Turbans, Veils, and Villainy on Television: <i>Stargate SG1</i> and <i>Merlin</i>

Bullock, Katherine

doi:10.13169/reorient.6.2.0151

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ReOrient

Volume 6, Issue 2

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Turbans, Veils, and Villainy on Television: Stargate SG1 and Merlin

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Author(s): Katherine Bullock

Publication date (Print): 1 April 2021

Journal: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

Keywords: niqab, turban, veil, face, Stargate, Merlin, Muslim women and men's dress, television, entertainment

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Abstract

In this article I investigate why two shows from different television genres in two different countries resort to nearly identical costume choices to convey villainy. I argue that that the directors, writers, and costume designers for the US science fiction show Stargate SG1 and BBC's Merlin use orientalist tropes of the veil as exotic, oppressed or threatening as costumes for their non-Muslim characters because of the centuries-long association in Western culture between Muslim veiling and the Other, while differentiating between acceptable and unacceptable headgear and face coverings. I draw on Said's Orientalism, Hall's Encoding/Decoding, medievalism, and the theory of the ethnonormative viewer to make this case. The “veil” has become an iconic negative sign in the West wholly distinct from meanings given to it by veiled Muslim women themselves. I suggest that anti-veiling ideology in Western publics stems in part from negative connotations given to it in television shows like Stargate SG1 and Merlin.

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Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50009694

Journal ID (jcode): reorient

Title: ReOrient

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 2055-5601

ISSN: 2055-561X

Publication date (Print): 1 April 2021

Volume: 6

Issue: 2 ( doiID: 10.13169/reorient.6.issue-2 )

Pages: 151-172

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University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada katherine.bullock@ 123456utoronto.ca

Article

Publisher ID: reorient.6.2.0151

DOI: 10.13169/reorient.6.2.0151

SO-VID: 9c5acc59-300e-4a63-87f2-2dce4f9f4dd3

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Literary studies,Religious studies & Theology,Social & Behavioral Sciences,History,Philosophy

Keywords: entertainment,Stargate,face,turban,Muslim women and men's dress,niqab,television,Merlin,veil

Works Cited

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Alsultany, E. (2012) Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11. New York: New York University Press.
Angus Reid Institute (2018) Religious symbols in the workplace: Opinion nuanced in and outside Quebec, driven by specific symbols. 4 December, http://angusreid.org/religious-symbols-workplace-quebec/.
Arjana, S. R. (2015) Muslims in the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
BBC News (2018) The Islamic veil across Europe. 31 May, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13038095
Binns, D. (2017) The Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq. Chicago: Intellect.
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Bullock, K. (2002). Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes. Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought.
Bullock, K. (2015) Visible and invisible: An audience study of Muslim and non-Muslim reactions to orientalist representations in I Dream of Jeannie. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research. 8 (2), 83-97.
Bullock, K. (2017) Entertainment or blackface? Decoding orientalism in a post-9/11 era: Audience views on Aladdin. With Steven Zhou. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. 39 (5), 2017, 446-69.
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Chakraborti, N. and Zempi, I. (2012) The veil under attack: Gendered dimensions of Islamophobic victimization. International Review of Victimology. 18 (3), 269-84.
Clarke, L. (2013) Women in Niqab Speak: A Study of the Niqab in Canada. Gananoque: Canadian Council of Muslim Women.
Cowan, D. E. (2010) Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film and Television. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.
Donker, V. van B. and Yorke, S. (2018) Re-imaging the colonial encounter in Stargate: SG-1: Discourses of linear progress and separate development. Interventions. 20 (5), 734-49.
Edkins, J. (2015) Face Politics. New York: Routledge
Edwards, J. C. (2015) Casting, plotting, and enchanting: Arthurian women in Starz's Camelot and the BBC's Merlin. Arthuriana. 25 (1), 57-81.
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Freeman, L. (n.d.) Stargate Emancipation Transcript, https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s1/emancipation/transcript/.
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Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
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Shaheen, J. (1984) The TV Arab. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.
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Stargate SG1 Episode summaries: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Category:SG-1; also https://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Jack_O%27Neill
Stargate SG1 images at https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/
Taylor, L. K. and Zine, J., eds. (2014) Muslim Women, Transnational Feminism and the Ethics of Pedagogy Contested Imaginaries in Post-9/11 Cultural Practice. New York: Routledge.
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Tollerton, D. C. (2015) Multiculturalism, diversity, and religious tolerance in modern Britain and the BBC's “Merlin”. Arthuriana. 25 (1), 113-27.
Yeğenoğlu, M. (1998) Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Ahmad, S. M. (2019) Islamophobic violence as a form of gender-based violence: A qualitative study with Muslim women in Canada. Journal of Gender-Based Violence. 3 (1), 45-66.

[2] Alsultany, E. (2012) Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11. New York: New York University Press.

[3] Angus Reid Institute (2018) Religious symbols in the workplace: Opinion nuanced in and outside Quebec, driven by specific symbols. 4 December, http://angusreid.org/religious-symbols-workplace-quebec/.

[4] Arjana, S. R. (2015) Muslims in the Western Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

[5] BBC News (2018) The Islamic veil across Europe. 31 May, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13038095

[6] Binns, D. (2017) The Hollywood War Film: Critical Observations from World War I to Iraq. Chicago: Intellect.

[7] Bourke, L. (2014) The image of the Minoan in science fiction. Foundation; Dagenham. 43 (118) (Autumn), 9-18.

[8] Bullock, K. (2002). Rethinking Muslim Women and the Veil: Challenging Historical and Modern Stereotypes. Herndon, VA: International Institute of Islamic Thought.

[9] Bullock, K. (2015) Visible and invisible: An audience study of Muslim and non-Muslim reactions to orientalist representations in I Dream of Jeannie. Journal of Arab and Muslim Media Research. 8 (2), 83-97.

[10] Bullock, K. (2017) Entertainment or blackface? Decoding orientalism in a post-9/11 era: Audience views on Aladdin. With Steven Zhou. Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies. 39 (5), 2017, 446-69.

[11] Bullock, K. (2018) Orientalism on television: A case study of I Dream of Jeannie. ReOrient. 4 (1), 4-23.

[12] Bullock, K. (2020) We are all niqabis now: Coronavirus masks reveal hypocrisy of face covering bans. The Conversation, 27 April, https://theconversation.com/we-are-all-niqabis-now-coronavirus-masks-reveal-hypocrisy-of-face-covering-bans-136030.

[13] Byng, M. D. (2010) Symbolically Muslim: Media, hijab, and the West. Critical Sociology. 36 (1), 109-29.

[14] Cass, J. (2015). The turban as metonymy: Reading orientalism in Charlotte Brontë's Villette. The CEA Critic. 77 (2), 189-95.

[15] Chakraborti, N. and Zempi, I. (2012) The veil under attack: Gendered dimensions of Islamophobic victimization. International Review of Victimology. 18 (3), 269-84.

[16] Clarke, L. (2013) Women in Niqab Speak: A Study of the Niqab in Canada. Gananoque: Canadian Council of Muslim Women.

[17] Cowan, D. E. (2010) Sacred Space: The Quest for Transcendence in Science Fiction Film and Television. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press.

[18] Donker, V. van B. and Yorke, S. (2018) Re-imaging the colonial encounter in Stargate: SG-1: Discourses of linear progress and separate development. Interventions. 20 (5), 734-49.

[19] Edkins, J. (2015) Face Politics. New York: Routledge

[20] Edwards, J. C. (2015) Casting, plotting, and enchanting: Arthurian women in Starz's Camelot and the BBC's Merlin. Arthuriana. 25 (1), 57-81.

[21] Elmes, M. R. (2015) Episodic Arthur: Merlin, Camelot and the visual modernization of the medieval literary romance tradition. In M. Pagès and K. Kinane (eds.), The Middle Ages on Television: Critical Essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 99-121.

[22] Ferreras, J. and Abedi, M. (2019) Trudeau on Quebec's Bill 21: It's not government's job to legislate what people wear. Global News, 20 June, https://globalnews.ca/news/5413922/justin-trudeau-quebec-bill-21/.

[23] Freeman, L. (n.d.) Stargate Emancipation Transcript, https://www.gateworld.net/sg1/s1/emancipation/transcript/.

[24] Golnaraghi, G. and Dye, K. (2016) Discourses of contradiction: A postcolonial analysis of Muslim women and the veil. International Journal of Cross Cultural Management. 16 (2), 137-52.

[25] Gottschalk, P. and Greenberg, G. (2008) Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

[26] Hall, S. (1980) Encoding/Decoding. In S. Hall, D. Hobson, A. Lowe and P. Willis (eds.), Culture, Media, Language. London: Willis, Hutchinson & Co., 117-27.

[27] Hamilton, A. (2001) The study of Islam in early modern Europe. Archiv fur Religionsgeschichte. 3, 169-82.

[28] Jiwani, Y. (2011) Trapped in the carceral net: Race, gender, and the “war on terror”. Global Media Journal, Canadian edition, 4 (2), 13-31.

[29] Johnson-Smith, J. (2005) American Science Fiction TV: “Star Trek”, “Stargate” and Beyond. London: I. B. Tauris.

[30] Kahf, M. (1999) Western Representations of the Muslim Woman: From Termagant to Odalisque. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

[31] Khamal, R. (2019) What it's like to wear the niqab in (not so tolerant) Canada. Globe & Mail, 3 July. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/first-person/article-what-its-like-to-wear-the-niqab-in-not-so-tolerant-canada/.

[32] Khir Allah, G. (2015) Veiling and revealing identity: The linguistic representation of the hijab in the British press. In M. C. La Barbera (ed.), Identity and Migration in Europe: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Cham: Springer International Publishing, 229-49.

[33] Lerner, D. (1958) The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.

[34] Meredith, Elyss T. (2015) Gendering morals, magic and medievalism in the BBC's Merlin. In M. Pagès, and K. Kinane (eds.), The Middle Ages on Television: Critical Essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co., 158-69.

[35] Merlin episode summaries and photos https://merlin.fandom.com/wiki/Merlin_(TV_Series) and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00mjlxv Merlin Villains, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00qd39j/p00qcjlg

[36] Mirrlees, T. (2016) Hearts and Mines: The US Empire's Culture Industry. Vancouver: UBC Press.

[37] Morey, P. and Yaqin, A. (2011) Framing Muslims: Stereotyping and Representation After 9/11. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

[38] Park, J. H., Gabbadon, N. G. and Chernin, A. R. (2006) Naturalizing racial differences through comedy: Asian, black, and white views on racial stereotypes in Rush Hour 2. Journal of Communication. 56, 157-77.

[39] Pagès, M. and Kinane, K., eds. (2015). The Middle Ages on Television: Critical Essays. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co.

[40] Philipps, D. (2019) “This is unacceptable.” Military reports a surge of sexual assaults in the ranks. New York Times, 2 May, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/02/us/military-sexual-assault.html.

[41] Rane, H., Ewart, J. and Martinkus, J. (2014) Media Framing of the Muslim World: Conflicts, Crises and Contexts. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

[42] Robert, N. B. (2005) From My Sisters' Lips: A Compelling Celebration of Womanhood – and a Unique Glimpse into the World of Islam. London: Bantam Press.

[43] Said, E. (1979) Orientalism. New York: Vintage Books.

[44] Saleem, Muniba, Prot, S., Anderson, C.A. and Lemieux, A. F. (2017) Exposure to Muslims in media and support for public policies harming Muslims. Communication Research. 44 (6), 841-69.

[45] Shaheen, J. (1984) The TV Arab. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press.

[46] Shaheen, J. (2009). Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. 2nd ed. Northhampton, MA: Olive Branch Press.

[47] Sherman, J. (2015) Source, authority, and audience in the BBC's Merlin. Arthuriana. 25 (1), 82-100.

[48] Stansbury, T. (2020) COVID-19 exposes the hypocrisy of face covering in Quebec. Toronto Star, 21 April, https://www.thestar.com/opinion/contributors/2020/04/21/covid-19-exposes-the-hypocrisy-of-face-covering-in-quebec.html.

[49] Stargate SG1 Episode summaries: https://stargate.fandom.com/wiki/Category:SG-1; also https://www.gateworld.net/wiki/Jack_O%27Neill

[50] Stargate SG1 images at https://www.gateworld.net/gallery/

[51] Taylor, L. K. and Zine, J., eds. (2014) Muslim Women, Transnational Feminism and the Ethics of Pedagogy Contested Imaginaries in Post-9/11 Cultural Practice. New York: Routledge.

[52] Terman, R. (2017) Islamophobia and media portrayals of Muslim women: A computational text analysis of US news coverage. International Studies Quarterly. 61 (3), 489-502.

[53] Thomas, E. E. (2019) The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games. New York: New York University Press.

[54] Tollerton, D. C. (2015) Multiculturalism, diversity, and religious tolerance in modern Britain and the BBC's “Merlin”. Arthuriana. 25 (1), 113-27.

[55] Yeğenoğlu, M. (1998) Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. New York: Cambridge University Press.