A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night is a catching title that immediately makes readers assume that a young woman may get in trouble for going out at night. However, the movie has garnered massive attention for flipping the narrative as its protagonist, known only as The Girl, a vampire, stalks the dark streets at night, preying on men. The Girl is presented as a subverted image because she initially appears to unsavory men as potentially submissive, a victim, someone of whom they can take advantage. However, the narrative of victimhood is turned on its head. The chador-wearing protagonist is not afraid of walking the streets at night; instead, she walks them without fear and is the one that men should be feared (Abdi and Calafell 2017). Thus, the movie enables having meaningful discussions on such issues of Iranian conservatism, patriarchy, cultural isolation, as well as female rage.
Scene analysis may reveal further insights into the dichotomy between the name of the movie and the message that the filmmaker embedded into it. In the dance scene where The Girl finds herself in Saeeds’s apartment, the protagonist is shot from blunt angles, with the shading and the mise-en-scene giving her an eerie and non-human quality. The black hood draping her body and framing the face give her a striking impression, as if she is a snake waiting to strike her victim. The Girl watches her victim listen to upbeat dance music, snort cocaine, smoke, count his ‘dirty’ money, and dance rather provocatively. In contrast to Saeed’s energetic movements, the protagonist stands still with a piercing gaze. She is not interested in him or what he is doing – the only reason for her to track his movement is to know when to strike best. To Saeed, The Girl is just a victim whom he can use for sexual pleasure. What makes the scene crucial to the core idea of the film is that the protagonist only appears to be vulnerable. Inside, she feels power when the drug dealer is eager to get her; she relishes his desire for a second and strikes, biting off his fingers, only to see Saeed gazing at her in disbelief, shrieking with pain.
The second scene warranting exploration is the “Are You a Good Boy?” scene in which The Girl follows a young boy home and sneaks upon him. When the young boy notices her, he tries to run away, but the protagonist’s powers are far beyond child play, which makes the boy confront her. The sequence is dark, almost pitch-black, with the moon serving as the only source of light. The Girl asks whether the child is a good boy, suggesting that she needs an honest answer. The boy fearfully answers that he is, but the vampire is not satisfied, she smells a lie and, getting angrier, repeats her question, now with a threat in her tone. As the boy answers ‘yes,’ the second time, The Girl shows her fangs and growls, leaving the child stunned with fear. She says, “I can take your eyes out of your skull and give them to dogs to eat. Till the end of your life, I will be watching you. Understand? Be a good boy.” And, with that threat, she leaves the boy and proceeds with her hunt. The scene depicts the character’s hatred toward misogyny and the violent desire to avenge all of its victims. She understands that the boy will become a man and can be as nasty to women as Saeed was, which prompts her to severely scare the child to ensure that he never takes on a similar path.
In both scenes, The Girl is wearing a chador, which the Western world has consistently aligned with the symbol of oppression. Even in white feminism, which focused predominantly on gender inequality and patriarchy, the blind eye was turned to the concerns of women of color, including Muslim women (Chan-Malik 2018). However, in the film’s interpretation, is chador is a tool to play on the naivetĂ© of the potential oppressors, providing the perfect disguise for the protagonist when she is on the hunt. In many ways, the chador is also a symbol of The Girl’s power as she wears it when facing her victims and takes it off when in the comfort of her home or when she is with Arash (McDavid 2914). What the Western portrayal of Muslim women gets wrong is that chador can also be a symbol of choice for women who want to wear it proudly and stand up against misogyny and convoluted gender politics of their countries.
To conclude, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night turns the stereotypical narrative to its head, unapologetically. By drawing from Western genre inspirations, the filmmakers use the understandable format to convey a message that is rarely present in horror films. Even though some of the feminist narratives could be unintentional, the movie cannot exist without emphasizing the importance of women to reclaim their power. Crucially, the film is inspirational from the perspective of Islam, returning powers to the chador, which has been historically mistaken for the symbol of oppression.
Bibliography
Abdi, Shadee, and Bernadette Calafell. 2017. “Queer Utopias and a (Feminist) Iranian Vampire: A Critical Analysis of Resistive Monstrosity in A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.” Critical Studies in Media Communication 34 (4): 358-370.
Chan-Malik, Sylvia. 2018. Being Muslim: A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam. New York: New York University Press.
McDavid, Jodi. 2014. “A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night.” A Journal of Religion & Film 18 (1): 16.