Religion, Men & the Virginity Fetish by Abigail Mazenod
It is
hard, almost impossible, to watch Deniz Gamze Ergüven’s film Mustang, and not
feel pure emotional distress for the female characters involved in such a misogynistic
social structure. With the experiences shown of five sisters being held captive
in their own home, reminiscent of the five Lisbon sisters in The Virgin
Suicides, also between the ages of 12 and 17 and being married off one by one,
reminiscent of Tevya and his five daughters in Fiddler on the Roof, this film
shows the distress, depression, frustration and abuse that can go hand in hand
with enforcing such a strictly rigid observation of religious customs. All of
these extremely religious and strict social constructs seem to only do harm to
the women involved, while only giving more power to the men involved. These
young women live in an environment within a culture, which restricts them from
being the people that they innately are; they are forced into isolation and for
most of them an unwanted marriage. One
consistent idea that is expressed and almost overemphasized in both the movie
and the conservative religious culture involved, is the fetishized idea of the
importance of virginity concerning the value of women. Mustang critiques the almost
obsessive importance of virginity with the use of costumes, settings, and the examples
of the religious Turkish customs shown in the film.
One of
the first ways that the film shows the cultural importance of virginity is
through the costumes used. In the first scene, all five girls are shown wearing
school uniforms. These uniforms not only express a lack of identity for young
people in Turkey, but they also present an idea of innocence to the viewer.
Young women who wear school uniforms are generally in a religious or strict
school environment, with an association of purity. This schoolgirl virgin is
also an image that is commonly fetishized by the western world, and in the
context of this film, is possibly an acknowledgement of that tainted image,
both from the point of view of the director, and that of the girls within the
film, showing that they have been influenced by the western world. When these
daughters are locked up in their home, any attire that could make them look in
any way not virtuous is confiscated, and they are given unflattering new
uniforms, lumpy sack dresses and head scarves. These new uniforms strip them of
their physical identity in an effort to staunch any voice that they might have,
and ensure that no man, except for their future husband, will see too much of
their bodies. Though this is a cultural norm in this rural setting in Turkey, the
girls still feel a need to rebel by wearing revealing negligee and casual
attire whenever possible. When they escape for the day to go to a professional
football match, the young women wear casual attire that any westerner can
identify with. This choice of outfits is a visual example that they are just
young teenage girls who want to have a good time. Though they are going against
their grandmother and uncle’s wishes, they still seem like they are pure
innocent girls. At their weddings, the girls who get married wear a white
dress, representing their purity, and a red veil, representing their still in
tact hymen. This color scheme expresses all of the importance and value that
this culture sees in women in a very visual way. A woman is first a virgin,
then a wife, then a mother and a homemaker; her only importance and worth in
this society is how she is associated with a man, and a woman who has no man is
worthless.
Another way that the unnecessary emphasis on virginity in
this culture is expressed in this film is through the setting. An early scene
in the film shows young girls and boys playing in the waves at the beach. This
beach is the perfect symbol of purity and innocence because it is beautiful and
clean. The young people are roughhousing in the waves, and playing chicken. A
viewer of this scene might be concerned with the safety of these girls,
understanding that this is in a conservative setting and the characters haven’t
been fully presented in a multidimensional way yet. It is quickly understood
though, that these young women can take very good care of themselves when it
comes to peers of the opposite sex. The girls are confident and have no problem
fighting back in a playful way. This scene shows that they are assertive girls
who just enjoy having a good time. Next, the scene changes showing the young
people have left the beach and are picking apples from a garden: the forbidden
fruit. This garden is symbolic of the Garden of Eden, another religious tale,
cautiously told to warn men of the evil and manipulative temptation of women.
This extreme religious visual shows the girls the last time they were sinless
and free, before they plucked the forbidden fruit of worldliness and embraced
what their elders saw as loose morality. The picking of the ripe fruit is a
foreshadowing of the manipulative temptress that these young women will be in
the eyes of their community. This scene
marks the beginning of the girls being locked up in their prison of a home, the
last time they felt freedom, in order to enforce their kept virginity.
The cultural norms shown in this film are shocking to many
of the modern western world. Living in a country where many basic rights are
taken for granted, seeing that Turkish men “marry off a girl child at an early
age contravenes human rights and children’s rights; it is one of the forms of
discrimination and violence against women” (Yüksel-Kaptanoğlu 1708). The film
shows the forced marriages and the common practice of virginity examinations
before the wedding. Because these “virginity examinations are conducted at the
request of individuals or state officials for social reasons, such as
suspicions of behavior deemed immoral, premarital intercourse, adultery, and
prostitution”(Frank 485), taking the eldest sister, Selma, to the doctor to make
sure she actually was a virgin on her wedding night was not outside of the
realm of realistic possibility. The scene before shows the newlywed couple
consummating their “holy union,” and his parents checking the sheets to see the
blood, evidence of a broken hymen. Not only is this practice a complete
invasion of privacy, it is practically medieval. Without the broken hymen on
her wedding night, the bride is considered less than worthless, she is worthy
of disgust. This need for a virgin is so fetishized, that the reward for a well
lived religious life in this culture is seventy virgins in the afterlife. It is
explained in Al-Itqan Fi `Ulum Al-Quran (translated: The Perfect Guide to the
Sciences of the Qu'ran), that as a reward for the good Muslim man in the
afterlife, “each time we sleep with a Houri (a virgin companion of Paradise) we
find her virgin. Besides, the penis of the Elected never softens. The erection
is eternal; the sensation that you feel each time you make love is utterly
delicious and out of this world and were you to experience it in this world you
would faint. Each chosen one will marry seventy Houris, besides the women he
married on earth, and all will have appetizing vaginas”( Al-Suyuti 351). There
is no reward expressed for the virtuous Muslim woman in the afterlife with the
exception of her joyful reunion with her husband. This misogynistic idea that a
man’s sexual appetite is to be satiated with countless virgins and an eternal
erection, and that the woman’s only prize is her husband’s satisfaction, is
such a disturbing and domineering idea for Muslims to anticipate, that it’s no
wonder that the young women in this film need to be physically imprisoned to be
kept within their community.
Mustang shows a sad piece of a beautifully rich and vibrant
culture. The young women it follows are effervescent, glowing beings, with life
and opportunities awaiting their discovery. It shows their journeys and
struggles in an oppressive household within an oppressive culture while also
showing the powerful strength of women, and the human ability to heal, change,
adapt and survive. This film gives some perspective on the restrictive reality
that many Muslim women experience in their daily life, and the mental, physical
and emotional strain that this specific cultural norm has prescribed to the
women within it. Throughout the film the fetishized idea of the importance of
virginity concerning the value of a woman is expressed and criticized in many
ways. Mustang sheds light on the almost obsessive importance of virginity within
the Muslim culture in Turkey with the use of costumes, settings, and the examples
of the religious customs shown in the film. The characters in this film
exemplify that, like the phoenix rises from the ashes, an oppressed woman can
rise above and escape her community of oppression.
Works Cited
Ergüven, Deniz Gamze, director. Mustang. Ad Vitam, 2015.
Frank, Martina W, et al. “Virginity Examinations in Turkey:
Role of Forensic Physicians in Controlling Female Sexuality.” JAMA,
vol. 282, no. 5, 1999, pp. 485–490.
Al-Suyuti, Imam Jalal-Al-Din. The Perfect Guide to the
Sciences of the Qu'ran: Al-Itqan
Fi 'Ulum
Al-Qur'an (Great Books of Islamic Civilization). Edited by Osman A.
Al-Bili.
Translated by Michael Schub and Ayman Abdel Haleem, Garnet
Publishing,
2011.
Yüksel-Kaptanoğlu, Ilknur, and Banu Akadli Ergöçmen. “Early
Marriage: Trends in Turkey,
1978-2008.” Journal of Family Issues, vol. 35, no. 12, Mar. 2014, pp. 1707–1724.
Thanks to my CSUN English 495
Multi Genre Literacy in a Global Context Fall 2017 students for this award. I am humbled by it because it is always an honor to teach future secondary school teachers of English. I learn so much from you all and know that you shall inspire your own students similarly. 
"Henry Oster has told his compelling, inspiring life story, battling prejudice and the politics of fear, at the Los Angeles Museum of Tolerance once a month, on Sundays, since 1977" and in his raw memoir The Kindess of the Hangman he details how he "hid his mother from the SS in an attic in the Lodz, Poland Ghetto. He escaped a firing squad in Auschwitz. Endured a death march through the Polish winter. Formed a life-long friendship in the nightmare barracks of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Saw his friends killed by a British fighter-bomber. And came within hours of starving to death before his liberation by General Patton's 3rd Army."
Holocaust survivors who tell their stories so that we shall never forget are disappearing all too quickly. There are still many who have not told them, but Henry Oster has and continues to SPEAK. His words are a gift to history and posterity--a gift we must never take for granted. In November he will turn 90. As long as the universe enables us to listen, we always will. We better!!!!! 
