The Image of Woman in Asghar Farhadi's Films

• Published in: زن در فرهنگ و هنر Vol. 13; no. 4; pp. 541 - 559
• Main Authors: Afsaneh Tavassoli, Zohreh Babaei
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Persian
• Published: Center for Women and Family Studies, University of Tehran 01.12.2021
• Subjects: a separation; keywords asghar farhadi; qualitative content analysis; women
• ISSN: 2538-3108; 2538-3116
• DOI: 10.22059/jwica.2021.327879.1652

AbstractThe cinema of the Oscar-winning director, Asghar Farhadi, pays special attention to women by focusing on the increasing number of women along with their presentation in key roles. The present article analyzes "Dance in the Dust", "Beautiful City", "Fireworks Wednesday", "About Eli", "A Separation", "The Past", "Salesman", and "Everyone Knows", in which the woman is the focal point. Thus, it tries to examine the films with the method of qualitative content analysis to work on the attention Farhadi has paid to woman’s importance by representing her. Examination of codes, categories, and concepts shows that although the number and importance of female characters and the assignment of key roles to them has increased over time, at the same time women with passive actions, gender job maps, absence from the public arena, and spouse-dependence is portrayed as critical, desperate, powerless, and incompetent. It seems that in order to give importance to women, it is not enough to focus on the subject of women. One should also pay attention to the hidden layer of narratives that can be obtained from their mentality and stereotypes..