Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
2 Associate Professor of Social Communication, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran
3 MA of Sociology, University of Tehran,Tehran, Iran
Abstract
The most basic issue in this article is to understand how the hierarchy of authority in the family and its changes are represented in social melodrama films with family themes that were best sellers in the period from 2008 to 2018. In the current study, based on contemporary approaches in the field of sociology of gender, an attempt has been made to consider power and culture as the key elements in the analysis of films, beyond male and female, to understand power relations in the Iranian family. To analyze this issue in the period mentioned in the research samples, John Fiske’s semiotics model has been used so that while describing the distribution of family authority in these films, we can take a long look at the hierarchy of family authority and its changes. The results indicate that during a decade, we initially see the presence of hegemonic and less hegemonic masculinity and emphatic femininity in these films. In the middle of the decade, the presence of resistant women is more visible, but at the end of this decade, i.e. from 2016 to 2018, hegemonic men and emphatic women are the most important pattern of distribution of authority in the family in these films. What is important in this article is to pay attention to a different aspect compared to the results obtained from previous studies.
Keywords: Family, Femininity, Hierarchy of Authority, Iranian Cinema, Masculinity.
Introduction
The issue of how to divide tasks and perform roles in the family has been ponderable since the past. The hierarchy of authority in the family is based on the core relationships between men and women. It should be said that the most basic purpose of this research is to study "the hierarchy of authority in the family." The importance of the current issue is that the understanding of how the hierarchy of authority is represented in the family and the changes that have occurred in the field of sociology have been mainly focused by studies according to the status of women and the relationships that are created for men based on it. This research is trying to investigate the power relations among all family members using a comprehensive reading. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to analyze how the hierarchy of authority is distributed in the family and its changes in the movies of a decade from 2008 to 2018.
Main question: How is the hierarchy of authority in the family represented in movies, and what changes has it undergone?
Sub-questions: Do we see changes in the levels of authority in the family? Which position for women and men is more frequent in the hierarchy of family authority?
Literature Review
After reviewing the studies related to this field, the Persian researches in this field are categorized into two distinct categories. The first category is based on studies that have studied the hierarchy of authority in the family, which have been studied in different social, economic, cultural, etc. areas, regardless of the media dimensions of the family. The second category is related to studies that emphasize the media representation of the family or women as one of the important elements in the family. In this category, the representation of the family has been explored either in general or based on a particular issue. Foreign studies have paid more attention to the male dimensions of family hierarchy.
Theories Review
The modern theory of sociology of gender, which may have become famous for men's studies, has tried to provide a comprehensive and innovative intellectual system that can be used to examine the type and ranking of authority and power of all members of the family and recognize the traces of power. In this research, we are trying to go beyond the mere gender reading based on the theory of hegemonic masculinity of R. Connell, the theory of second sexism by Benatar, and the theory of expendable men by Baumeister. According to the theory of hegemonic masculinity, there is a cultural ideal type in society based on which the position of men and women is redefined. The second sexism theory and expendable men jointly address the idea of discrimination against men and believe that the problems that men struggle with have been neglected.
Materials and Methods
In this research, the purposive sampling technique has been used. According to the topic and purpose of the research, bestselling movies and dramas were selected. The best-selling social melodrama movies, including family themes have been selected based on the statistical calendar of the sales of cinematographic films published by the Vice-Chancellor of Technology and Cinematic Development of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. In the films in question, the sequences or sub-sequences that describe the linguistic interactions between men and women and other family members are selected for analysis. From 6 to 12 sequences, a variable for each movie, sequences that were purposively selected and analyzed based on John Fiske's triple codes. In John Fiske's view, semiotic analysis seeks to identify encoded semantic layers, and all codes have meaning. Codes have three layers: real or social codes (appearance, clothing, facial expressions, environment, behavior, speech, hand gestures, and voice), Technical codes (camera, lighting, equipment, dialogue, etc.) or representation, and finally, ideological codes (the main concepts and meanings hidden in the text).
Discussion and Conclusion
After analyzing each movie based on John Fiske's triple codes and examining the information obtained through the theory of modern gender sociology, a clear picture of the distribution of authority in each movie emerged. The most frequent masculinities and femininities were identified in 4 specific types: 1. Hegemonic man - emphatic woman 2. Less hegemonic man and emphatic woman 3. Hegemonic man - resistant woman 4. Less hegemonic man - resistant woman.
The most important issue represented in all the movies was protecting the cultural type of hegemonic masculinity. By studying the hierarchies of authority and the signs and elements of hegemonic masculinity of families in the movies, it became clear that the family members tried to maintain the family based on hegemonic masculinity despite the crises and hardships they faced. In a society or in historical periods, there may be different types of masculinity that are valued differently. So, hegemonic masculinity changes over historical periods (Connell 2005: 208-210). In fact, the main expectation from the research was that in the early years, we would see hegemonic men and emphatic women, and in the final years of this decade, we would see fewer hegemonic men and more resistant women. But the process of changing the hierarchy of distribution of authority in the family, in the movies from 2008 to 2018, has not only gone towards a more democratic family, but it has also become more hegemonic and authoritarian. As mentioned in the family typification section, the structure of hegemonic man - emphatic woman is the most frequent structure that has been represented in all the movies and in the last three years, i.e., from 2016 to 2018, it is the dominant and final structure. The initial impression was that by the passage from the 2000s to the 2010s, families in movies have taken a more democratic step; even the aforementioned studies have shown this issue at real levels, but the trend of bestselling movies shows something contrary to the social trend stated in other studies. This indicates a general picture that is being repeated in the studies, but it requires a more detailed investigation and the use of valid indicators in order to measure the authority relations in the Iranian family so that in the study of the construction of authority in the family, the process of becoming participative is not repeated and be sensitive to the occurrence of resistances, conflicts and also interactions that may arise between members.
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