Representations of Private/Public Domains

Frontiers, 2009 by Joseph, Sabrina

The Feminine ideal and Modernist Agendas in Egyptian Film, Mid-1950s-1980s

While the last decade has certainly witnessed increased research on women in Arab popular culture, there has been limited attention given to the historical evolution of women's portrayal in popular culture, particularly as it relates to state policies vis-�-vis women, the role of women in modernist enterprises, and manifestations of modern, institutional patriarchy.1 In a bid to address these issues, this paper will examine representations of women in Egyptian cinema between the mid-1950s through the 1980s, a transformative period in Egyptian history marked by state expansionism, economic reform and modernization, and changes in the Egyptian cinematic industry. The bulk of my analysis will focus on four "social issue" films within the realist and neorealist genres that span this period and specifically explore sexual themes: Youth of a Woman (1956), / Want a Solution (1975), A File in Vice (1986), and Dreams of Hind and Camelia (1988).2 In the course of the paper, however, other films will be alluded to and discussed.

Relating to wider discursive fields of gender relations in Egyptian society, Egyptian film has since its inception informed social constructions of female identity - i.e., notions of female sexuality and notions of woman as wife, mother, daughter, laborer, and professional.3 The period between the 1950s and the 1980s, however, marked the rise and development of both realism and neorealism in Egyptian film, offering a new perspective on the social, economic, and professional lives of everyday men and women.4 While Egyptian films have always played an important role in shaping middle-class aspirations and depicting middle-class concerns, beginning in the 1950s, "realist" cinema, spearheaded in the early years by directors such as Salah Abu Seifand Youssef Chahine and grounded in nationalist ideology, "attempted to be faithful to the environment and [chose] the simple man from the lower social strata as protagonist."5 After a slow period during the 1970s, realism emerged again (albeit in new form) in the early 1980s, with a new generation of directors at the forefront, including Atef El-Tayeb, Mohamed Khan, Khairy Beshara, Bashir El-Dik, and Daoud Abd El-Sayyed. The new realism, similar to that which preceded it, drew from commercial genres, but it shifted its focus to the urban petite bourgeoisie, and more fully embraced on-site filming, rather than studios, for reasons that will be addressed further on.6 The qualitative significance of realist and neorealist films in Egyptian cinematic history was recently recognized by Bibliotheca Alexandria in its November 2006 list of the top one hundred movies of all time, compiled by a committee of film critics and historians to mark the centenary of Egyptian cinema.7 The directors who had the most movies included in the list were some of the more well-known figures of both realist and neorealist cinema, including Salah Abu Seif (with eight films), Youssef Chahine (with seven films), and Atef El-Tayyeb (three films). Of the four main films discussed here, three of them (Youth of a Woman, I Want a Solution, and Dreams of Hind and Camelia) were included in the list.8

Since its inception, the Egyptian cinema has been an important medium through which issues of modernity and modernization have been examined. Both realist and neorealist films took up the question of the interplay between tradition and modernity in the lives of men and women, but more specifically within the context of the urban lower and middle classes and modern institutional life, and, to a lesser extent, among the peasantry.9 Generally speaking, before the 1970s, films produced exhibited an optimism toward modernity and its institutions. From the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, Egyptian films became more antimodernist, dealing with the "humiliation of the common man and the failure, corruption, or simple nonexistence of modernist institutions that are supposed to prevent it."10 The realist and neorealist films discussed here specifically address the role and position of middle- and working-class urban women vis-�-vis modernist institutions and projects." Many of the gender and social issues addressed in these movies, including social mobility, bureaucratic corruption, materialism, exploitation, and marriage and divorce, are not unique to the realist and neorealist genres of film in general. The films do however provide insight into how the portrayal of everyday women was impacted by changing perceptions of modernity in Egyptian cinema between the 1950s and 1980s. Moreover, the films chosen provide a broad perspective on the interplay between gender, modernity, and modern institutional life by depicting women in the context of four different manifestations of modernity in Egypt as they have taken shape since the 1950s: education as a vehicle for social mobility, the courts, government bureaucracy, and capitalism.

Championing the role of education in promoting modernity and "progress," Youth of a Woman tells the story of a young man from the countryside who conies to Cairo to get an education, meeting in the process two women - one who inhibits and one who facilitates his efforts to move up the social ladder. The rest of the films take a more critical perspective of modernist projects and state institutions and women's roles within them. This occurred at a time when the social and economic realities on the ground seemed to point to the failure of certain modernist and state endeavors, even as the state's development agenda continued to bolster those same institutions treated critically by the cinema. / Want a Solution deals with an upper-middle-class woman seeking divorce through a court system marred by bureaucratic inefficiency and patriarchal underpinnings. The bleak realities of middle-class life, modern bureaucratic structures, and law enforcement are brought to the forefront in A File in Vice. Here, the viewer gets a harsh glimpse into the sociocultural limitations that impact the lives of lower-middle-class working women. Finally, the failures of state economic policies and capitalism and the challenges that these pose for lower-class working women (and men) in Cairo is powerfully depicted in Dreams of Hind and Camelia.