Gender Behaviors in Battle of Algiers and A Widows Voice - Movie Review Example

5 November October Gender Behaviors in Battle of Algiers, Mother India, and A Widow’s Voice Battle of Algiers and Mother India are two of the most widely acclaimed movies of two entirely different cinemas. Similarly, A Widow’s Voice is a very popular literary text. One thing that is common between both movies and the literary text is that they all offer a comprehensive insight into the gender behaviors in their respective contexts. This paper draws a comparison and contrast between the gender behaviors as depicted in Battle of Algiers, Mother India, and A Widow’s Voice. Battle of Algiers, Mother India, and A Widow’s Voice resemble in their depiction of women’s strength, Battle of Algiers and Mother India commonly undermine the power of men while highlighting that of women while Mother India and A Widow’s Voice commonly feature domestic women’s sacrifices and men’s selfishness. In Battle of Algiers, both men and women have to modify their appearances in order to avenge the French army in one way or another. One sequence in the movie that particularly highlights this trend is when three National Liberation Front (NLF) women fighters; Djamila, Hassiba, and Zohra change their appearance to be able to leave the Casbah and attack the French colons by planting bombs (“Women and revolutionary”). Originally, they are wearing burqas. Their plan is to plant the bombs in the French colons’ space without making them realize where these women belong. In order to achieve this plan, they transform themselves into Western women so as to Europeanize themselves. They remove their burqas, cut their hair and dye them, and wear Western outfits (Solo). One of the most important factors that increases women’s eligibility to become the fighters is the fact that the societal and cultural norms oblige men not to touch the women. The women fighters in Battle of Algiers took benefit of this norm and slipped through all the checkpoints and yet were not patted down (Johnson). Mother India gains its significance from the contrasting roles and the accompanying societal perceptions with them that it associates with the same woman, Radha, who is the leading actress in the movie. As a mother, the lady is very respectable and enjoys a very high status in the society. But as a woman other than being a mother, she is treated badly by the men in the society. For example, she is forced by the money lender, Sukhilala into marrying him. In Mother India, men assume different roles whereas women have to be only mothers. All the girls who, at one time, are shown tormenting him are ultimately shown getting married themselves and becoming mothers. One factor that Mother India particularly emphasizes upon is that mothers have extreme respect in the Indian society. So in order to earn respect in the society, every woman is obliged to get married and become a mother. A single woman in the Indian society is exposed to a lot of risks and challenges in the society and everybody tends to take advantage of her insecurity. In A Widow’s Voice, the narrator describes how she lost her husband, three sons, and her brother in the war, how she escaped the bombs to bury her brother’s corpse, and how the man in charge, Allal did not give her any favor in return of her sacrifices for him. One very important conclusion one can draw from Battle of Algiers, Mother India, and A Widow’s Voice is that women can go to any length in their attempt to protect the sanctity and integrity of their homeland. In the nationalist conflicts, women have been victimized and they have also served as perpetrators. The movie Mother India and the literary text A Widow’s Voice, like Battle of Algiers all remain unbiased, yet they make the audience sympathize with the women fighters as well as common women and acknowledge their bravery and strength as a united force. “We can expect the militarization of a nationalist movement “when a community’s politicized sense of its own identity becomes threaded through with pressures for its men to take up arms, for its women to loyally support brothers, husbands, sons, and lovers to become soldiers”” (Evangelista 39). One factor that is common between Battle of Algiers, and Mother India is that they undermine the power of men while overemphasizing upon the power of women. For example, in Battle of Algiers, men dress like women to escape the torture of the French Army. Likewise, Radha’s husband Shamu in Mother India gives up all hope and leaves his family to fight for themselves. On the other hand, in Battle of Algiers, the women fighters’ bravery is evident from the successful achievement of their goal. Likewise in Mother India, Radha does not give up even when her home has been destroyed by Sukhilala and the storm. She not only fights for the community and the land but also sacrifices her own son Birju to save the daughter of the Sukhilala (“Mother India”). Her concern for his daughter despite Sukhilala being her enemy is what earns Radha the title of Mother India in the movie. Another factor that is common between Mother India and A Widow’s Voice is how the men do not care about or give rights to the women despite the fact that women do all they can to give the men theirs. For example, in Mother India, Radha Sukhilala’s daughter in spite of all that he had done to her before and in A Widow’s Voice, the narrator asks Allal to allot her an empty house after the war because she had lost all her sons in the war while Allal was hiding in a cave but Allal does not let her occupy one unless she has paid for it. It was a very challenging task to draw a comparison between the two movies and the literary text because they were very different from one another in terms of themes and had been made in very different genres. That is why the thesis of the paper first compares all three sources, then compares the two movies, and finally compares one movie with the literary text. Works Cited: Evangelista, Matthew. Gender, Nationalism, and War: Conflict on the Movie Screen. Cambridge University Press, 2011. Print. Johnson, Sheila K. “The Battle of Algiers and Its Lessons.” Common Dreams. 7 Sep. 2003. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. . “Mother India.” 2012. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. . Solo, Carolyn. “The Battle of Algiers.” 3 April 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. . “Women and revolutionary violence in The Battle of Algiers and Inglourious Basterds.” 16 Sep. 2009. Web. 5 Nov. 2012. . Read More