quickly put on their veils. Even though they are in the privacy of a friend's home, their inner/private suddenly becomes outer/public. These binaries can be seen everywhere. Inner/outer, private/public, male/female, veiled/unveiled, right/wrong. Nima Naghibi says, "Indeed, public spaces have increasingly become the sites for airing political and economic grievances in private dialogues between strangers of both sexes who are much more open about their disenchantment with the government than in the years immediately preceding the revolution." No matter what the situation is, their will always be those who will push against the ordered norm, bringing private into public or public into private. Both sides push against each other continuously, never reaching a middle ground. What complicates things even more for Iranian women is that the women themselves are fighting each other over veil or no veil.

Posted by Tina Fey at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The distinction between conceptions of "public" and "private" life were clearly represented throughout Persepolis. A certain key scene that portrayed this variance occurred at a kitchen table inside a woman's home. While two women were conversing, one without a veil and one with, the woman without hte veil asked the other to please take it off. "It make me claustrophobic," she stated. The women proceeded to talk in private until one of the woman's husbands entered. The woman that originally had her veil on quickly lowered her eyes and began to put her veil back on. the other woman was appalled, since the husband was an old friend. She asked her friend why she was putting it back on. The woman looked embarrassed and replied, "your husband." In that instance the "private" situation where the women were casually sitting transformed to "public" where a man entered the room and made the woman frantic and determined to be a devout follower of the revolution.
According to lecture, women started wearign veils in the the late 1970's to show allegiance to the revolution and as

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Posted by hendr324 at 8:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After reading Naghibi’s article, and watching the first video on youtube I feel that in many ways Persepolis reaffirmed Western notions of the veil. The hejab “implies modes clothing,� and has a variety of meanings. Naghibi discuss how there are a variety of ways the hejab can be worn, and it has “markers of a woman’s social and economic status� (557). We saw in the fashion show that the hejab is not just an all encompassing black cloth, but comes in a variety of styles that can be very fashionable to some women. Iranian women expressed the desire for there to be traditional Iranian aspects of the fashion as well. In the video where the Christian women go to Iran they talk about the physical limitations of the veil; one woman talks about how her hearing is muffled, and this cuts women off from conversation. In Persepolis, Satrapi and her mother both express limitations such as the veil getting in the way for painting and how hot it can be in the summer. In Persepolis, we see a clear distinction from birooni, where Satrapi and her friends are veiled (against their will), and andaroon, when they are at a secret

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Posted by Alias at 8:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The readings and youtube videos for Persepolis show that there are many different ways to view veiling. Nima Naghibi demonstrates the role veling plays in the andaroon/birooni spaces, while also showing ways in which "bad-hejabi" women manipulate veiling to show their dissent (we see evidence of this in the Iranian designer video as well). Naghibi also argues that bad-hejabi reinforce class boundaries, going against one of Shahla Haeri's main reasons for veiling. Besides covering poverty, she says that the veil can also be a sign of strong religious belief. On the other hand, the NOW video shows the western world struggling to comprehend Iranian culture, as they tend to see veiling as a sign of persecution and inequality. One scene from Persepolis that exemplifies these differing attitudes is when Mrs. Satrapi is talking to her friend at the table. Mrs. Satrapi is not wearing a veil and questions why the other woman hasn't removed hers. She replies "because of your husband". We can see that Mrs. Satrapi represents a modern and secular attitude while the other woman is much more religious and conservative.

Posted by allora at 5:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The scene I think best exemplified the way Marji used her veil as a way to gain agency was when she told the guardians of the revolution that a man had spoken indecently toward her in order distract them from her makeup. In the way I imagine agency in this case is the idea that Marji is playing by the rules of the Islamic revolution in order to avoid punishment. The fact that her ingenuity is really really mean also points the the fact that people in Iran at that time were not only forced to live by repressive rules, but in order to allow for some normalcy in their lives they were encouraged to be self serving. The "retracing persepolis" reading describes the veil as "disrupting [marji's] characterological presence" which I think perfectly shows what happens to marji in the scene. In order for her to escape notice marji has to fully embody the veiled and helpless female ideal of the islamic revolution, and in doing so she denies her true self. So although she does gain agency in the outside world, she actually loses agency within her world and the world that those she loves believe in.

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Posted by CrazyOldMaurice at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the film, Persepolis, there was definitely a clear distinction between the conceptions of public and private for Iranian women. One specific scene when I noticed this distinction would be when Marji was in the car with her friends and they dared her to take off her veil. When she actually did it, the girls were all shocked and thought of her as rebellious for doing it. Although Marji was portrayed as very rebellious throughout the film, this scene still pointed out how important it is to wear the veil when you are in the public eye. It is important to note that when she was in the privacy of her own home, neither she nor her mother or grandmother wore the veil. It was only important for them to wear it when they were out in public.

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Posted by sulli396 at 11:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There are two important scenes that show this variance of "public and private" life occurring. They are two different scenes in the sense of their point, but they come together because politics of veiling. In the first scene that shows this occurrance we see Marjane and all of her friends heading to a party. When most of us think about going somewhere like a party with all of our friends, we think of it as a time where we can just be ourselves with the people we love. On the way to the party we see Marjane and her friends wearing veils, almost hiding their true identities and feelings. We then cut to the party and see everyone including her without veils, without restrictions just "letting their hair down" literally! This shows the hiding of these peoples true identity. If Marjane and all of her friends wanted to where the veil, that would be find. But it is obvious that they are just wearing it so they don't get in trouble because once they get out of the publics eyes, they immediately take them off. With that we are able to see how some women truly feel about the veil and we also get to see the power that the Iranian government has over these people. That point brings me to my next scene.

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Posted by keilh004 at 10:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

“Persepolis� deals with many different power struggles, one of which is the veil. The main women in the film fight against the veil; they find it oppressive. The scene where Marji goes to buy illegal music demonstrates this. Outside her house, she must wear the veil, and the older women accost her for not wearing the proper outfit. Once she gets home, however, Marji removes the veil and jams out to the music in her room while her mother looks on indulgently.

This inside/outside power struggle mirrors that of the rest of Iran at this time. Khomeini cannot control events happening outside of the country (the war with Iraq), but he can control events happening inside the country (requiring women to wear veils, executing political prisoners).

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Posted by Katie Green at 10:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A large part of Persepolis focuses on Marji’s struggle to define her own identity. Marji is raised in a house where the veil is treated as a sign of oppression – something to be removed when not in public. Her family knows that for her to fully develop as an individual, she must leave the country to find herself. The subsequent journey Marji takes leads her to take ownership of where she is from, to come to terms with who she is. The struggle Marji faces in Persepolis represents the struggle that Iranian women endure by wearing the hijab or chador. While many outsiders believe that women are oppressed and unable to be respected when they wear the chador as we see the Americans do in the PBS youtube link, many also see the benefits of wearing it. One of the Iranian women spoke about how the chador covers poverty and allows women without much money to present themselves as respectable. In this way, the chador allows equality, but it also strips women of their individuality. The hijab, imposed by law for all Iranian women to wear, is allowed to be customized and the fashion industry is strong as a result, but at what cost? Regardless of benefits that we can see coming from wearing the hijab or chador, the fact that men and women are treated differently under Iranian law is fundamentally wrong. As we see in Persepolis, by succumbing to the unfair customs – demonstrated by Marji getting married too young – there is no sustainable happiness, only continued oppression.

Posted by joh02629 at 10:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before class, I had read the articles and then after watching the movie, I didn't get the same messages. The articles really pointed out how important the veiled or unveiled issue was in this country and the different revolutions that led to both the forced unveiling and the forced veiling. In the movie, however, there was no mention of those revolutions or the impact they had on their everyday lives.
The scene I can pick out that most demonstrates this phenomenon is when the mother walks into the house, takes off her veil and says she can't wear it anymore because it is so hot outside. That is the only scene where I see the veil play a significant role. Outside of her home, she has to be the modest woman who follows the rules but as soon as she steps inside her own home, she can let loose and do as she pleases. The veil was always worn when the women were outside on the street or anywhere outside their house door. This was also shown in the videos on YouTube when they showed the separate men's and women's sections in the library. It doesn't have to do with veiling, but the women were not allowed to be in the same area as the men, just as the men do not have to cover themselves when they go out in public but the women do.

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Posted by postx072 at 9:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The ideas and perceptions of public and private life were made very distinct within the film Persepolis. One specific scene was when Mrs. Satrapi, Marjane’s mother, was speaking with a friend/neighbor, both without covering their head and the neighbor instinctively covers her head when Mr. Satrapi comes in. This shows the influence that the public aspect of life can easily slip into private. It was so instinctual to feel the need to cover her in front of a man it was as if they weren’t in the privacy of their own homes. Another scene where this is apparent is when Marjane is at her grandmother’s house, her grandmother tells her to take of her hejabi and Marjane replies nonchalantly that she forgot she was wearing it. The idea of forgetting that it was on upsets her, saying that one should never forget. There is this idea that if you forget that the hejabi is on then one is forgetting who they really are and are covering up their true self.

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Posted by lars2805 at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A specific scene from Persepolis where public and private life occurred was when Marjane was holding hand with her boyfriend, soon to be husband, and they got in trouble for that. At that point in time holding hands was a very private action; it should be done in your own home, if that. This is prevalent in that women were segregated from men in almost every place. PBS (2nd you tube clip) exploits the idea of segregation when the American women went to Iran, they went to the Library where they had their own little place hidden behind a curtain; they also had to study separately. Marjane, throughout the movie never really “obeyed� Iranian law, especially veiling. She was critiqued on how she wore it in public and was asked to fix it (this happened at the airport). Shahla Haeri (1st you tube clip) explains that there is more than one reason why women where the full body clothing (veiling) other than it being imposed by the government: some women believe in it, their families are very conservative, and it covers poverty. I think that the reason why Marjane continued to hold the hand of her boyfriend knowing that it would end

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Posted by Abbie Weeks at 8:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A scene from Persepolis that illustrates the veils limitations and restrictions is when Marjane and her friends are going to a party. On the streets they are wearing the hejabi but when we see them next in the party they are not. This seems to signify the restrictions that exist with the veil, these women remove their veils in order to participate and enjoy the party. This scene shows that the veil itself creates a separation between genders. So although men and women possess many of the same rights, for example occupants of the party are classmates, the requirement of the veil highlights their differences. At the party by removing them the women and men are on equal ground.

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Posted by luco0005 at 7:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Being an immigrant has an inherently duelist nature. The immigrant is at once connected with their former home, while also being connected to their current. For Marjane, in Persepolis, this is a constant state once she leaves Iran for the first time to move to Austria. A scene which truly encapsulates the inner-outer struggle of national identity that she goes through is the scene in which she dresses up revealingly and goes out to a party where she lies about her origins, saying she is French. After the party she has a "conversation" with her grandmother, who questions her about her lack of pride of her origins. In a way, this internal conflict is similar to the one surrounding the veil. The veil represents piousness while also being a symbol for male dominance in society. As Nima Naghibi argued, these two extremes echo Iranian history itself (the veil having been banned and then mandatory).

Posted by seitz057 at 6:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the scene in which Marji goes to visit her grandmother after complaining about the dress restrictions set upon the women of the college, the audience is handed multiple layers of one of the film’s most complicated issues: the veil. First, in public where she is forced to wear the veil Marji seems very aware of it as a restrictive force—one that prevents her from being free in the world. However, after her brave resistance to these restrictions set by the law and the men who rule, in the presence of her grandmother, she subsequently forgets this stigma—even though she is now not even required to wear it. She says she sometimes forgets it is there. Her grandmother admonishes her by saying that by forgetting the veil she is allowing fear to lull her mind to sleep. Clearly, in her family the veil has come to symbolize the threat and brutal force of the Iranian government. It represents the limited public freedom that these women have. In essence, their inner-selves (the part of them that thinks, feels, and responds on an individual basis) are forbidden. Instead they must “put on� an outer that is acceptable. However, it is interesting to consider the possible motives behind Marji’s surprising forgetfulness.

Continue reading "Duality of the Veil" »

Posted by lenth006 at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There is an obvious distinction between public and private places in the scene where Magri is caught holding hands with her boyfriend, while they are driving around town. The officer demands Magri to come with him for a beating, payment, and phone call to her parents. Nothing appears to happen to the boyfriend, from what the viewers can tell. Magri’s father is not angry, but saddened by the situation. Magri’s parents used to have the freedom to show their affection in public, but that was before the government enforced public segregation of the sexes in 1983. This was also the same year in which the must-wear-veil act was reinforced. The father tells his daughter that she must only be seen with her boyfriend in private, and that they must not hang out together outside in public. This forces the two young lovers to marry, which doesn’t last long! At this time in Iranian culture the women are restricted to their homes, if they want to act freely. In public they must control their interaction with the opposite sex, along with remaining covered by the veil.

Continue reading "Holding Hands in Public" »

Posted by kerli006 at 4:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As noted in the blog question, there exists a clear distinction between conceptions of “public and private� for Iranian women. This is mostly due to their lack of emancipation and the fact that they are forced to wear a veil (or even at times, not wear the veil). Veiling is a “powerful political tool used to manipulate women to reflect the aspirations of the nation� according to Nima Naghibi. In 1936, the ruling monarch Reza Shah Pahlavi legislated the Unveiling Act prohibiting women from appearing veiled in public. Some women protested their will to discard the veil, and wore it in public. Officers were ordered to arrest or to rip the veil off a woman if she was seen wearing it in public. This law that was supposed to liberate women was violently enforced, thus undermining these women the freedom to chose how to represent themselves in public. This act was an effort to democratize gender roles and encourage mixed social gathers but only at official state functions. In 1983, revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini, implemented the Veiling Act, forcing women to wear the veil in public again.

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Continue reading "Veiling: A form of female oppression or female emancipation?" »

Posted by savor004 at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In the film Persepolis, and in Iranian culture in general, there is a vast distinction between the private and public self. One example of this concept is early on in the film, when Marji is a young girl. She is talking to her grandmother about her dreams for the future. She wants to be a prophet who doesn't let old women suffer. After expressing her hopes and goals, Marji's mother opens the window to hear protesters yelling, "Down with the Shah!" This scene shows the difference between Marji's most inner thoughts and desires, and the reality of the outside world. She is an extremely ambitious and strong-willed young girl, yet lives in a country where her dreams may be difficult to attain. This important scene shows the innocence and naivete of childhood, and how it clashes with the harsh reality of conflict and war. Marji's family's household is a refuge, where ideas can be expressed freely. At this point in the film, Marji hasn't quite realized the danger of expression in public places. Throughout this film, Marji challenges these social norms and speaks her mind frequently. In the fashion industry video, the designer is discussing overcoming boundaries: "a designer always has something in his or her mind, and he or she will do something even under limitations." This statement is true for Marji as well, she had to be careful and aware of her actions, but was still able to get her point across and make a statement. The Shah is fighting to modernize Iran, and they are eventually overturned by the Islamic Revolution. Marji's thoughts are extremely modern and progressive, and at first glance may seem to be in line with the mission of the Shah. However, women were actually guaranteed more rights after the Shah was overthrown. Overall, this scene shows the difference between the safety of the home and the uncertainty of the world around us.

Posted by herma216 at 2:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was, at first, slightly disappointed in the way veiling was portrayed in the film Persepolis. Marjane Satrapi’s views on veiling were very negative and did not offer any alternative reasoning for the acceptance of the tradition in Iranian culture. One scene from the film that depicted the tradition and the conception of “public� vs “private� as a clearly negative aspect of Iranian politics is when one of Marji’s mother’s friends joins them in their house, had taken off her veil in the presence of the two women, but is then scolded by Marji’s mother when she puts it back on in the presence of a man, Marji’s father. Marji’s family are clearly leftist in thinking and do not practice the enforced laws of veiling after 1983 Veiling Act was established in their private homes. They condone these laws and view them as oppressive. Although, I agree that the Unveiling Act of 1936 and the Veiling Act of 1983 are oppressive because of the violent enforcement of these laws that Nima Naghibi describes as well as Western influences that encouraged the unveiling which reiterated colonialism, and the Nationalist views that reveiled the Iranian woman and used her to symbolize the nation which was forced upon them. The film Persepolis does address these issues but does not address the choice that some women make to celebrate their culture through the tradition of veiling and the conception of “inner vs outer�. In one of the short clips on Youtube an Iranian woman speaks about multiple reasons for wearing the traditional veil including religious beliefs and covering poverty.

But as I stated in the beginning of my blog I was only disappointed at first. After thinking about the film and reading the articles I realized that this film is not intending to speak for the entire nation of Islam. Satrapi states in an interview that “I use myself as a basis to talk… If I didn’t use myself, it would become more like a political or a sociological or a historical statement, and I’m none of that. I’m just one person, and you see what I saw.� I took this into account when analyzing the portrayal of the veil. She tells her story from her epistemic standpoint and can thus use the veil as a symbol of the oppressions that Iranian people suffer.

Posted by Faith Kolstad at 2:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A scene that really sticks out to me is the scene where Marjane meets up with her grandmother. Marjane walks into a private place with her veil on and her grandmother tells her to take it off. As we learned in class and in one of the videos, some women choose to wear it because they believe that it's what women should do and some people wear it to cover elements of their lives like poverty. But this scene makes me really feel for women who don't enjoy having to wear the veils. I feel as though the women should have a choice. If some enjoy wearing it, let them, if they don't, then they shouldn't have to. Also in this scene, Marjane says that she forgot that she even had it on. This makes me think that maybe some women are content with the situation. If the women in Iran are content with wearing the veils, it's not a big issue. However, I always revert back to choice. It should be the womens choice. In many of the other scenes when women first enter their homes the first thing they do is take off their veils. This makes me think that the veils are a nuisance. However, I also worry that my speculation is to harsh because during the winter seasons in Minnesota the first thing we do when we walk in is take off our coats.

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Posted by leex2356 at 1:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After the fall of the Shah in the late 1970’s, all females (puberty age and older) were mandated to wear the veil when out in public. Marjane at a young age, already an avid collector of bootleg metal and punk music, remains a rebel who continuously challenges the norms set by her government. However, some women in the film do not challenge the norms. In fact one woman in particular carries the public, government set norms into her private life. This woman is a friend of Marjane’s mother. In the scene, Marjane’s mother and her friend are discussing the political situation of the country in the Satrapi home (inner as claimed by Nima Naghibi in Bad Feminist or Bad Hejabi?). Marjane’s father then walks in and the friend immediately moves to put her veil back on, even though she has been a long time family friend to him.

Continue reading "Private vs. Public - Persepolis" »

Posted by Eleanor Roosevelt at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Movie Persepolis, I think you see many examples between the “public and private� self. The one scene that I remember the most was when Marji’s mother comes home and rips off her veil as soon as she walks in the door. I feel that the Iranian women are frustrated by this because it hides their freedoms and like is said in almost all the clips and readings, that while wearing the veil over their heads, it secludes them from the public and forces women to be more private people. And which I think leads to Marji getting into so much trouble at school because she tries to wear her own style of clothing and buttons that the teachers get mad almost because she is trying to express herself in other ways she can’t.

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Posted by bues0040 at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A clear distinction between public and private occurs when the police, who represent the public, corner Marji and her family while in their car on their way to a party. Marji and her grandmother quickly run into their house to dump out all of the alcohol, a luxury they enjoy in private. Their home represents the private, or the unveiled. Anything outside a home represents the public, or the veiled. In this scene, the veiled and the unveiled meet. The veiled is a more powerful and dangerous force than the unveiled, which explains Marji and her grandmother’s actions. Veiling is a more complex tradition than many westerners understand. The interview with Shahla Haeri provides a good insight into different significances and complexities of veiling. She mentions that veiling isn’t solely a form of oppression. The PBS video, on the other hand, fails to look at the politics of veiling fully. It focuses simply on the western view of veiling as a form of oppression and ignores its function as a way to show solidarity, faith, protest, respect and modesty.

Continue reading "The veiled and unveiled" »

Posted by Da provida at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The scene from Persepolis that I am going to explore in regards to public vs. private, is when Taji Satrapi (Marjane’s mother) is sitting at her dining table with a family friend (unknown woman). The two women are having a conversation; both women are not veiled and in walk’s Ebi Satrapi (Marjane’s father). The unknown woman is startled are races to grab her veil to cover herself. The women in Persepolis were mandated to veil in public, but when in the private setting of their homes they removed their veils. The major component that led women to veil in a private setting was the presence of a man. In the article, Bad Feminist or Bad-Hejabi? The topic of public vs. private it discussed. “The andaroon (inner) was a realm occupied exclusively by women. The only men who had access to the women’s quarters were close members of the family and servants. The birooni (public), by contrast, was reserved only for the men of the household, their male guests and servants� pg 557.

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Posted by thoughts at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Feminism has quite frequently engaged with the question of public and private (or inner and outer) as a revisited distinction that often highlights specific oppressions and study of social conditions. Third world feminists have often highlighted the ways that not all women experience such distinctions the same way. In Iran, the politics of veiling, provides yet another cite for this division, and explorations of oppression and liberation --as was explored in Naghibi's article “Bad Feminist or Bad hejabi?

Continue reading "Theorizing Public and Private through the position of the Individual" »

Posted by Sofia at 7:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the reading it states that the hijab was a reflection of architectural space in Iran, divided into two areas, andaroon (inner) and the biroon (outer, public space). Although the law of veiling did not always remain in effect, it's symbolism of constriction, oppression and privacy remained/remains constant. When watching Persepolis, it seemed when a women was wearing a veil she is in her private space, cut off from society. In the Women in Iran clip from PBS, a woman says when you are wearing the hijab you can not hear as well and therefore are cut off from conversations. The veil in way constricts them so that when in public they are more private than when at home. In Persepolis the idea of the veil holding the power of distinction between conceptions of "public and private" is shown when Marji and her friends are in her car. Marji tells the girls she is going to take her veil off and when she does she screams and you can really see and feel everything that was being held back by the veil. It didn't matter than she wasn't in a different architectural space, all that mattered was that she was freed from the prison surrounding her face. It is evident that this is when she is the most happy and escapes the feeling of oppression and necessity to remain private.

Posted by woul0006 at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The film, readings, clips –all point out to the ability of the state to regulate women’s bodies. The message is that veil is not an ahistorical, unchanging tradition or duty but the norm constructed in alignment with particular political, cultural, and religious configurations (eg. Modern secular pro-Western state or Islamic modernist nationalism etc). However, the more nuanced readings point out that simply reducing politics of veil to the state power and political regime of the time is simplistic – it reinforces idea that women are oppressed and agency-less – the idea popular in the West, where any veil is seen as symbol of powerlessness, patriarchy and lack of “progress� in the realm of women’s rights. Even if somewhat sensitive feminists (as portrayed in the PBS Youtube clip) who accept that there are cultural differences, in the end very much reinscribe the notion of western superiority. For example one of them uses the language that can be read as imperialist/masculinist – “we asked the same question in several different ways to try to penetrate her safe (?) answers.� Western feminists trying to penetrate oppressed Iranian feminist to reveal the TRUTH?

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Posted by Arnoldas at 1:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)