Chimera Veil of “Iranian Woman” and Processes of U.S. Textual Commodification: How U.S. Print Media Represent Iran

Abstract

This research explores how U.S. print media construct a specific commodified version and vision of Iran by using consistent and iconic images of Iranian women. The text for analysis comprises print media reports from 1995 to 1998, including a range of stories from serious news to fashion and other entertainment. The method, critical textual analysis, uses verbal and visual evidence to interrogate the social, ideological practices involved. Findings suggest that almost without exception, stories, whatever their actual content, are anchored by the graphic illustrations of Iranian women, veiled in the apparently impenetrable black chador. These visuals help fund a new ideological perspective, one that has been recovered and refurbished from the rich past of Orientalist discourse. But this version is a finely polished pastiche that relies on visually ambiguous veiled women seemingly indistinguishable from the familiar and yet unmistakably new: Iran itself is gendered female. That veil, prolific of meaning, parsimonious of form, is a global product symbol.