Caramel

The film Caramel explores the lives of five unique women, searching for love, acceptance, and affection. Through their wardrobes, habits, and language, the spectator learns about the women, rather than blunt introductions explaining their stories.

Rima, usually dressed in loose, faded jeans, an oversized shirt or hooded sweatshirt, wears her face clean of makeup. As Stuart Hall explains, Barthes described semiotics in two parts: denotation and connotation. Rima’s clothes signify casualness, and when compared to Layale or Jamale’s clothes, they do not signify femininity. Additionally, Rima always wears headphones around her neck, which denote music to the spectator, but also imply her detachment from the outside world because when she wears them, she cannot hear what is around her.

The relationship Rima has with the customer that always comes in to have her hair washed my Rima is quiet but intimate and sexual. They become closer through their time spent together; however, it is clear that there is a power struggle between them and societal norms. Keeping their sexuality a secret and using the back room where the sinks are as a buffer between their experience together and the rest of the world. This representation explores Foucault’s theories of power and interpretation based on personal meaning in representation.

The entire film expresses knowledge about society, its expectations, and norms. Highlighting the very core of Foucault’s theories on representation. Through Jamale the spectator understand that youthfulness is important. It can be seen through her lies about her period, her cosmetic changes to look younger, and how she acts when with the other women. Layale signifies the taboo of affairs and sanctity of marriage and pure relationships. Nisrine also signifies the importance of pure relationships through her struggle with having pre-marital sex with a man, who was not to be her husband. These representations of society also explore the personal struggles women feel in this society. The film is both of a macro subject and individual stories.

Controls of Sexuality

Viola Shafik’s Planting of Girls is a representation of the controls religion and society have over Egyptian girls. Circumcision is vastly popular for girls under the age of twelve for various reasons: cosmetic purposes, sexual controls, religious beliefs, and cultural tradition, among others. Just like in Egypt, other cultures have different reasons for circumcising girls and boys. In Egypt and other Middle Eastern countries “women are main targets of control,” and circumcision is one way to control sexuality (Shahidian, 105).

When mothers were interviewed about circumcision practices, it was evident that the knowledge about risks and medical concerns associated with the practice were not understood. There was a clear lack of education, but in like other areas of life, religion is seen as a tool for education, perhaps the only one, through which many see circumcision as important and sacred. One woman said that not circumcising her daughter was viewed as a sin in the eyes of the prophet. In Shahidian’s chapter, “Contesting Discources of Sexuality in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” he discusses the Islamic discourse of sexuality, which is similar to the religious reasoning behind circumcision in Egyptian.

In Iran, “sexuality is treated as one among many issues of material life” (110). The discourse illustrates the divisions between men and women, where men are the subject of sex and women, the object (118). These divisions oppress women’s sexuality and belittle their sexual desires and needs. The figurative divisions taught, in Iran, and the literal control (circumcision), in Egypt, are both ways of controlling women and oppressing their human needs. In a world where a solid marriage is based on harmony, not love, it is near impossible for a woman to express her sexuality.

The importance of purity and modesty prevent women from expressing themselves, even in the confines of their own homes. Feminist discourse discusses the power of sexual jokes that lessen the seriousness of the issue, avoiding the big problems that do exist. Because religious teaching are contradictory in terms of women’s roles, it is difficult to find a balance between a modest woman and sexual woman, in the eyes of society. On one hand, “a woman who disdains and refrains from sexual intercourse is indeed not a woman” (120). On the other hand, women are seen as having more sexual power, more beauty, and the “potential to destroy humanity,” if their sex lives are not balanced (120).

Women’s sexuality is about control in all realms. The Islamic discourse talks about the balance they must maintain between surrendering to their husbands needs and maintaining the modesty and harmony necessary to be a good wife. The scientific discourse controls women through sexual standards and classifications of normal or regular sexual behavior (122). The feminist discourse discusses the control patriarchal language and teachings have over sex education.