Today I am going to look at a documentary about journalist and activist Masih Alinejad. It is Women’s history month and this is a documentary about a modern woman and her struggle against Iran’s brutal regime. This comes from the German DW YouTube Channel, which continues to provide me with some very good documentaries. There are some very disturbing images in this documentary and should be shown to older students. The documentary is called The Women of Iran Let Down Their Hair. The run time for this documentary is 51:56.
Masih Alinejad is an Iranian-born journalist who lives in New York City. She fights against the compulsory wearing of the headscarf in Iran. She is the most prominent critic of the regime in Iran. She is also under threat because there was an assassination attempt on her life. She has called on women in Iran to film themselves taking off the headscarf. She publishes the videos she receives and has more than seven million followers on social media. This film follows Masih’s story. The documentary begins with how Masih launched her campaign. It all began with a video of a girl standing on a box in the middle of Revolution Street. She had taken her headscarf off and was waving it on a stick. She wanted to know what happened to the girl. In the meantime, both men and women were sending her videos of removing headscarves and waving them around. Not wearing the headscarf was a crime that was punished with prison and sometimes even worse. The filmmaker is an Iranian exile in Sweden and she has lived in Sweden since 1979. The Iranian Revolution happened in 1979 and the mullahs seized power. They imposed an Islamic regime that limited the freedoms of the people. Women were forced to cover up and wear those headscarves. Masih and the filmmaker meet in New York and they together go over a film that Masih was sent from Iran from a girl who was arrested for singing in the street. Masih hosts a show called Tablet on Voice of America. She talks about the experiences of women in Iran. She talks about the express my freedom movement. Thousands of Iranian women sent her photos of themselves not wearing the headscarves. Then there is a discussion on her growing up in Iran at the start of the revolution. Her brother was given everything and Masih rebelled. She was a journalist in Iran who was a parliamentary reporter. She was thrown out of her job. She could ask the Members of Parliament anything. She challenged the MPs on their lavish lifestyle. If she did not cover her hair the MPs would routinely threaten her. Eventually, she went abroad to study. Punishments for not wearing the hijab was severe and many women are beaten and arrested by the morality police. Men, members of the morality police, have been shown beating the women. During the filming, Masih’s brother was arrested and taken by the secret police. At this point, it was startling to see the contrast between Masih’s high energy at the start and the sick with worry over her brother’s arrest. Masih travels to speak up against the Iranian regime. She speaks with politicians and talks about how these politicians how are partnering with murderers. Masih uses strong language she talks with these politicians. She is under threat from actors in the regime. However, she presses on with her protests and the Iranian people continue to send her videos of what is going on in Iran. To learn more about this Masih Alinejad continue to watch this episode to find out more. Masih’s story is fascinating and I am glad to be sharing this documentary. Masih is a personality and a half, she has such passion and drive you can feel it through the screen. The videos that were shown were very jarring. This documentary was hard and heartbreaking to watch at times. This film exposes what is going on in Iran. Due to the mature nature of the film, I would show it to older high school students and college students. This is a documentary about modern history and would be something that could be shown towards the end of the school year.
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The purpose of this blog is to share information on what can be used in a classroom, private school, or home school setting as well as serve as a portfolio of my personal and professional work. The reviews are my opinions and should be treated as such. I just want to provide a tool for teachers to select documentaries for their classrooms. |