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NEW: Marjane Satrapi’s death has reignited a debate over whether her work challenged Western stereotypes about Iran or reinforced them. The argument speaks to a larger question: Who gets to tell Iran's story? |
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Marjane Satrapi and the 'Orientalism' Debate
The death of Marjane Satrapi has reignited a debate over whether “Persepolis” challenged Western stereotypes about Iran or reinforced them. The argument speaks to a larger question: Who gets to tell a...
![Consider the following statement by Andrew George, commenting on a king being referred to as a kulu’u: “The insult becomes sharper when
one considers that a kulu’u, if he was like an assinnu, took the female role in homosexual intercourse.”Apart from the view of the “female” role in homosexual intercourse as naturally insulting, which George seems not to question, the statement shows how a perceived sameness between the ancient terms can be used to stretch the evidence from one to the other. This same tendency towards seamless equations applies equally well to the modern terms. That a gala can generally be regarded as “a eunuch, an impotent man, a homosexual, or a cross dresser,” reveals a frame of thought in which these identities are seen as somehow the same. For example, Gwendolyn Leick states that “[o]ne factor which speaks in favour of the social integration of asexuals, homosexuals, etc. is the very range of terminology to describe them.” But that range is clearly not present in Leick’s own argument. The list “asexuals, homosexuals, etc.” is rendered bizarre both by its juxtaposition and by its abruptness: exactly what propinquity is there between asexuals and homosexuals? and what other identities does this “etc.” hide? The repeated slippage in modern scholarship between homosexuality and transgender, effeminacy and impotence, non-normative sexuality and castration shows an alarming lack of concern for different non-cisgendered, non-heterosexual identities, even as these are exactly what is being investigated.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:arfcapfcunqoezxvtb2xjlad/bafkreie2kbbnnd5rwh3gp3ttivqcp2bakrq3putjzdrudznz7mudlqhxji)
