Women, Social Development, and Cultural Policy in the Cinema of Bahram Beyzaie: A Case Study of Killing Rabid Dogs and Bashu, the Little Stranger
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Women, Social Development, and Cultural Policy in the Cinema of Bahram Beyzaie: A Case Study of Killing Rabid Dogs and Bashu, the Little StrangerAbstract
Bahram Beyzaie’s cinema has consistently served as a space for rethinking the concepts of identity, history, and gender. Within this framework, women occupy a central position in his narratives—not as secondary elements or stereotypical figures, but as active agents possessing independent identities. This article, focusing on the films Killing Rabid Dogs and Bashu, the Little Stranger, seeks to explore the ways in which the social development of women is represented within Beyzaie’s worldview. The research aims to analyze the role of women in Bahram Beyzaie’s cinema and addresses the central question: how are women’s social development and cultural policy represented in Beyzaie’s cinematic discourse? This study employs an analytical–descriptive method, grounded in semiotics and gender studies, to examine the main female characters in the two films. It demonstrates how Beyzaie, through these characters, adopts a critical stance toward patriarchal and traditional structures. The findings indicate that Beyzaie portrays women as bearers of moral strength, seekers of truth, and symbols of resistance against domination.
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Copyright (c) 2025 Keykhosro Bamasi (Author); Hossein Ardalani
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
