Acid

               Focusing on issues of gender and films about women, we are unaware as a society as a whole of the potential that independent films have.  There are many out there that we may or may not have heard of for issues that are touching and captivating beyond any big box office hits.  There are true stories out there that are yearning to be heard.  I found several of these films on www.wmm.com which is Women Make Movies.  This website offers many film inspired by issues related to women and gender.  One film that has caught my attention is Saving Face, by Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy.  It was released in 2011 and won an Academy Award for Documentary. 

                The story tells of two women, Zakia and Rukhsana, who are the victims of brutal attacks that left them scarred and disfigured.  They were both attacked by their husbands.  Rukhsana is attacked by her husband and her in-laws.  She tells the story of how she was locked in a room and set on fire.  She tells the horrifying details of how they poured the kerosene on her and lit her on fire and locked the room, all to teach her a lesson.  Zakia tells of how she wanted a divorce from her husband and on her trip to the court, in board daylight, attacked her with acid and permanently damaged her face.  She is missing one eye and the surgery left half of her face in pain.  She visits Dr. Jawad for plastic surgery, who makes trip from his home in the UK to volunteer his services to women of such attacks.   The film may be disturbing to watch but I would like everyone to view this film.  Acid attacks of such nature are apparently too common in Pakistan where there is a male dominance and cultural values that put patriarchy at the top. Furthermore, what I have learned is that government officials often sympathize with violent men and they too often get acquitted of their crimes, leaving the women vulnerable to future attacks.  Documentaries such as this highlight the ongoing struggle for women not just here in the United States but all around the world.

                This documentary is just an example of alternative film, but how is film used to teach? Do we only learn from documentaries and how are our current mainstream films influencing the wrong ideas?  As Bell Hooks points out in her writing Making Movie Magic, “it may not be the intent of the filmmaker to teach audiences anything, but that does not mean that lessons are not learned” (Hooks 2).  This is an important factor because as filmmakers create their concepts that they are going to display to the world, they are doing it with their perceptions of the world; the films they create will be with their own interpretations.  What alternative film and media teach us, most essentially, is to look at the world with a different perspective and learn the things that we are not normally accustomed too or may be comfortable with.  We use mainstream films to escape from our realities, as Hooks says, “most of us go to movies to enter a world that is different from the one we know and are most comfortable with” (Hook 2).  It is difficult to move away from this conclusion for most people since we are so used to the way we do things.  She also points out that “if we were always and only ‘resisting spectators,’ to borrow a literary phrase, then films would lose their magic” (Hooks 4).  The task then becomes more challenging; how do you keep the “magic” and inform a positive or critical point of view? She also “recognized that oral critical discussions of films took place, everywhere in everyday life” (Hooks 5).  We need well created films that touch on issues of women such as the film described above.  One problem with such films is the economic factor.  I understand that the filmmakers need to make money and they need to make a living but limiting their film to such forums that charge money to be watched limit the reach of the film.  I don’t think they should post in their entirety but at least a significant portion of the movie so that the message of the movie can be spread to new mediums.  The conversation needs to exist about violence against women around the world.  Many of the women in Saving Face feel that they have no voice and have no one to turn to. 

                The acid attacks on women in Pakistan are also common in Bangladesh, which is my home country.  This is discussed by Elora Halim Chowdhury, in her article Contesting Narratives of the Campaign against Acid Violence in Bangladesh, where she discusses how gender and cultural factors lead to such attacks and why they still occur.  She says, “acid attacks against women as a form of gendered violence in recent decades, however, need to be understood in the larger context of socioeconomic, political, and cultural transitions in Bangladesh” (Chowdhury 165).  This is relevant to the issues discussed in Pakistan with the above mentioned film.  The understanding of the entire “context” explained above are important to understanding why such issues occur and where prevention can begin.  The cultural values in Pakistan as shown in the film are very different from how we view society.  Men are dominant in their society and have a lot of control over women.  It has been that way for centuries.  The changes that have occurred are most recent in history and though more change is coming, the ideals are extremely difficult to dissolve.  As I recall, in one scene the Zakia’s Husband sits in the police car very comfortably denying all allegations as the men around him, including his father, seem to believe what he is saying.  The policemen that arrested him may also believe his side of the story, due to the fact that they may sympathize with the cultural idea that women are the “honor” of their families and the “honor” must be protected at all costs.  In the context of culture Chowdhury also talks about dowry, saying, “the growing practice of dowry only intensified women’s economic devaluation where girls were viewed as liabilities and boys as assets” (Chowdhury 167).  Concepts within the culture that create the inequality for women in such societies are important to understand where violence against women begins to take form.  Though not discussed in this film, dowry exists in Pakistan, and may also be a factor for acid attacks against women.

                It is difficult for women to become mainstream directors and filmmakers in general in today’s competitive and highly stylized mainstream movies.  As Humm says in her article, Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film, “…feminist media critics have struggled to create a space within auteur theory for more appreciative interpretation of women[s]…” (Humm 98).  The idea of the “Auteur” has been viewed as a masculine concept and many women have been and are continuing to break down the idea behind this and making it more open to women.  Saving Face, is an example of this.  Ultimately, this film inspired me to look at the pain and suffering that these women go through on a daily basis.  I have been emotionally moved by this film and I encourage you all to watch this to open your mind to the things that are not being shown to us by our mainstream media.  These are issues that real people in real situations are facing every day.  

LINKS:

http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c838.shtml

Sources:

Making Movie Magic, by Bell Hooks

Feminist Negotiations: Contesting Narratives of the Campaign against Acid Violence in Bangladesh

Elora Halim Chowdhury

Meridians , Vol. 6, No. 1 (2005), pp. 163-192

Published by: Indiana University Press

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org.proxy.wexler.hunter.cuny.edu/stable/40338690

Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminist Film, by Maggie Humm