Gender Studies Blog Post #4

In the movie “Mustang”, the girls’ grandmother goes surprisingly far out of her way to cover up their little trip to the soccer match. At the time, I was confused and thought I had missed a major plot as at every other point in the story she does her best to keep them in the house and we’ve seen her punish the girls when they disobey her. However, after revisiting my notes, it became clear to me that as harmful as some of her actions may be to her grandchildren, they seem to come from a genuine place of love. Her talk of how she went through the same ordeal as the girls and eventually grew to love her chosen partner as well as the obvious excitement she has for the marriages of each of her granddaughters suggests she truly believes her choices are the best course of action for the children. Because of this, I think she covers up the girls’ escapade as even she’s afraid of what their uncle will do to them if he sees them at the stadium. Looking back, her reasoning and motives seem obvious. I guess I was just too blinded by her antagonistic-ish presence to realize the depth to her character.


Note: I wrote the majority of this post before class on Thursday only for us to discuss and come to the same conclusions I made in this post during class time. Sorry for the redundancy of this post.

 

Comments

  1. Kate AJanuary 9, 2023 at 9:39 AM

    Nice post, I agree with your analysis. While the grandmother reinforces the patriarchal practices that end up harming the girls, the movie still captures the understanding and support among women in a community. I'd imagine the grandmother still thinks they're wrong for sneaking out, but it didn't matter when their uncle would've lashed out and potentially hurt the girls.

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