Has anyone watched Unorthodox on Netflix? Is it like those Muslim women stories where a woman finds liberation by fleeing the chains of her faith with a culmination of that internal struggle in a scene where she removes her her hijab/sheitel.

because I am —very— tired of that

even if true stories, there is such an obsessive trope on the unveiling of women of faith (except catholic nuns) - Amish women (and rumspring), Orthodox Jewish women leaving unhappy marriages and entering a secular existence; any excuse to unveil a Muslim woman character.

I remember watching the Harrison Ford movie “The Witness” as a kid and there’s a scene where he sees this beautiful Amish mother naked and even as an 11 year old I was like “this feels like fetishization”.

ftr I wasn’t 11 when it came out. for some reason we rented it from blockbuster because it was 1999 and you had 30 minutes to pick something for the whole family before your mom said fine we’re not watching anything.

I want to make clear that this isn’t a dismissal of those experiences - but rather a critique of how this is -The Story- told about women, about faith and women in faith in film/TV. It’s not a single, dehumanized experience. That and the obsession with unveiling, undressing.

Unveiling/undressing Muslim women in Euro-American (& that inspired by it) film/tv is rooted in a long tradition. Think harem-obsessed orientalist painters who dreamed of naked Muslim women so much they created images they had never seen - the motifs & consequences have endured.