The Pleasure of the Violent Touch in Iranian Narrative Cinema

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes1 Modesty rules were embedded in Iranian society and culture even before the Islamic Republic but after it they became governmental laws.2 On early censorship, see Akrami, Jamshid. 1991. "Cinema. IV. Film Censorship." Encyclopædia Iranica, 585–586. London: Encyclopædia Iranica Foundation.3 Interesting that even 7 years after the Hamoon, Ministry of Culture and Guidance insisted that “body contact between m e n and women” is prohibited. See: Zeydabadi-Nejad, Saeed. 2011. The Politics of Iranian Cinema. London: Routledge.4 It is important to note that some insider directors like Ebrahim Hatamikia, Behrouz Afkhami, etc. can benefit from touching in all its non-sexualized manners which can be a source of confusion for studying male/female physical touch in Iran cinema, however, it should be considered that these directors live outside of the norms or rules and what they present cannot in any way be applied to the rest of Iranian cinema.5 Cinema in post-revolution Iran is mainly a middle and upper class phenomenon. There are many films that attract the lower class as well but it is not this class, which is usually more traditional, that supports cinema. Therefore, many directors such as Farhadi, Mehrhjui, Beizai, Kiarostami, and many more target the middle-class audience. They have also emerged from the middle and upper class background themselves. Moreover, I am using class as a cultural factor as well as an economic one. Lower class traditional people in Iran have different filmic culture in which many films that target them either feature sexualized women (to the extent allowed by the censorship and in mostly comedies) or overly modest women (like many TV shows) and rarely exhibit the violent touch.6 See: Smith, Murray. 1995. Engaging Characters, 82. Oxford: Clarendon Press.7 Although in Iranian cinema through modesty rules sexual intercourse cannot be depicted, it can be referred to, like many storyline in which female characters get pregnant.8 In other words, Mahrams cannot weaken males by sexuality because sex with non-wife maharams is forbidden and sex with wives is encouraged. Withholding sex by wife is also out of the question in Islam. Thus mahrams are rendered powerless with regards to sexual powers.9 It may be argued that the religious figures and everyday use of language may differ in Iran but even if we consider them different, it only adds more ambiguity about the core value, since it adds a level of political considerations to the language. Islam is a political religion and political language is more often than not veiled and ambigious.10 See: Milani, Farzaneh. 1992. Veils and Words: The Emerging Voices of Iranian Women Writers. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press.11 It is illuminating to say that castration in Islamic societies has also a literal meaning. Men who had to work in harams of Shah/Amir had to be castrated so they would not be able to have sexual intercourse with shah’s wives and the wives did not need to veil themselves at their presence. This may explain the derogatory term of “eunuch” that is used in Iran for someone that has no masculinity, i.e. sexual desire or courage.12 It is important to note that modesty rules also have a significance for the males that are related to the woman; mahrams. By veiling herself and following modesty rules, a woman is not only asserting unrelated men’s superiority, she is asserting his mahram’s superiority over other men, creating a sense of belonging to mahrams, and above all to The Mahram, the one she has sexual intercourse with, her husband.13 Although Freud’s definition of the terms sadism and masochism is in his own belief universal, I am not inclined to propose the revision of Mulvey’s theory for any society. Whether Mulvey’s theory can be modified by sadomasochism in western culture is irrelevant to our discussion, however, it can be perused.14 Interesting here is that women actively take advantage of this sadomasochism which is the product of Hanuneh complex and pose themselves as believer and non-believer at wish, whichever suits them the most.15 Fascinating here is that scopophilic pleasures have found their way into the posters of Iranian films and there have been great oppositions to how producers sexualize their female characters in them.16 Iranian cinema has failed to produce a constant stream of masculine heros throughout the post-revolutionary era. There are some male heros in some action films, especially in the early 1980s, and some in propaganda films such as Mohammad Hosein Mahdavian’s Lottery (2018), but these are rare and not systematic.