ABSTRACT
This chapter is a chronological and critical analysis of the representation of the woman on screen in Iran and Turkey, the evolvement of certain themes, trends, patterns, motifs and stereotypes parallel to the sociopolitical transformations. The stereotyping of women in the tradition of Hollywood but in hybrid form shaped by local cultural and religious nuances is examined through fundamental research regarding early examples of good woman/bad woman binaries that exploit the woman’s body in commercial cinemas like film farsi in Iran and Yeşilçam in Turkey, but also the so-called ‘new wave’ despite strong women characters and recognizable women’s movements throughout both histories. ‘Family movies’, porno furore during political turmoil, gendered violence on screen and representations of the ethnic and religious minorities are compared with a special focus on the status of the woman performers within the masculinist hegemony of the film industries. Films by distinguished male film-makers Ebrahim Golestan, Bahram Baizai and Asghar Farhadi from Iran and Lütfi Ömer Akad from Turkey receive close readings from feminist point of view investigating the presence of positive, unbiased and meaningful images of women and the complexities of their experiences in their films.
