"Halfaouine", The Police State and Sexuality

Watching the movie Halfaouine didn't sit well with me at certain parts. The story, centered around an adolescent boy and his budding sexuality as a metaphor for the changing Tunisian country, was very much patriarchal. While this makes sense as most of the world is indeed patriarchal, the way that women's bodies were objectified were a little bit too much.

This theme pops up a lot, in movies, television shows, books. A man's "coming-of-age" story, much like Halfaouine, revolves around his sexuality and often, the loss of virginity. For a woman, however, their "coming-of-age" story is more about heartbreak and loss and moving on from that, or worse, about the first time a man finds them sexually desirable. Women, it seems, have no say in their own sexuality and just patiently wait around for a man to tell them when it's time, with her consent or not. Towards the end of the movie, we see this happening. Noura convinces the girl he deems attractive to strip naked, with only a sheet or a blanket to cover her. He then attempts to pull this down, even though she's saying "No, stop, don't do that."

It's clear that the objectification of women was a plot device to show the connection between Noura and Tunisia being the Police State, but it seems that it could imply more than that. Instead, that patriarchy is something that will most likely never change, since that's the one thing that's constant from a boy's life and then to a nation.