Movie, \"Not Without My Daughter,\"

¶ … movie, "Not without my daughter," the character Betty adapted to Muslim culture in order to escape her abusive husband in a non-American country. "Betty Mahmoody (Field) is an American married to Moody (Alfred Molina), an Iranian immigrant who works, somewhat unhappily, in the U.S. As a doctor. They have a young daughter, the unfortunately named Mahtob (Sheila Rosenthal). The moody, who feels he's suffering discrimination at work, needs a break and decides to take the family for a visit back to his homeland. Betty's goal, of course, is to get the hell out of Iran, but not without her daughter, but to do so she's going to have to find a sort of Iranian underground railroad, a chain of sympathetic taxi drivers, document forgers, and smugglers, to help her out. The off-putting thing about Not Without My Daughter is its relentlessly ugly depiction of Islam and the Muslims who practice it. By all reports, the book on which the movie was based was more subtle and educational about Islamic practices" (Not without my daughter). Therefore, in order leave the country, Betty had to adapt to the culture to get her daughter and herself out safely.

ANALYSIS

Along with that, Betty began to wear the proper clothes for a woman in Iran in order to appear she was accepting of this culture. By appearing as though she respected the culture, she was able to find individuals that were willing to help her to leave the hostile environment, which seemed anti-American.

Betty did manage clandestinely to make contacts with people in the underground, who also wanted out of Iran. She snuck such meetings into her shopping schedule when she was able to move about. The Swiss Embassy and a few other people, both Iranian and American, wanted to assist her out of the country. Her escape could have been accomplished fairly easily if she had been willing to leave without her child, but she refused. Several times Helen of the Swiss Embassy strongly suggested she just forget about her daughter and they could get her out. Those of Iranian background, such as Helen, could not understand her refusal as in their worldview the children belonged to the man (Books I've Read: Not Without My Daughter).

With this acceptance the culture, Betty did manage to find another American woman who was in the same position. However, this women had already accepted her fate, which was living in a foreign country with an abusive husband.

In addition, Betty met Ellen, another American woman to whom a similar thing had happened, but who had finally accepted her fate. Betty initially felt a kinship with Ellen upon meeting her at a class as they were from the same state in the U.S. Ellen's husband had been an engineer in the U.S. And was very Americanized when they had met, but he changed drastically when they moved to Iran. He beat her into submission and imprisoned her for a year. Ellen finally converted to Islam and accepted her oppressed role. Betty never did (Books I've Read: Not Without My Daughter).