Allison Terlizzi- Cultural Globalization

            The media has severely impacted the way we view middle-eastern women and their culture in general. What the media presents to us in a country very different and very far away is a distorted picture compared the way women are actually able to live. Pop culture accentuates stereotypes and journalists show us the exact opposite of the way middle-eastern women participate in their society in order to keep Westerners invested in the work we are doing in the Middle East.

            The Pop Matters article by Chris Fitzpatrick on the song “Addictive” by Truth Hurts comments on the artist’s choice to use exotic belly dancers in mystical, luxurious setting. The women are depicted as “haremesque”, soaked in henna and brightly colored clothing. The artist doesn’t portray the wasteland that is India. We choose not to associate India with poverty and despair, but rather we just focus on the small portion of the elite and how they may or may not live. Truth Hurts displays the “Westernized Middle East” in showing a palace night-club, but in reality Indians do not party like this.

            Pop culture media misrepresents Middle Eastern culture entirely and Truth Hurts is an artist doing just that. She doesn’t show the destruction caused by the war, and how America’s influence is increasing drug lords. India thus becomes part of an anti-American terror network because of all the violence we are bombarded with in the media.  Kevin Miller speaks on the Bolly’hood remix by Truth Hurts but in a different sense. He suggests there is a fascination with Indian culture but this fascination is built mostly on fantasy. He brings up the excellent question- should we expect to learn lessons in geography and culture from popular music? We should expect to but the truth is we don’t. Everything is so misrepresented by the media that we don’t know what the truth is. Also, in “Veiled Intentions” by Jarmakani, she brings up the James Bond movies and the ‘harem image’ as a success in pop culture. Is this an undertone of our support for the subordination of Middle Eastern women? What lessons can we take away from icons like this?

            In “Unveiling Imperialism: Media, Gender and the War on Afghanistan” Stabile and Kumar bring up important issues about the history of Afghani women and what has caused their current state of subordination. We have become a nation centered on what the media tells us, and the elites are selling the war to the US public (Stabile & Kumar, 766). We try to paint pictures of the middle east and what is going on over there to make ourselves feel better about our aggressive involvement, meanwhile terrible conditions are still in effect for women especially. Because the US has funded the mujahideen and trained them to what the public sees as “freedom fighters” we have allowed the perpetual subordination of women (Stabile & Kumar, 767). Public life has suffered and women are no longer allowed to work, go to school, leave their homes and were forced into wearing a burqa (Stabile & Kumar, 769). This all has occurred because we found economical interest in the oil trade in Afghanistan.

            The images in “Once Upon a Time in Tehran” gave me a sense of what Iran looked like before US and eventually Taliban influence. It showed that in the 60’s and 70’s Iran was booming with culture and was extremely progressive in art and literature. Before the Islamic Revolution the city was very modern, as the architecture in the city seemed very modern. We see women in education. In Afghanistan it was even more evident, as we see women practicing medicine, mingling with other men on university campuses and all possessing a sense of hope and promise in their situations. Violence now terrorizes the country as women are always covered.

            Furthermore, the media has denied women their agency because the situation itself is underreported. They are invisible (Stabile & Kumar, 772). The coverage they received was in regards to their access to education and the burqa, failing to explore the refugee situation so dominantly affecting them. Perhaps it is Western influence that caused the Taliban to subordinate women? They learned their techniques that put them in power from us after all. On a more positive note, after the war women have started going back into the public realm, not anything like how it used to be but (Stabile & Kumar, 775). But we continue to glorify the situation so that people remain vested in the product coming out of Afghanistan. We want to keep taking their oil and pretend that everything is all right. I remember watching specific segments on Fox, MSNBC and CNN which all represented this. I recall wondering how this was even possible for women in a nation at war with so much tension between religious groups, government and other countries influencing them in all different directions for there to be positive change. They misrepresented these people entirely because our interest was not getting the country on its feet and making gender relations more equal, but to satisfy our interests in oil.

            Lastly, in “Veiled Intentions” by Jarmakani, she discusses the representations of Arab and Muslim womanhood in relation to globalization (Jarmakani, 139). The “Afghan Girl” McCurry photographed was a refugee from Soviet attacks on her village that highlighted the victimization of Muslim women during this time. The US was involved in training these barbaric assassins, as Stabile and Kumar had said. By framing his study as a search, McCurry puts the white man in charge of rescuing her, as his “burden” (Jarmakani, 144). Through McCurry’s photo, she gives us an image of Muslim womanhood and we make our own assumptions. The mythology of the veil acts the same way- we present a concept so backwards in our media that gets everyone on board to stop it, but what we really don’t know is that our efforts are not going into ridding the veil as much as we think. We can’t understand the veil, and we construct it’s meaning based on what the media shows us (Jarmakani, 153). How can we better our media stations to present unbiased journalism to the public? I do not believe it is possible until we prioritize ourselves as a nation that openly supports either the drilling for oil as its primary goal OR the liberation of women as its primary goal.