Gender Semiotics in Feature Film "Banoo"

This article is a semiotic study on one of the most important movies by Dariush Mehrjui. Since gender and other feministic issues have been regarded important for auteur filmmakers, studying gender has become a socio-cultural phenomenon which helps researchers of social sciences & cultural studies to find a better understanding about it.Accordingly the present research lies in the arena of communication within cultural studies traditions, being critical & cognitive about real culture. The research is opting to answer this question that: “How Mehrjui has represented gender and consequently the feminine & masculine binary in the feature film Banoo (The Lady)?Since the aim of this research is to reveal the coded layers of meaning which are usually narrated in the cinematic structure, therefore, the methodology of the research inclined to semiotics analysis. This will help to discover ideological codes and achieve in our goals. On the other hand, since cinematic works represent values governing ideology and meaning, decoding of representation necessitates the semiotic analysis of the text. The findings of this study shows that the main character of “Banoo” is depicted to be modern, not being talkative, well educated having feministic traits and pretends to belong to a high culture class. She is apparently independent but in reality very dependent, she seems to have spiritual tendencies and is very charitable, she is loyal, superstitious, maverick and at the same time very vulnerable. On the other hand, men are depicted as oblivious to their social class, selfish, despot, aggressive, over protective towards women, dogmatic, fanatic, self-opinionated, and healthy with a good physic.