Zombies, Islam and the West: Criminalizing the Veil

• In Event: Media, Culture, and Crime

Abstract

The veil is often seen either as the symbol of women’s oppression, or as their refusing to be a part of the “Western” culture. In order to eliminate both the potential threat of otherness as well as women’s oppression by Muslim men, the veil has been criminalized by countries such as France and Belgium, and has been a topic of discussion in many others, including the United States. The veiled woman who does not give up her veil is assumed as unassimilable, or, to use Sara Ahmed’s terminology, as “stranger strangers”. Even this refusal, however, is seen as having no individual identity, rationale, dignity or consciousness. She lives like an automaton, under the influence of her religious community and ideals. In the mainstream representation, the veiled woman is zombified.

Scholars note the marked increase in the production of zombie films since September 11, 2001. This paper will show the connection between these two phenomena- the mainstream discourse on the veil and the popular culture, which is exemplified with the rise in the number of zombie films. I will suggest that these films signify the anxiety ‘we’ feel about being ‘contaminated’ by ‘the other’. The anxiety we feel about being ‘converted’ into the other’s deadly cause. However, this anxiety only reproduces itself through the West’s imaginaire of Islam, and through the continuing de-humanization of Muslims: by making them only human-like.

Author

• Ilgin Yorukoglu, CUNY Borough of Manhattan Community College