kdilara-00538 Review of Arranged

Arranged (2007)

religion is not a central element to friendship... or is it?

[7/10 · 28 February 2021]

The Arranged is the movie that at first might seem to be very charming and uplifting in its endeavor to present the topic of unity and tolerance among the confessions. Stefan C. Schaefer loosely based the movie script on the personal stories of Yuta Silverman, an Orthodox Jewish woman, that told him about marriage traditions in her community and how she was friends with a Muslim woman (ARRANGED {about}, n.d.). The main characters of the Arranged are Rochel Meshenberg (Zoe Lister-Jones), an Orthodox Jewish, and Nasira Khaldi (Francis Benhamou), a Muslim, who start working as school teachers in New York City. Throughout the movie, these young women are getting closer as they learn how much they actually have in common. Yet, when reflecting on the development of Rochel and Nasira's relationships we understand that it fails to demonstrate that friendship is about accepting the differences of each other, on the contrary, it confirms that similarities are necessary for the friendship to be built. The film aimed to portray that religion is not a central element to friendship by giving us the example of Muslim-Jewish friendship. However, that was constructed at the cost of antagonizing the relationships between secular and religious groups which is generating the same polemic among people because of their varying beliefs. Principal Jacoby is another essential to this story character that represented the position of a secular society towards our heroines' religious views. We can see how directors used principal Jacoby's reproaches to rouse a sense of shared problems between Nasira and Rochel and then elaborate it into a friendship. I found it to be quite disappointing that the non-religious side was presented in an extremely stereotypical manner as if being secular and liberal equals being ignorant, vulgar, and immoral. There was also a scene with Rochel's cousin whose life after leaving the family was introduced as a chance to do the forbidden things like partying, drinking alcohol, and interacting with men. I do not think that the creation of such controversy works in favor of the general message of the movie. The directors, Stefan C. Schaefer and Diane Crespo chose to state the underrepresented, minority position of the religious people acting based on their free will. All movies I have seen previously were depicting religious people as victims and were pursuing liberalizing and hence saving them from oppressive religion. However, this movie shows us that heroines made their own choice to go along with the arranged marriages, not because they were pressured or forced to do so but because they trusted their family and wanted to get their approval too. According to Khurshid educated, Muslim women in Pakistan preferred arranged marriages as they were a more convenient way to filter out suitable candidates both for the family and the bride (2020, p. 95). This was well presented in Nazira's belief to her father and Rochel's decision to try going on dates again, they did it because they were sure that at the end of the day it is their decision that matters the most. An interesting point from the paper on Pakistani women was that conforming to the families' volition gave them more authority in their community as they were seen to still be respectful to their parents regardless of their obtained education (2020, p. 104). Even though this point was not elaborated in the movie we still can see how it might be relevant in the cases of Rochel and Nasira too. At last, I would like to talk about probably the most important scenes in this movie that are crucial for understanding the friendship concept. The first one happens during one of the classes, children ask Rochel and Nasira whether Muslims want to kill Jewish people. Given the fact that this movie was released in 2007 which is just six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it has permanently changed the religious dynamics in the country. We can assume that those children grew up together with the "war on terror" campaign, so that kind of reasoning is understandable. Any Muslim person was regarded as a prospective terrorist at that time as the wounds of 9/11 were still raw for many Americans. I have a theory that directors might have been intentionally presenting Muslim people as significantly more tolerant and understanding than for example Jewish people in order to clear their reputation from the image of violent religion. The next scene with the Unity Circle exercise might have been the strongest argument of this movie as it had a chance to discuss morals and friendship, instead, it probably was confusing to the audience how the exercise is addressing the question asked by students. I believe that words chosen by children to represent them were a metaphor for the labels we attach to people without even knowing them. However, if we would learn more about that person we might see how s/he is more than just that single word. Sadly, directors were unable to clearly establish and develop this argument. In conclusion, I would like to say that Arranged in my opinion is an exceptional and valuable perception that represents the much less discussed side of religious communities. Both characters after getting through their doubts decide to go with the arranged marriage of their own and free will which is not the popular narrative in the media. This is important to show that people with religious views also have a choice. Unfortunately, while doing this they created strong 'otherness' between religious and non-religious people which made their story less convincing and reasonable overall.