From Screen to Society: Exploring Gender Dynamics in Moroccan Cinema

One of the most sophisticated, collaborative, and by far artistic expressions is cinema. It is a visual medium that is creatively employed to either expose or construct an alternative module of reality. In a country with high levels of illiteracy, cinema can have a grand impact on people who are denied access to print publications. For the last decades, mostly in fictive molds, Moroccan filmmakers have exquisitely produced a variety of significant movies that tackle the position of women in the country. Conscious of the pervasively tremendous influence of cinema, their productions effectively coordinate between the reflection of existing realities and the structure of new ones. This paper examines the construction of women’s gender identity in Moroccan films. Given the profound influence that cinema has on the construction of people’s perception of the world, it is employed in this research to study the interplay of gender power relations in Morocco. It endeavors to investigate the way Moroccan filmmakers build on reality to produce new gender roles. Based on an interdisciplinary study, that includes a thorough physical, political, religious, and social analysis of women’s representation in Moroccan films, this paper focuses on four movies, namely Number One, The Forgotten (????????), Zineb Aghma’s Flower (???? ???? ?????), and Her Husband (???? ?????). To some extent, these films provide an idea about the organization of gender roles in the country. It reveals that contemporary Moroccan films are gradually defying traditional notions of femininity and gender roles.