Biopolitics and the Formation of Bodies: the Analysis of the Biopolitical Discourses in the Movie No Choice.

Human bodies are not only biological phenomena, but also social entities. In fact, social practices and dominant discourses are influential in forming and defining human bodies. Female body is also defined and formed under the influence of discourses and social mechanisms of power. The Iranian movie, No Choice, also depicts the biopolitical discourses which are struggling with each other on the main character’s fertility. The purpose of this article is, therefore, the analysis of the struggle that happens among the movie’s biopolitical discourses on the body of the movie’s main character, Gol-bahar. These biopolitical discourses are: “the domineering patriarchal”, “the domineering sterilizer”, and “social actor”. The first discourse utilizes Gol-bahar’s body for the continuation of generation and economic exploitation. The second one tries to sterilize the social body by tubal legation of abandoned women like Gol-bahar. The third discourse, contrarily, tries to restore Gol-bahar’s subjectivity by retrieving her social rights and autonomy on her body. Because the influence of power mechanisms on people’s biological entity and bodies are studied in the field of biopolitics, the theoretical framework of this article is based on biopolitical concepts of Foucault, Agamben, and Arendt. Also, No Choice’s discursive struggles are studied using Laclau and Mouffe’s method of discourse analysis due to the fact that their methodology is based upon the study of formation of meanings and identities in the procedure of discursive struggles. The research’s result shows that until the circumstances of wordlessness are retained, Gol-bahar remains exposed to the “bare life” conditions.