ORENTALSM TV.

Islamophobia in Homeland

CHRISTINE MLLER
MAIL: CHRISTINE.MUELLER01@GMX.DE
MA: FILM & TELEVISION
(FRIEDRICH-SCHILLER-UNIVERSITT JENA, GERMANY)
ISTANBUL BILGI UNIVERSITY
FACULTY OF BUSINESS
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
COURSE: ISLAM AND THE WEST: BRIDGING THE GAP
LECTURER: PROF. DR. AYAN KAYA

On the one hand there are Westerners, and on the other there are Arab-Orientals;
the former rare (in no particular order) rational, peaceful, liberal, logical, capable of
holding real values, without natural suspicion; the latter are none of these things.1
This quote of Edward Said the famous orientalist, is stated in 1978. Said also connected
anticolonial political movements and ideological critiques with structuralist and
poststructionalist theory. His statement is still remaining valid in the context of how the West
(Occident) produces itself discursively in diametric opposition to the East (Orient). The
postulated Orientalism is based on the thought of ontological and epistemological distinction
between West and East. According to Said the world is divided in two different shapes: The
civilized, rational, scientific, cultured and moral west (Occident), and the uncivilized,
irrational, unscientific, culturally inferior and immoral east (Orient). This distinction has a
long history in literature, art and culture, down the present day.2
Not surprisingly film and television engages with this theoretical buttress for an analysis. In
this context Television is a mass medium for entertainment, advertisement and increasingly
for education and news. As already postulated TV is a primary medium which shape the way
we think. It informs us about something we do not know yet and it has a huge influence on
our point of view, the public opinion in societies and the socialisation. Since 2010 with the
invention of Internet TV (Web 2.0) and Smart TV the availability of TV programs and movies
has increased through services such as Netflix, Amazon Prime and iPlayer. TV-series are
getting a greater importance, especially because they tell us truths about how public is handle
with complex and debated topics.
One of the most popular and watched TV-shows is Homeland (the 5th season is currently
broadcasted on TV). It is an American terrorism thriller developed by Howard Gordon and Alex
Gansa, who produced as well the TV-series 24. Homeland is about an American soldier Marine
Sergeant Brody (Damian Lewis), who was rescued after 8 years in captivity in Afghanistan. He
returns home to the United States as a hero sought after by politicians hoping to exploit his
war hero celebrity. The CIA-Agent Carrie Mathison (Claire Danes) is to take down the fictitious
terrorist leader Abu Nazir (Navid Negahban). Meanwhile Sergeant Brody was tortured for
years Carrie tries to figure out, if Brody switched sides and became a Jihadi by himself.
Referring to the film genre Terror TV3 the following essay wants interlink to Orientalism TV,

Edward Said: Orientalism. London 1978. P. 49.

At this point there should be made an adding to other research scientists who noted that Islam | Muslims and
the West | Christianity are treated as the opposites. See: Akbarzadeh\ Smith 2005; Halliday 1999; Poole 2002;
Runnymede Trust 1997; Sardar and Davis 2002.
3
The influence of 9/11 and its aftermaths on programming for televisions were especially provided by Stacy
Takacss Terrorism TV: Popular Entertainment in Post-9/11 America. According to Takacs the TV-Genre worked
to manufacture popular consent for a new security regime and affiliated policies.
2

a content-based area of filmproductions, who are focusing on stereotyped presentations of

the East, the Orient and/ or the Islam.
On the one hand Homeland takes a good hard look at the US governments so-called War on
terror4 after the 9/11 attacks, hence the rise of Islamophobia and the fear against terroristic
organisations. The series puts out questions about moral ambiguity, political corruption and
the purpose of the war in Afghanistan. In addition complex narrative and complicated
characters were positively assessed by the critical respond. On the other hand the audience
is confronted with lots of stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims. The view of them is a distortion
of Middle Eastern realities. As students of the Harvard University mentioned:
Homelands depictions of Muslim terrorists indicate Islamophobia in American culture and
engage in an overly broad generalization of the Middle East, Islam, and terrorism.5
First there is to mention the cover of the 3th season of Homeland. The female protagonist
Carrie Mathison is clearly highlighted in-between the black covered, averted women. While
she is wearing the signal colour red, obviously intended bad-covering her bright hair, we do
not see anything individual, personal of the surrounded women. Carrie is extraordinary staged
as the other. The character is focused as an opposition to the Muslim women. Situated in
the centre of the image, she looks straight forward to the viewer. Agent Carrie Mathison is
outstanding as a film character, because of her gender, bipolar illness, her unorthodox
methods and her independence in-between the male-oriented business.

Although 9/11 changed everything in terms of the representation of Arabs and Muslims, there
is a solid tradition of troubled representational relationships between East and West, when
Said discussed this issue in pre-9/11. What Said6 focuses primarily on the Middle East the
territory occupied principally by Muslims. What he argues is that European domination took
not only political and economic forms, but also a cultural form. It involved the construction of
a particular discourse, Orientalism, whose structure promoted the difference between the
familiar (Europe, the West, us) and the strange (the Orient, the East, them or the other).7
The treatment of Muslims is a potentially marginalizing characterization of Islam. Indeed
Homeland shows high-profile Muslims. They are integrated, successful and sometimes
glamorous. BUT unfortunately they are sharing to be helpers of Abu Nasir, the Al Qaeda
leader. In other words, it does not matter whether they are rich, smart, discreetly enjoying a
western lifestyle or attractive: all are to be suspected.8 In fact Homelands bad guys who are

Leslie Goffe: The Homeland phenomenon. In: The Middle East (02/ 2013). p. 55.
http://www.iop.harvard.edu/homeland-islamophobic-propaganda-or-progressive-masterpiece
6
Said: Orientalism Reconsidered. Race and Class 27. P. 19.
7
Amir Saeed: Media, Racism and Islamophobia. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.17519020.2007.00039.x/full.
8
Peter Beaumont: Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims. In: The Guardian.
13.10.2012.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2012/oct/13/homeland-drama-offensive-portrayalislam-arabs.
5

threatening the United States are ALL Muslims. They are getting generalised and be portrayed
as devious and cruel characters.
There is a key-scene when the audience sees Brody secretly praying in his garage. It exploits
the viewers initial surprise seeing the US American Sergeant worshipping Allah and refuting
the stereotypical assumption that Brodys faith is evidence that he is a terrorist.9 After
postulating being a Muslim it puts out the question if this makes him a terrorist. His wife, an
incidental and weak character, takes these clichs, while she shouts angrily: These [Muslims]
are the people who tortured you, these are the people who if they found out Dana [Brodys
daughter] and Xander were having sex, theyd stone her [...] in a soccer field! The Islam as a
religion, the Quran as a holy book of billions of people throughout history, is nothing more or
less than terrorism and medieval justice embodied.
Brody as a white, a hero, a family man is representing the West: rational, peaceful, liberal,
logical, capable of holding real values. But he threw it all away by becoming a Muslim, in
accordance with external terms as irrational, unscientific, culturally inferior and immoral
east. His wife thought that Brody had put all the crazy stuff behind him. According to Said
the Orient is defined as a contrasting image, idea, personality and experience.10 This Othering
is so strong that is does not require any further information about the others. Peter Beaumont
emphasizes that Homeland presents an odd and unbelievable image of the relationships
between cultures and countries in the Middle East. The series does not distinguish between
Saudis, Iraqis and Palestinians11. Most of the Muslim figures do not have an individual identity,
hence they are represented in a crowd. This fact is underlined by the use of Arabic language,
which is perceived unknown and impossible to understand for the viewer.
In fact Said exactly claims that one cannot speak about the Islam and the Muslims, as
misused terms in Western societies as a projection for something more than a religious cover.
Moreover, he notes that:
In newsreels or newsphotos, the Arab is always shown in large numbers. No
individuality, no personal characteristics or experiences. Most of the pictures
represent rage and misery, or irrational gestures. Lurking behind this is the menace of
jihad. Consequence: a fear that the Muslims (or Arabs) will take over the world.12
By framing the Muslims as a homogeneous group or as monolithic entities there is a process
of simplifying. This distinction is useful to the media in maintaining the stereotypes it creates
of Islam.

See: Castonguay: Fictions of terror. P. 6.

Said 1978, p. 1f.
11
And then there's a more substantial puzzler: why would an al-Qaida (Sunni) Jihadi type be cooperating with
(Shia, Iranian-backed) Hezbollah anyway? Occasional rumours and propaganda apart, there's never been any
hint that Tehran has backed al-Qaida, though it did shelter some Bin Laden relatives for a while. Further
information see: Ian Black: Homeland. Does it give an accurate picture of Middle East politics.
12
Said: Orientalism. London 1978. P. 287.
10

In October 2012 the Lebanese government was reportedly planning to sue Homelands
producers. This was caused by a misrepresentation of Lebanese scenes, which were filmed in
Israel. Especially in the second season (episode Beirut is Back) the popular Hamra Street in
Beirut is portrayed as the place where the head of the Al Qaeda meet Hizbullah intermediaries.
The Lebanese government was annoyed by portraying the Lebanese capital as a hotbed of
terrorists and random attacks on foreigners.13 As the Lebanese Tourism Minister Fady
Abboud mentioned:
This kind of film damages the image of Lebanon it is not fair to us and its not true,
it is not portraying reality, he said. We want to take action, we want to write to the
filmmakers and producers and demand an apology. And we are planning to raise a
lawsuit against the director and the producer.14
Jad Melki, director of the Media Studies Program at the American University of Beirut, said
the portrayal was disappointing but not surprising. We have been dealing with this for over
a century, the portrayal of Arabs in the US is that we are all Islamists living in the desert, evil
and angry all the time.15

Beside the odd far-fetched twist between America and Lebanon in the plot, there are factual
errors, because the Lebanese scenes were filmed in Israel. While Carrie is pursued down a
Beirut alleyway, the audience get a look at posters and ads in Hebrew language. Other
13

Joe Dyke: Whose Homeland is that? Lebanese government to sue American TV hit over Beirut portrayal.
17.10.2012. http://www.executive-magazine.com/buzz/homeland-beirut-lebanon-lawsuit-controversy/5269.
14
See above.
15
See above.

glimpses of Israel include cars with blurred yellow Israeli license plates, a famous clock tower
in Jaffa and a rooftop scene showing the Tel Aviv skyline.16

The trend for depicting Muslims as terrorists gets in the following scene of the Back in Beirut
episode explicit: Saul a Jewish CIA officer leaves Lebanon, while a Lebanese customs official
accosts him, comments on his Judaism, steals a government-classified computer chip, and
demands that Saul [as a Jew] never enter again.17 Later in the episode the audience finds out,
that Saul expected the treatment of customs official and therefore he planted instead of a
fake ship, [...] indicating this level of corruption and anti-Semitism is to be expected of
Muslims in the world of the show.

Homelands Islamophobia appears in subtle ways and it dismisses and excuses racism and
prejudices. Meanwhile focusing on the Muslims as terrorist and mixing up the different
cultures, backgrounds and specific religious movements. The portrayed image of Muslims
work up to a climax, when the homogeneous Muslim-people presented in a general
stereotype of violent fanatics. The characters are veiled, chaotic, criminal and of course
terrorists. Homeland shows the terrorists through flashbacks in two settings: Either fervently
praying to Allah or torturing US-American soldiers.
Graffiti artists employed to create slogans for a refugee camp in Season 5 actually wrote antiHomeland slogans such as "Homeland is a joke, and it didn't make us laugh" on the set in
protest at the show's portrayal of Muslims.

16
17

Black: Homeland: does it give an accurate picture of Middle East politics.

http://www.iop.harvard.edu/homeland-islamophobic-propaganda-or-progressive-masterpiece

In fact Homeland is a fictional series, but it plays with real backgrounds, like the American war
on terror and its credibility. It represents a vague, universal truth about a perceived enemy
and its representation. This means in particular, it is not only a Popular culture [that] informs
and echoes our prejudices.18 News, documentaries as well as entertainment programmings
are seen to perform many of the same strategic tasks in proposing, constructing and conveying
various meanings of terror attacks (like 9/11) to viewers.19 In turn this helps fear of the ethnic
or religious other and ultimately willing to sacrifice democratic ideals to an ever more
powerful surveillance state.20

Conclusion: Rethinking media/ rethinking Islamophobia.

Media influences are researchable. This is a reason why media scholars have an important
work to do in unpacking the ideologies expressed in film and television content. This invites
us to rethink the contemporary popular culture, especially in the communication sector. It is
our everyday task to call into question systems that represent images of their own creation
for reasons of maintaining hegemonic structures of knowledge and power. We need to get
aware of the process of otherisation, that reinforces conflicts of something we fear or are
suspicious of. Finally we can summarize, that media is biased and at times overtly racist in its
attitudes towards Muslim people.
In fact Homeland represents Muslims as homogenized as dangouereous and cruel. The role of
the media in representing Muslims/Islam should be to formulate in the sense of beginning
principle to create stories by representation of the Orient. Insofar the East should be
represented by itself and not like always from outside.

18

Beaumont: Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims.
See Prince: Terrorism TV. Popular Entertainment n Post-9/11 America. In: Cinema Journal (4/ 2015), Volume
54. P. 179.
20
Alsultany: Arabs and Muslims in the Media. Elsewi: Arabs and Muslims in the Media. P. 4.
19

Facts are nothing, interpretation is everything.

Literature
Castonguay: Fictions of terror.

Goffe, Leslie: The Homeland phenomenon. In: The Middle East (02/ 2013). p. 55.
Said, Edward: Orientalism. London 1978.
Takacs, Stacy: Terrorism TV: Popular Entertainment in Post-9/11 America.
Prince, Stephen: Terrorism TV. Popular Entertainment n Post-9/11 America. In: Cinema
Journal (4/ 2015), Volume 54. P. 178 183.
Alsultany, Evelyn: Arabs and Muslims in the Media. Race and Representation after 9/11. New
York 2012.

Internet sources
http://www.iop.harvard.edu/homeland-islamophobic-propaganda-or-progressivemasterpiece
Beaumont, Peter: Homeland is brilliant drama. But does it present a crude image of Muslims.
In:
The
Guardian.
13.10.2012.
In:
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-andradio/2012/oct/13/homeland-drama-offensive-portrayal-islam-arabs.
Dyke, Joe: WHose Homeland ist hat? Lebanese government to sue American TV hit over Beirut
portrayal. 17.10.2012. http://www.executive-magazine.com/buzz/homeland-beirut-lebanonlawsuit-controversy/5269.
Black, Ian: Homeland. Does it give an accurate picture of Middle East politics. In: The Guardian.
25.
10.
2012.
http://www.theguardian.com/tv-andradio/tvandradioblog/2012/oct/25/homeland-accurate-picture-middle-east-politics.