In the movie Persepolis, a young Iranian girl manes Marji
tells her life’s story about growing up in a very cosmopolitan family in Iran
during the Islamic Revolution. I feel
that her story depicted her inner struggle to define her cultural
identity. Luckily, Marji’s family was
very intellectual and allowed her to explore her own path in life. While many of her fellow countrymen were
being conditioned and programmed by a ruthless dictatorship, Marji found her own
voice (unfortunately, this also got her into trouble several times throughout
the film).
The Islamic Party came into power and began systematically
exterminating any opposition. Sadly,
even the women began to adopt the hegemonic ideals of female oppression. Eventually, Marji’s parents sent her abroad
to study in Vienna. She had difficulty
integrating into European culture, but never lost herself. Ultimately, not being able to successfully assimilate
into western the ethos, Marji returned to her home country where the years of
war and oppression had changed both the landscape and the people that she once
knew. Marji felt like a strange in
Austria…and now in her home country.
Xiao-Dong Dai wrote in his paper, Intercultural Personhood
and Identity Negotiation, that identity is often dichotomized into both individual
identity and collective identity. “Cultural
identity belongs to […] the collective identity. It is the identification with a perceived
acceptance into a group that has shared systems of symbols and meanings as well
as norms/rules for conduct” (2009, p. 1).
Marji had great difficulty coming to terms with her own cultural
identity, sometimes straying off of her path.
However, her faith and family were always her true north and guided her
back to a path of open-mindedness.
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