Zainab Binte Tariq 26020426

Assignment 2
The film Joyland is a very compelling piece that encouraged me to think about the
complexities surrounding gender roles, societal norms and family dynamics. The films’
protagonist Haider falls in love with a transgender dancer named Biba. Her role in the film
shows how her existence in a Pakistani society disrupts the so called ‘natural’ notions of
gender and belonging. The powerful depiction of Haider’s wife Mumtaz’s struggles calls
attention to the self-alienation and painful experiences of both women and transgender
women in a patriarchal society. The film also provides a striking narrative of the struggles of
a man unsatisfied with his life and feeling like he doesn’t own his life. Haider feels trapped
between societal expectations of working a good job and his unfulfilled desires. In this essay
I will explore how Joyland captures the essence of these themes with reference to the
following texts: Collier, Rosaldo, and Yanagisako’s (1992) discussion of the cultural
construction of family, Joan Acker’s (1991) theory of gendered organizations, and Daphne
Spain’s (1993) analysis of gendered spaces and a few other theorists. By anaylzing the
themes in these texts I will attempt to show how the film exposes gendered constraints and
norms and how Mumtaz and Biba fight these oppressions with their own forms of resistence.
One of the key readings that sheds light on the film is Collier, Rosaldo, and
Yanagisako’s “Is there a family?” The authors argue that "family is not a universal entity, but
a socially constructed and dynamic system shaped by cultural and gendered norms" (Collier,
Rosaldo, & Yanagisako, p. 72). This is evident in the film through the pressure forced on
Haider to become the primary breadwinner because that is in line with the traditational norm
and the rigid definition of what it means to be masculine which is constructed within specific
cultural contexts. The film powerfully portrays the internal fight Haider goes through while
trying to follow the strict, rigid norms about masculinity and family structures versus
fulfilling his desires because of the limited freedom he has. The familial structures and
culutral expectations often times leads to individuals feeling alienated from themselves and
their purppose in life. In the film we also see the ‘always obey your parents’ attitude that is
very strictly imposed on children in a Pakistani society. Haider’s father forces him to
slaughter an animal and even though he’s scared he can’t say anything to him. This has
always been the case with desi parents; they tell you to do something and you have to do it. If
your son can’t slaughter an animal you make remarks like ‘mard bano’; justifying the fact
that men have to do certain things to be masculine. Instead of helping them through their
fears and supporing them, desi parents taunt them about their masculinity. “People may
expect husbands, wives, parents, and children to have strong feelings about one another, but
they do not necessarily expect prolonged and intimate contact to breed the loving sentiments
Malinowski imagined as universally rewarding parents for the care they invested in children”
(Collier, et al. p. 74). This statement is relevant to the Pakistani context because Haider is
both afraid of his father finding out that he’s an erotic dancer and going back home jobless.
His relationship with her father is one that is constrained to hierarchial roles embedded in the
Pakistani culture where a son is always being forced to be strong, showing no emotion and
following every word his father says. Father’s don’t tell their sons they love them because
that is means displaying emotion and you need to be a man and earn respect instead of hoping
your father says he loves you. Desi parents rarely ever display affection and that too
indirectly which established a divide between their children. This leads to them not reaching
out to their parents for help and feeling shameful and alone. Malinowski shows this with the
example of young girls in Zambia reaching out to other female relatives for help instead of
their mother, although this shows a different issue the bottomline remains the same which is
the divide between children and parents.

Joan Acker’s anaylsis of gendered organizations further highlights the challenges

faced by Haider, Mumtaz and Biba. Her assertation that “when it is acknowledged that
women and men are affected differently by organizations, it is argued that gendered attitudes
and behavior are brought into (and contaminate) essentially gender-neutral structures”
(Acker, p. 163) underscores the nature of gender norms within organizational context. Haider
has a lot of family pressure to get a job and working as an erotic dancer goes against the
image of how a masculine man is supposed to behave. The familal arena is also very
gendered where Haider is responsible for his family economic needs and once he starts
working Mumtaz is forced to quit and become a stay-at-home wife to help out with Nucchi’s
children. This implies that women in any organization, be it the workplace or at home are
always reduced to the natural ‘nurturing’ and ‘child-rearing’ roles. This forced transition into
a stay-at-home wife embodies the essence of the ‘patriarchal bargain’ that Kandiyoti talks
about. By being forced into the norm of staying at home, Mumtaz slowly loses herself. At the
end of the film during Haider and Mumtaz’s converstaion before marriage, Haider tells her
it’s her choice whether or not she wants to work but because of the dominating masculine
views of her father-in-law she is forced to stop working, but later does not stand by her and
tells her to stop working because his father says so; this type of behaviour is typically
observed in subordinate masculinty as explained by Connell. This also provides an excellent
portrayal of Spain’s ideas about women’s role in spaces, she says: “in homes, schools, and
workplaces, women and men are often separated in ways that sustain gender stratification by
reducing women's access to socially valued knowledge” (Spain, p. 137). As the film progress,
it becomes more evident that the physical spaces are linked to the broader institutional forces
that reinforce the traditation gender roles. Spain emphasizes on this point by saying: “the
spatial perspective developed here recognizes the complexity of institutional interaction in
sustaining gender stratification and focuses on the physical sites in which institutionalized
family, educational, and economic activities occur” (Spain, p. 139).

In the context of the erotic dancer Biba, we see how Biba is substantially impacted by
the patriarchal bargain, more so than Mumtaz because her resistence was a bit quieter while
Biba’s overt definance after facing severe backlash, yet still showing strength to live an
original, authentic life play a puts great emphasis on displaying resistence against patriarchal
norms. In one scene she sits on the female side of the bus and is confronted by a woman as a
man and told to sit in the men’s section. While often discriminated and bullied by her
background dancers, she fights back, showing her confidence and ability as a transwoman to
not let anyone else dictate who she was meant to be, once again demonstration Kandiyoti’s
idea that although women are forced to conform, they use subtle means to resist these
injustices and adapt to their circumstances. Kandiyoti says: “systematic analyses of women's
strategies and coping mechanisms can help to capture the nature of patriarchal systems in
their cultural, class-specific, and temporal concreteness and reveal how men and women
resist, accommodate, adapt, and conflict with each other over resources, rights, and
responsibilities” (Kandiyoti, p. 285).

In conclusion, Joyland serves as a profound exploration of the complexities

surrounding gender, familial and cultural norms in a contemporary Pakistani society. Through
the lens of Haider, Mumtaz and Biba the film reveals the ways in which each character’s
individual identities have been shaped through patriarchy, feelings of self-alienation and how
these individuals have been impacted in spaces. The gender stratification and feelings of
isolations and limitations on personal freedom provide us with insights into all the wrongs
occurring in our society. The juxtaposition of the theme park ‘Joyland’ to hide the injustices
of traditional norms surrounding gender was indeed an outstanding contrast to the reality
faced by the characters. It serves as a metaphor to mask the harsh truths of the repression
faced by individuals in society by hiding them behind a fun, lighthearted place called
Joyland. Ultimately, the film encourages viewers to rethink their ideas about the gendered
norms that have been implanted in their minds subconsiously, and eventually lead to the
repitition of the same cycle of injustices which as seen in the film leads to the suicide of
Mumtaz and the death of her unborn child.
 Works Cited

Acker, Joan, ‘Hierarchies, Jobs, Bodies: A Theory of Gendered Organizations,’ In The Social
Construction of Gender. Judith Lorber and Susan Farrell (eds.), 1991, Newbury Park,
California: Sage.
Collier, Jane, Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Sylvia Yanagisako. 1992. “Is there a Family? New
Anthropological Views.” Rethinking the Family, edited by B. Thorne. New York:
Longman.
Connell, Raewyn, ‘The Social Organization of Masculinities,’ Masculinities, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005.
Spain, Daphne (1993) ‘Gendered Space and Women’s Status,’ Sociological Theory, Vol. 11,
No. 2.
Kandiyoti, Deniz. ‘Bargaining with Patriarchy,’ Gender and Society, Vol. 2, No. 3, Special
Issue to Honor Jessie Bernard. (Sep., 1988).