In the last 25 years, the American media landscape has been flooded by stories of war and conflict in the Middle East. In the perspective of many American spectators, the Middle East is a chaotic and even frightening place full of terrorists and extremism. While such terrors exist in the Middle East, attending to the intersection of colonialism and war can tell a different tale of terror in the region. In this post, I analyze how this plays out in the 2016 Iranian horror film Under the Shadow where the arrival of an American-made missile in 1980s-Tehran brings with it a haunting by a Djinn.[1] The film provides nuanced commentary on the history of the Middle East which acknowledges that regressive readings of the Islamic faith domestically have been worsened by outside economic meddling by British and American corporate interests. Not unlike Jordan Peele’s now canonical Get Out (2017), Babak Anvari’s Under the Shadow is part of a wave of films describing the horrors of inequality and racism in a globalizing world that serves the needs of modern, European, industrial societies while robbing the rest of the world’s people of basic means of subsistence.[2]
The titular shadow refers both to the rise of mandatory veiling laws and the continued colonial interference by British and American oil companies—interference which has disrupted and continues to disrupt the socioeconomic stability of the Iranian people in a modern, rapidly industrializing world. The film weaves together criticism of this economic theft and the development of toxic misogynistic habits from within to show how these forces feed off each other. For instance, the demonic entity—or djinn—that appears after the arrival of a bomb is shown in an Islamic veil, or chador, reflects the anxieties that Iranians continue to feel about the role of religion, spirituality, and native consciousness.[3]
Under the Shadow opens with Shideh (Narges Rashidi) who learns that her university appeal process has been denied and that she can’t go back to school to finish her doctoral studies. Shideh’s political activism during the Islamic revolution has disqualified her (it is implied) because she is a woman. In this opening scene, the university’s cleric tells her, in harsh and uncompromising terms, that she will not be admitted to university. In this scene we see two different participants in the 1979 revolution who are now on opposite sides of the newly born Islamic republic contending about gender roles. During this conversation, just before he determinedly denies Shideh entrance to the university, the cleric and Shideh’s eyes are both drawn to a window where the audience sees a bomb exploding in the visible distance. Once brought back to the matter at hand, we learn that Shideh is officially barred from attendance. The timing here is crucial. In this scene, we are shown how sexist tendencies in one community can be multiplied by the imposition of a chaotic situation from outside—in this case, from British and American petroleum interests and the wars and instability they had instigated.[4]
Iran is not unique in its fate as a cash cow for advanced industrial societies whose consumption patterns have outrun their own stocks of natural resources. Many people have written about how the profoundly unequal allocation of Earth’s resources is the real reason behind most world conflicts even if many descriptions in popular media focus on culture and religion as primary causes instead.[5] The messiness of global connections are again and again reviewed from both an anti-sexist and anti-colonial perspective in Under the Shadow. The film makes it clear that these sexist mentalities were already there long before outsiders came to snatch up the petroleum, but the theft of such resources has made it much worse.
Concurrent with this critique of colonialism, the film addresses internal sexism in a number of scenes throughout the film such as when Shideh’s landlord accuses her of failing to lock a garage door, implying that because she is the only women in the building who drives a car, it must be her negligence causing the problem. Later in the film, Shideh’s husband makes a vague claim about how Shideh is neglectful of their daughter, Dorsa (Avin Manshadi), and advises that Shideh should behave in a more conventionally motherly fashion. Under the Shadow shows the many faces of sexism inside a society that has contradictory ideas about women’s competence in both public and private spaces while also—and very importantly—noting that these problems are informed by, and multiplied by, incessant outside meddling. When a community is under threat, policies are sometimes made to pander to male frustrations that generate a sense of security in the public. When the Napoleonic Code was put into force in France during the wars of 1848, for example, women were stripped of their individual liberties and authority was consolidated into the hands of men. Similarly in Islamic history, when the newly-formed Muslim community initially fled from their place of origin, Mecca, to a neighboring city Medina, something alike to the Napoleonic Code was put into place. Amid the drama of founding a new religion and fleeing their place of origin, the new Muslim community encountered hostility and harassment from the people of Medina, particularly towards Muslim women. When asked for a suggestion, the prophet famously told women to stay at home. Centuries later, sexist Muslim men who don’t read their own histories or holy books use this statement to try and control women.
The example of the Napoleonic code from modern French history and the 6th century example from Islamic history share a similar thread: communities under threat often pander to male frustrations as a peace-keeping tactic.[6] This phenomenon is a recurring theme in Under the Shadow. After the missile lands on the roof of the apartment building (without detonating), it leaves a rupture in the ceiling through which the aforementioned djinn enters and exits the world of Shideh and Dorsa. After being spotted by Dorsa, the djinn engages in a campaign of fitna against Shideh and Dorsa. The Islamic notion of fitna refers to “civil strife” and is rooted in the first civil war in the history of Islam, the one that erupted soon after the death of the prophet (PBUH), and the one which continues to haunt the Muslim community through ongoing Shia/Sunni tensions.[7] It is important to note that the Iran-Iraq war broke out two years after the 1979 Islamic revolution when Saddam Hussain made territorial claims on Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province and the Reagan administration armed and aided both sides (Iran and Iraq) during this conflict. This is a textbook example of fitna where colonial powers prolonged and amplified a war that ended up killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians and Iraqis.
Just like this fitna that the Reagan administration stirred between Iran and Iraq, the djinn hides Dorsa’s doll and starts telling Dorsa that her mom has taken it away. The djinn also hides Shideh’s workout cassette, which Shideh later finds in the garbage, implicating Dorsa as she is the only other person in the house. The sowing of fitna, or civil unrest, in this household alludes to the strategic and calculated fitna imposed on Iran and Iraq by the Reagan administration and acknowledges how imperialism from outside and sexist bias from within can feed on each other. While Under the Shadow critiques sexist oppression in post-revolutionary Iran by focusing, in some sense, on the private sphere, it folds the narrative into a larger social and historical event (the Iran-Iraq war), to describe the impact of imperialist intrusion on internal social development.
As the djinn’s aggressions escalate throughout the film, Shideh flees her home forgetting to wear the newly mandatory Islamic veil. She is promptly picked up by revolutionary guards and sent to jail where she is reminded, by yet another cleric, of her main duty in life: to guard her modesty. With this dark turn, Shideh and Dorsa are sent back into the private sphere to a now escalated haunting. In their second attempt to escape this home that has now become a prison, the djinn seizes Dorsa, and Shideh throws herself into an attack on the djinn, creating the most visually striking scene in the film: Shideh is shown drowning in the fabric of an Islamic veil. This heavy-handed symbolism makes a clear statement about women’s struggles in the Islamic Republic while avoiding criticisms that categorically denounce Islam and suggest that Iranians see themselves as pseudo-Europeans instead.[8] Perhaps most importantly, this film’s critique of the Islamic Republic acknowledges the influence of interference from more powerful and wealthy countries. With a critique anchored in native ideas and mythologies, this diaspora film gives a nuanced reading of the crises facing Iranian people without rejecting what remains sacred to many Iranian people who don’t find themselves in European culture which is, after all, a culture that does not easily accept outsiders and differences.In its very title, Under the Shadow, provides a double-edge criticism of internal sexism and external imperialism by highlighting how women’s situation in post-revolutionary Iran is always informed by both: the shadow is a demonic entity haunting the splitting of society into public and private spheres and the shadow is an American-made missile sold through Israeli channels.
Now, in January of 2023, Iran continues making headlines for the current popular protests erupting in the streets of the nation and the media continues to focus on culture and religion as if it is totally separate from historical struggles and ongoing trade wars. Despite this, Iranians are making their will known to the authoritarian clerical regime that has so miserably failed the promises of the 1979 revolution as they crack down on protesters and brutalize their own people who are protesting an economic situation that has left half of the nation in poverty. Meanwhile, the Western media continues to focus only, perhaps obsess over, the image of the veil.
[1] The Djinn are entities from Islamic theology said to inhabit an invisible world that exist parallel to the one inhabited by human beings. Of the Djinn it is said that 30 tribes exist and walk on land, move in fires, and fly in the sky, et cetera.
[2] For a brief history of the third-world struggle, please see Vijay Prashad’s The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third-World or Anour Majid’s Postcolonial Islam in a Polycentric World.
[3] The chador is a covering that conceals the entire body, except for the face, and is worn within or outside the home. The in-home chador is usually made of colorful and floral fabrics and is the veil of choice during prayer. The outdoor chador is normally all black or navy blue and is almost always worn by women who work in public service. The djinn in this story appears in an in-home chador perhaps emphasizing the ways that the private sphere of the home became such a major enclosure for women in the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
[4] Like many regions in the Third-World, British and American corporate interests have dramatically re-shaped the destinies of entire nations as British and American governments either stood by tacitly or actively aided in maintaining these corporate interests. In the case of Iran, the British government enabled William Knox D’Arcy’s brazen theft of Iranian oil and American business interests motivated the 1953 CIA-backed overthrow of a democratically elected secular leader (Mohammad Mossadegh). For one small glimpse and altogether depressing look into this history, please see The Rise and Fall of OPEC in the Twentieth Century by Giuliano Garavini.
[5] Immanuel Wallerstein’s World-Systems Analysis provides this kind of reading of current world crises.
[6] In the case of this famous statement by the prophet, as Fatima Mernissi notes in her book The Veil and the Male Elite, the city of Median in which the young Muslim community had taken shelter was under siege when members of the prophet’s household were being specifically targeted and harassed by unwelcoming locals. So, when new Muslims in this new experimental community came to the prophet about the harassment of women, the prophet made a comment about women staying at home. For a detailed account of Islamic history written from a feminist perspective, please see The Veil and the Male Elite: A Feminist Interpretation of Women’s Rights in Islam by Fatima Mernissi (85-101).
[7] The “Ummah” means global Muslim community in Arabic. “Peace Be Upon Him” is invoked by believers who speak the prophet’s name.
[8] Marjane Satrapi’s brilliantly illustrated and iconic Persepolis has some subtle and not so subtle moments of Eurocentrism that I discuss at length in “Global Mobility and Subaltern Knowledge” available online via Peitho https://cfshrc.org/article/introduction-to-the-fall-2022-issue/.
