Mustang

Kelly Hess

Professor Dejong

Writ106

28 April 2019

Mustang

Throughout watching this film, I found myself shocked at many of the scenes and eventually the overall scenario. As this was a movie placed in Turkey and not the U.S. it shows a different perspective of women. Female American citizens grow up and most of the time they are raised to be a strong independent woman, in Turkey with these young girls, this was not the case. They were forced to quit school and be trained by their grandmother and other relatives to be the perfect housewife. The team made up of sisters, with their unbreakable bond, showed the importance of family and the power of young women. Two were married off, Sonay to the boy she loved and Nur to a suitor in place of Sonay. In the beginning, the viewer does not expect any of these girls to go through with an arranged marriage as none of them wanted to and made sure to show it. As you continue to watch you expect them to run away before their wedding but that didn’t happen until the end. 

Mustang was a very heartfelt yet intense movie, the audience as the chance to feel happy, sad, angry, and shocked as it touches on various aspects of these young girls’ lives. I found out of the topic discussed in class this correlates to the gender and sexuality section through the expectations of women. The one scene where after being told to leave the table one of the girls killed herself, I found this very similar to “Barbie Doll” by Marge Piercy. They both tried to fit in and work to be what others around them wanted them to be yet, in the end, it was too much to bear. They lived a life they no longer felt themselves in as they were both forced to alter who they are. It also reminded me of Carmen Maria Machado’s “The Husband Stitch”. At the beginning of this writing, the young narrator often sneaked off to be with a boy, similar to Sonay. They eventually married and after the fact, it turned to the experience of Nur. She was controlled by her husband and had no say in anything, including her body. Overall, I really enjoyed the movie and it provided a greater perspective on global issues.