They Call me Muslim: Muslim women in the media through and beyond the veil

Abstract

As the laws that regulate Islamic veiling continue to generate global controversy, the 2004 documentary film They Call Me Muslim can provide a fruitful starting point for discussions of the veil and of Muslim women in the media. In the film, director Diana Ferrero interviews two women, each ostracized by her own society for her decision regarding the veil. Samah, a university student, decides to wear a veil in increasingly Islamophobic Paris, whereas K, a young mother living in Tehran, resists wearing a veil despite being compelled to do so by Iranian law. By juxtaposing Samah's and K's stories, Ferrero creates a forum for meaningful conversation among diverse, outspoken Muslim women. Yet, throughout the film she also constructs her own overarching narrative of feminist, Muslim women who believe in choice. By viewing They Call Me Muslim through the lenses of medical anthropologist Arthur Frank's illness narrative “standpoint” and the framework of the medical gaze, this paper seeks to illuminate important tensions in this film. While Ferrero creates a space for these marginalized women to make their voices heard, she also in a sense places them as objects to be “unveiled,” analyzed, and pathologized by English-speaking viewers. Ferrero's message of “freedom of choice,” which ultimately supersedes each individual woman's story, echoes the value of patient autonomy and individual choice at the center of Western medicine today. Thus, this paper seeks to analyze the ways in which the standpoint, the medical gaze, and individual choice function in relation to each other in this film as well as how these concepts illuminate and expand discussions about veiling.