Persepolis Young Women

Being a young woman in the United States, means growing, finding yourself, and being free during that process. Not all young women have the same sort of freedom that Westerns have. The United States is a secular country, which is a country that have no religions or beliefs embedded in it’s laws. The countries that these films are based, Iran and Israel, are Islamic nations. An Islamic nation is governed by Islamic laws and cultural practices with a primarily Muslim community. After watching the films Persepolis, Zero Motivation, and Circumstance, the Islamic nations and societies can prevent young women from expressing and being themselves by the conservative laws and practices which repress them. The first film watched was Persepolis. Persepolis …show more content…
Elahi states “Satrapi depicts her young self as performing identity through bricolage, appropriation, borrowing, and mixture of European and North American styles” which shows the beginning stages of her rebellious attitude towards the strict moral codes in Iran. Elahi suggests that Satrapi “mimics” Western culture and tries to find a balance in the identity of Western and Islamic world views, as he calls it (318). “She attempts to resolve this dilemma in large part through her use of the mirror as a doubly framing motif, bringing her face to face with the competing claims on identity made not by “Western culture” and a monolithic “Islamic ideology,” but the competing claims presented by familial, educational, religious, and sexual aspects of Marjane’s life” Elahi states (318). Elahi’s position is that Satrapi was influenced by Western culture and tries to balance it with her Iranian culture, but her ideology is not successful. She was unable to make both cultures work with one another, so eventually her and her family felt it was best to leave