What Is The Representation Of Identity In Not Without My Daughter

In the movie Not Without My Daughter from 1991, Betty Mahmoody, her husband and their daughter Mahtob travel to Iran for two weeks. Despite having reservations about the trip, she agree to travel to please her husband Sayyed Bozorg Mahmoody so he can see his family after ten years. When the time has come to return to the US, her husband reveals that he decided that they are going to stay to live in Iran. Betty Mahmoody desperately wants to return to the US, but is denied by her husband and struggles to adapt to life in Iran due to cultural differences. She eventually manages to escape with her daughter, but not without having experienced severe hardships by her husband and his family. While some people may argue that the film is an accurate

They are depicted as aggressive, loud, and emotional in contrast to their American counterparts in the beginning of the movie when Betty Mahmoody and her husband are spending time with Betty’s parents (Daughter 0:02:30-0:04:20). Betty’s husband in the same scene shows no noticeable difference in his behavior to her parents and is depicted as a loving spouse whereas in Iran, he turns into a wife-beating tyrant (Daughter 1:15:35-1:16:23) indicating that his Iranian values are now taking over which is also explicitly stated by him in a scene: He also limits his wife freedom by ordering her to stay at home and uses his family to monitor her behavior, particularly who she is telephoning with. The fact that none of his family members are objecting to this kind of abuse perpetuates negative stereotypes about Iranians in the West as valuing women less than

As the most dominant religion in the Middle East, Islam has had huge influence on Iran and its culture and while religious differences might have been the source of animosity between Orient and Occident historically, the root of the modern conflict seems to be the rejection of Western values by Islamic cultures such as individualism, liberalism, equality etc. (Varisco 295). When Betty is forced to wear the hijab, her individuality is taken from her, and she has now to conform to the Islamic female dress code which is biased against women as the dress code for men is less strict. Her question if she could remove it is met by a threat that the authorities would arrest her as her husband translates the words of her mother-in-law (Daughter 0:17:11).
The historical difference in culture and religious customs lead to many misunderstandings between Westerners and Muslims particularly because many English-speaking Orientalists did not speak Turkish, Persian or Arabic and therefore did not interact with knowledgeable Muslims on Islam (A.L. Macfie 81). The same can be said about Betty who does not speak Persian beyond a few words and thus relies on translators which limits her agency and her capability to understand the foreign culture and to deconstruct the