In 2014, Kazakh filmmaker Nurtas Adambay produced a movie, which can be considered as a socio-cultural phenomenon not only reflecting the Kazakhstan reality but also affecting its perception by the masses. Sociologist Zhannur Dildabayeva in her article for analytical platform CABAR.asia presents her thoughts on how “Kelinka Sabina” still influences the gender discourse in Kazakhstan.
Influence of films on gender development
Many scholars report about the considerable role of mass media, especially of films, in shaping thoughts and perceptions of society and the world. Films alter viewers’ behavior and actions as they receive a behavior model of particular characters with whom they would like to bear a resemblance [1]. Similarly, the traditional portrayal of women and men based on gender role stereotypes construct opinion and attitudes to social roles of each other [2].
According to studies, mass media influence gender development (sometimes even from childhood) as many films represent “one of the two genders” as dominant and the second as weak, and in most cases “it is the male characters that are dominant” [3]. In many films males are active, females are passive; men do things while women serve as the object of erotic contemplation [4]. Images of males and females in the film impact perception of gender issues because certain gender roles “uplift and strengthen the images of men” while even strong and independent women characters “cannot dispute the evident gender power structure” [5].
In this article, the most famous Kazakhstani film about family and marriage called “Kelinka Sabina” will be analyzed to explore the portrayal and social role of women. Movie rating is 7,5/10 on IVI.ru and about 20 mln views on Youtube. In addition, the film was shown on the Kazakhstan Republican TV channel “Seventh channel”.
Summary of the film
The film “Kelinka Sabina” is a comedy film produced by Nurtas Adambay in 2014 in Kazakhstan. The name of the film constitutes two words: ‘kelin’ means daughter-in-law and Sabina is the name of a girl. The narrator of the film is the main character Sabina – daughter of a wealthy family who lives a luxurious life in Almaty and gets everything she wants: daily shopping, meetings with friends, cars, etc. The only thing she lacked was a groom who could provide her with sumptuous life in Dubai. One of Friday evenings in a restaurant, she meets a man who pretends as a sheikh and makes a marriage proposal in the first dating. Although he promised her to fly to Dubai the same night Sabina wakes up in the village Zhugeri in South Kazakhstan. She is outraged for being deceived and kidnapped for marriage and she does not want to stay, however, relatives of the groom are celebrating that kelin came to their home and preparing for their marriage.
The next scenes of the film show numerous attempts of Sabina to escape from this village and how her ‘new family’ interfered with her. Then she gives up and pretends that she obeys the will of the groom, his parents and accepts her situation. Over time, a family relationship is established between Sabina and her new family and she adapts to new life.
At the end of the film, she escapes after knowing that her kidnapping was organized by her father to make her ‘a normal person’. Nevertheless, she is happy to return to her husband Zhanibek to the village because she cannot imagine her life without her new family.
So this is a story about a girl who makes many attempts to escape but returns of her own free will to her husband and family who kidnapped her and forced her to stay.
Why the movie is still relevant, but not as a comedy?
Though produced back in 2014, “Kelinka Sabina” reflects two main problems, acute for Kazakhstan society and widely discussed nowadays: gender-based violence and the law enforcement reform. Beginning from 2018, a huge reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) is being conducted in Kazakhstan. National activists and NGOs, as well as foreign consultants, are in charge of training police officers on how to be more human-oriented and to be more open and ready to help. This includes working with the victims of gender-based violence and kidnapping [6].
“Kelinka Sabina” presents us kidnapping of a bride as a Kazakh tradition, but what is worse – it normalizes it through the humor lens. The script resembles a horror movie about a kidnapping, but the comedic visualization turns it into a “funny and hilarious” story. Laughing at the situation, the audience accepts it and percepts as nothing criminal.
At the time, in 2019 alone, it is known of around 210 cases of girls kidnapped as brides [7]. Taking into account that such crimes are usually latent [11], of how many other cases we do not even know. However, the challenges for Sabina do not end with kidnapping. After the abduction, she wrote a statement to the police and brought an action to the judiciary.
The problem is that even when Sabina turned to law enforcement officers, they did not even try to solve her problem. Her husband and parents-in-law were not arrested based on the law for the abduction and unlawful deprivation of liberty of Sabina which shows the inaction of a police officer and judge who did not protect her rights and freedom.
To understand the scale of the problem with police indifference, we need to be reminded of stories of real victims of domestic violence. Like Sabina, even when they are ready to report on the crime they have to struggle: writing a statement to police is “a very bureaucratic process and often subject families and victims to humiliation” [8].
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), in Kazakhstan police officers often encourage women to reject their statements and go to reconciliation with the aggressor [9]. Police discourage victims from filing complaints or they are “dismissive or hostile” towards reports about abuse because they do not perceive domestic violence as a crime. [9]. This leads, for example, to the fact that in 2019, as a result of the reconciliation of the parties, almost 60% of administrative cases were terminated – 14 998 [10].
According to the 2020 Kazakhstan Human Rights Report, bride kidnapping is still quite common, although 12 years of imprisonment can be assigned [8]. Also, based on HRW, police officers often do not provide information about special social services and protection mechanisms, including the possibility of providing shelter for victims of domestic violence [9]. Considering the above, we can say that the film decriminalizes bride kidnapping since the police officer and the judge did not regard Sabina’s abduction as a crime and a violation of her rights.
Escalation of the problem of kidnapping
Why talk about domestic violence, when the movie is just about alyp kashu (tradition of kidnapping girl), one may ask. In reality, the two phenomena have a lot in common than we may think.
Meanwhile, “alyp kashu” in many cases presupposes not only limiting girls’ freedom but also may include harassment, sexual and domestic abuse by a future husband. Alyp kashu is actually the first step when a future husband demonstrates the priority of his will over the girl’s freedom. At first, the abuser creates a comfortable environment for committing physical violence and domestic violence almost never starts with beatings [11]. It is preceded by controlling behavior (limiting the circle of contacts, controlling whereabouts, and reading personal correspondence) and psychological abuse, which may escalate to physical abuse as well [11].
According to the Units for the Protection of Women from Violence highlights that alcoholic intoxication and jealousy are major causes of domestic violence [12]. For instance, in June 2021 in West Kazakhstan, a man out of jealousy stabbed his girlfriend [13] and in October 2019 in Nur-Sultan, the husband set fire to his wife during a family conflict due to jealousy [14].
However, the problem is that the aggressor in domestic violence can be not only a husband but also his relatives. For example, in the Almaty region, mother-in-law beat daughter-in-law until she lost consciousness [15]. The Public Foundation “Institute of Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Kazakhstan” conducted a study, which revealed that the main reason for divorce in Kazakhstan is the interference of relatives in the life of the family [16].
In the film “Kelinka Sabina”, the husband’s relatives behave aggressively towards the daughter-in-law throughout the film. In particular, the film shows many scenes of parents-in-law and husband commanding, speaking offensively, shouting at Sabina. Even her husband’s teenager nephew was commanding and making Sabina serve him.
Kazakh researchers studying the Kelin Institute think that violence against kelin is manifested in the fact that they have “the lowest and most marginal position and status” among family members and are deprived of “the right to have freedom of choice, the right to self-determination, the right to education and the right to rest” [17]. In Kazakh families, an unmarried girl has a high status among relatives which declines after marriage because she becomes kelin whose authority is even lower than that of adolescents.
Can “Kelinka Sabina” be considered a feminist movie if the kidnapper was punished?
The film “Kelinka Sabina” could have had both negative and positive effects. Finally, it raises significant social issues and exaggerates them so that we could see our society as in an ugly mirror.
On the one hand, the film carries a negative message, because the abduction of Sabina is not considered a crime, while the groom and his relatives celebrated and held the wedding without the consent of the bride.
On the other hand, it draws attention to the problem of equalizing the role of kelin to a waitress, domestic servant, a disrespectful and hostile attitude of other family members towards kelins. This film could be considered a feminist film that raises important social issues related to the low status and exploitation of kelins, domestic violence, indifference, and negligence of law enforcement agencies to the rights and freedoms of women.
But that would only be the case if Sabina went to the police to arrest the kidnapper, instead of returning to him.
It turns out that even though this comedy film draws attention to the importance of the issue of bride kidnapping and violation of women’s rights, the last scene of the film, where Sabina happily returns to her husband, completely discredits the previously raised social issues.
This means that the main message of the film for girls and boys is that in our country a woman should return to her husband and save her family, even if he kidnapped her and married without her consent. If I were in the same situation as Sabina, until the end of the film I would think that my rights were violated and my freedom was limited and that what happened to me was actually a crime, not a tradition. However, like Sabina, in the last episode of the film, I would accept my situation as normal and would not fight for my rights and freedom. Simply because it is so accepted and considered normal, also thanks to this kind of film.
Although the film was filmed seven years ago, its theme and discourse are reflected in later Kazakhstani films and TV series: “Q-eli” (2017), “Stories of Kulpash” (2017), “An angel without a crown” (2017), “Serial emes” (2019), “Kelinder” (2019), “Kelinzhan” (2020), “Bikeshter” (2020) that were broadcast in republican and private TV channels -“Seventh channel”, “Khabar”, “Astana TV” and “HIT TV”.
This suggests that the perception and discourse of the discussion of gender issues remain the same. These films and TV series continue to normalize sexism, gender discrimination, unequal rights, domestic exploitation of kelins and violence, disrespect for women, and promote the mission and social role of women as mothers, wives, and unpaid domestic workers.
At the same time, such films as “Rejected” (2018), “Wife” (2021), TV series “Mystan” (2021) which raise the problem of domestic and sexual violence, are not broadcast on any republican TV channel. The question remains: does Kazakhstani television production reflect an offensive and disrespectful attitude towards women, or does it propagandize it?
In 2014, Kazakh filmmaker Nurtas Adambay produced a movie, which can be considered as a socio-cultural phenomenon not only reflecting the Kazakhstan reality but also affecting its perception by the masses. Sociologist Zhannur Dildabayeva in her article for analytical platform CABAR.asia presents her thoughts on how “Kelinka Sabina” still influences the gender discourse in Kazakhstan.
Influence of films on gender development
Many scholars report about the considerable role of mass media, especially of films, in shaping thoughts and perceptions of society and the world. Films alter viewers’ behavior and actions as they receive a behavior model of particular characters with whom they would like to bear a resemblance [1]. Similarly, the traditional portrayal of women and men based on gender role stereotypes construct opinion and attitudes to social roles of each other [2].
According to studies, mass media influence gender development (sometimes even from childhood) as many films represent “one of the two genders” as dominant and the second as weak, and in most cases “it is the male characters that are dominant” [3]. In many films males are active, females are passive; men do things while women serve as the object of erotic contemplation [4]. Images of males and females in the film impact perception of gender issues because certain gender roles “uplift and strengthen the images of men” while even strong and independent women characters “cannot dispute the evident gender power structure” [5].
In this article, the most famous Kazakhstani film about family and marriage called “Kelinka Sabina” will be analyzed to explore the portrayal and social role of women. Movie rating is 7,5/10 on IVI.ru and about 20 mln views on Youtube. In addition, the film was shown on the Kazakhstan Republican TV channel “Seventh channel”.
Summary of the film
The film “Kelinka Sabina” is a comedy film produced by Nurtas Adambay in 2014 in Kazakhstan. The name of the film constitutes two words: ‘kelin’ means daughter-in-law and Sabina is the name of a girl. The narrator of the film is the main character Sabina – daughter of a wealthy family who lives a luxurious life in Almaty and gets everything she wants: daily shopping, meetings with friends, cars, etc. The only thing she lacked was a groom who could provide her with sumptuous life in Dubai. One of Friday evenings in a restaurant, she meets a man who pretends as a sheikh and makes a marriage proposal in the first dating. Although he promised her to fly to Dubai the same night Sabina wakes up in the village Zhugeri in South Kazakhstan. She is outraged for being deceived and kidnapped for marriage and she does not want to stay, however, relatives of the groom are celebrating that kelin came to their home and preparing for their marriage.
The next scenes of the film show numerous attempts of Sabina to escape from this village and how her ‘new family’ interfered with her. Then she gives up and pretends that she obeys the will of the groom, his parents and accepts her situation. Over time, a family relationship is established between Sabina and her new family and she adapts to new life.
At the end of the film, she escapes after knowing that her kidnapping was organized by her father to make her ‘a normal person’. Nevertheless, she is happy to return to her husband Zhanibek to the village because she cannot imagine her life without her new family.
So this is a story about a girl who makes many attempts to escape but returns of her own free will to her husband and family who kidnapped her and forced her to stay.
Why the movie is still relevant, but not as a comedy?
Though produced back in 2014, “Kelinka Sabina” reflects two main problems, acute for Kazakhstan society and widely discussed nowadays: gender-based violence and the law enforcement reform. Beginning from 2018, a huge reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) is being conducted in Kazakhstan. National activists and NGOs, as well as foreign consultants, are in charge of training police officers on how to be more human-oriented and to be more open and ready to help. This includes working with the victims of gender-based violence and kidnapping [6].
“Kelinka Sabina” presents us kidnapping of a bride as a Kazakh tradition, but what is worse – it normalizes it through the humor lens. The script resembles a horror movie about a kidnapping, but the comedic visualization turns it into a “funny and hilarious” story. Laughing at the situation, the audience accepts it and percepts as nothing criminal.
At the time, in 2019 alone, it is known of around 210 cases of girls kidnapped as brides [7]. Taking into account that such crimes are usually latent [11], of how many other cases we do not even know. However, the challenges for Sabina do not end with kidnapping. After the abduction, she wrote a statement to the police and brought an action to the judiciary.
The problem is that even when Sabina turned to law enforcement officers, they did not even try to solve her problem. Her husband and parents-in-law were not arrested based on the law for the abduction and unlawful deprivation of liberty of Sabina which shows the inaction of a police officer and judge who did not protect her rights and freedom.
To understand the scale of the problem with police indifference, we need to be reminded of stories of real victims of domestic violence. Like Sabina, even when they are ready to report on the crime they have to struggle: writing a statement to police is “a very bureaucratic process and often subject families and victims to humiliation” [8].
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), in Kazakhstan police officers often encourage women to reject their statements and go to reconciliation with the aggressor [9]. Police discourage victims from filing complaints or they are “dismissive or hostile” towards reports about abuse because they do not perceive domestic violence as a crime. [9]. This leads, for example, to the fact that in 2019, as a result of the reconciliation of the parties, almost 60% of administrative cases were terminated – 14 998 [10].
According to the 2020 Kazakhstan Human Rights Report, bride kidnapping is still quite common, although 12 years of imprisonment can be assigned [8]. Also, based on HRW, police officers often do not provide information about special social services and protection mechanisms, including the possibility of providing shelter for victims of domestic violence [9]. Considering the above, we can say that the film decriminalizes bride kidnapping since the police officer and the judge did not regard Sabina’s abduction as a crime and a violation of her rights.
Escalation of the problem of kidnapping
Why talk about domestic violence, when the movie is just about alyp kashu (tradition of kidnapping girl), one may ask. In reality, the two phenomena have a lot in common than we may think.
Meanwhile, “alyp kashu” in many cases presupposes not only limiting girls’ freedom but also may include harassment, sexual and domestic abuse by a future husband. Alyp kashu is actually the first step when a future husband demonstrates the priority of his will over the girl’s freedom. At first, the abuser creates a comfortable environment for committing physical violence and domestic violence almost never starts with beatings [11]. It is preceded by controlling behavior (limiting the circle of contacts, controlling whereabouts, and reading personal correspondence) and psychological abuse, which may escalate to physical abuse as well [11].
According to the Units for the Protection of Women from Violence highlights that alcoholic intoxication and jealousy are major causes of domestic violence [12]. For instance, in June 2021 in West Kazakhstan, a man out of jealousy stabbed his girlfriend [13] and in October 2019 in Nur-Sultan, the husband set fire to his wife during a family conflict due to jealousy [14].
However, the problem is that the aggressor in domestic violence can be not only a husband but also his relatives. For example, in the Almaty region, mother-in-law beat daughter-in-law until she lost consciousness [15]. The Public Foundation “Institute of Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities of Kazakhstan” conducted a study, which revealed that the main reason for divorce in Kazakhstan is the interference of relatives in the life of the family [16].
In the film “Kelinka Sabina”, the husband’s relatives behave aggressively towards the daughter-in-law throughout the film. In particular, the film shows many scenes of parents-in-law and husband commanding, speaking offensively, shouting at Sabina. Even her husband’s teenager nephew was commanding and making Sabina serve him.
Kazakh researchers studying the Kelin Institute think that violence against kelin is manifested in the fact that they have “the lowest and most marginal position and status” among family members and are deprived of “the right to have freedom of choice, the right to self-determination, the right to education and the right to rest” [17]. In Kazakh families, an unmarried girl has a high status among relatives which declines after marriage because she becomes kelin whose authority is even lower than that of adolescents.
Can “Kelinka Sabina” be considered a feminist movie if the kidnapper was punished?
The film “Kelinka Sabina” could have had both negative and positive effects. Finally, it raises significant social issues and exaggerates them so that we could see our society as in an ugly mirror.
On the one hand, the film carries a negative message, because the abduction of Sabina is not considered a crime, while the groom and his relatives celebrated and held the wedding without the consent of the bride.
On the other hand, it draws attention to the problem of equalizing the role of kelin to a waitress, domestic servant, a disrespectful and hostile attitude of other family members towards kelins. This film could be considered a feminist film that raises important social issues related to the low status and exploitation of kelins, domestic violence, indifference, and negligence of law enforcement agencies to the rights and freedoms of women.
But that would only be the case if Sabina went to the police to arrest the kidnapper, instead of returning to him.
It turns out that even though this comedy film draws attention to the importance of the issue of bride kidnapping and violation of women’s rights, the last scene of the film, where Sabina happily returns to her husband, completely discredits the previously raised social issues.
This means that the main message of the film for girls and boys is that in our country a woman should return to her husband and save her family, even if he kidnapped her and married without her consent. If I were in the same situation as Sabina, until the end of the film I would think that my rights were violated and my freedom was limited and that what happened to me was actually a crime, not a tradition. However, like Sabina, in the last episode of the film, I would accept my situation as normal and would not fight for my rights and freedom. Simply because it is so accepted and considered normal, also thanks to this kind of film.
Although the film was filmed seven years ago, its theme and discourse are reflected in later Kazakhstani films and TV series: “Q-eli” (2017), “Stories of Kulpash” (2017), “An angel without a crown” (2017), “Serial emes” (2019), “Kelinder” (2019), “Kelinzhan” (2020), “Bikeshter” (2020) that were broadcast in republican and private TV channels -“Seventh channel”, “Khabar”, “Astana TV” and “HIT TV”.
This suggests that the perception and discourse of the discussion of gender issues remain the same. These films and TV series continue to normalize sexism, gender discrimination, unequal rights, domestic exploitation of kelins and violence, disrespect for women, and promote the mission and social role of women as mothers, wives, and unpaid domestic workers.
At the same time, such films as “Rejected” (2018), “Wife” (2021), TV series “Mystan” (2021) which raise the problem of domestic and sexual violence, are not broadcast on any republican TV channel. The question remains: does Kazakhstani television production reflect an offensive and disrespectful attitude towards women, or does it propagandize it?
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295030009388413
[2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1007119516728
[3] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.846
[4] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-portrayal-of-Women-and-Gender-Roles-in-Films-Alzahrani/773cd536ae70790a4828b9056f1693264de5d595
[5] https://www.jstor.org/stable/431572
[6] https://www.kz.undp.org/content/kazakhstan/ru/home/presscenter/news/2021/april/spotlight-initiative-round-table.html
[7] https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-brobe-kidnapping/30466749.html
[8] https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/kazakhstan/
[9] https://www.hrw.org/ru/news/2019/10/17/334789
[10] https://vlast.kz/obsshestvo/37127-bet-i-budet-bit.html
[11] https://vlast.kz/avtory/36193-odomasnennoe-nasilie.html
[12] https://forbes.kz/news/2020/10/21/newsid_236020
[13] https://liter.kz/razyarennyj-revnostyu-pyanyj-muzhchina-udaril-nozhom-vozlyublennuyu-na-glazah-u-rebenka/
[14] https://www.kazpravda.kz/projects/page/7615048
[15] https://www.kt.kz/rus/incidents/v_almatinskoy_oblasti_svekrov_izbila_
snohu_do_poteri_1377906172.html
[16] https://liter.kz/23250-2/
[17] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634937.2020.1850423?journalCode=ccas20
[1] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15295030009388413 [2] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1007119516728 [3] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2010.03.846 [4] https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/The-portrayal-of-Women-and-Gender-Roles-in-Films-Alzahrani/773cd536ae70790a4828b9056f1693264de5d595 [5] https://www.jstor.org/stable/431572 [6] https://www.kz.undp.org/content/kazakhstan/ru/home/presscenter/news/2021/april/spotlight-initiative-round-table.html [7] https://rus.azattyq.org/a/kazakhstan-brobe-kidnapping/30466749.html [8] https://www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/kazakhstan/ [9] https://www.hrw.org/ru/news/2019/10/17/334789 [10] https://vlast.kz/obsshestvo/37127-bet-i-budet-bit.html [11] https://vlast.kz/avtory/36193-odomasnennoe-nasilie.html [12] https://forbes.kz/news/2020/10/21/newsid_236020 [13] https://liter.kz/razyarennyj-revnostyu-pyanyj-muzhchina-udaril-nozhom-vozlyublennuyu-na-glazah-u-rebenka/ [14] https://www.kazpravda.kz/projects/page/7615048 [15] https://www.kt.kz/rus/incidents/v_almatinskoy_oblasti_svekrov_izbila_
snohu_do_poteri_1377906172.html
[16] https://liter.kz/23250-2/ [17] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02634937.2020.1850423?journalCode=ccas20