{"id":585,"date":"2008-06-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/muslimahmediawatch.wordpress.com\/2008\/06\/09\/messing-with-the-zohan-sexism-in-sandlers-movie-2\/"},"modified":"2011-12-08T23:34:58","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T03:34:58","slug":"messing-with-the-zohan-sexism-in-sandlers-movie-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/mmw\/2008\/06\/messing-with-the-zohan-sexism-in-sandlers-movie-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Messing with the Zohan–Sexism in Sandler’s Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I went to see You Don\u2019t Mess With the Zohan <\/span>this weekend. I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Adam Sandler\u2019s, so it was mostly to see Maysoon Zayid make a cameo in the film (tip: at one point, she slams the phone down and yells, \u201cSHARMUTA!\u201d Which was worth half the cost of my movie ticket!). And because I figured there would be something to write about.<\/p>\n

Strap on your surprised faces, because I have stuff to complain about! Since this is about Muslim women, I\u2019m going to try to stay on topic, but I have to get these critiques off my chest: first, what\u2019s with all the freaking hummus?! Various characters would dip things into hummus or use it for random emergencies throughout the movie. Boy, did that get old fast. We get it, okay? Middle Eastern people eat a lot of hummus?! Let that horse just die<\/span>, won\u2019t you?!<\/p>\n

Second, it really bothered me that the only semi-positive message of interfaith unity in the movie occurred because of the U.S. context; interfaith dialogue (and dating) seemed to be possible only because the two main characters were in the U.S., treating the Israel\/Palestine situation like it was a lost cause. Like an Israeli and a Palestinian have never <\/span>hooked up outside of the U.S. Please<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Okay, now to what really mattered: how were Muslim women treated in the film? Answer: like every other woman in the film. As passive slabs of meat.<\/p>\n

For the first half of the film (this piece is almost two hours long\u2013you\u2019ve been warned), Muslim women were shown as background in Israel\/Palestinian town scenes or New York scenes. Head scarves were worn without any fuss or special attention being made; a nice thing was the head scarves weren\u2019t all same color; there appeared to be a little bit of color and diversity among the headscarf wearing sisters. At least they didn\u2019t show them all in black from head to toe, right?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But other than the appearance of the main character, a Palestinian named Dalia (played by Emmanuelle Chriqui, of Moroccan-Jewish-French descent, pictured here) who Zohan eventually falls in love with, Muslim women are just background. We\u2019re not given Dalia\u2019s religious background, only told that she\u2019s Palestinian, which is supposed to communicate to the viewer that she is Muslim.<\/p>\n

There are plenty of Israeli women, but their appearance is nothing to be envious of: they\u2019re shown exclusively in bikinis or underwear, salivating over Zohan at the beach or at his home.<\/p>\n

When Zohan gets to New York and becomes a hair dresser, women (of no particular ethnicity or religion) are still pieces of meat; he shampoos and styles the hair of elderly women and then gives them a \u201chappy ending\u201d before sending them on their way. None of these women object to Zohan\u2019s inappropriate thrusting during their shampoos; on the contrary, they seem pleased with his sexual attention. I can guarantee you my mother wouldn\u2019t be down with a haircut like that, but Sandler wants us to believe that everyone else\u2019s mother or grandmother would.<\/p>\n

We get back to Muslim women when Zohan\u2019s Palestinian rival \u201cThe Phantom\u201d (played by John Turturro) is tipped off that Zohan is alive and in New York. He\u2019s shown on a cell phone in the middle of four seemingly-identical women wearing black scarves with gold thread, tied around the face in a ninja\/niqab fashion. They look like \u201cOriental Mystery\u201d Barbie dolls. And, of course, they\u2019re all fawning over him.<\/p>\n

The Palestinian who tips the Phantom off (played by Rob Schneider) wants something in return for his services. He tries to barter with the Phantom, asking for \u201c20 of [his] wives.\u201d When he doesn\u2019t get that, he keeps trying until the Phantom agrees to having one of his wives \u201ctouch the pee pee\u201d of this informant. Here, wives are like cattle or magic beans: they get traded and are used as currency.<\/p>\n

I busted a fuse when the Phantom is shown in a Rocky<\/span>-esque scene, getting ready for his fight with Zohan. He wakes up underneath a pile of at least fifteen women, all in sexy bras and underpants. A PILE OF WOMEN?! Yes, folks. We\u2019re all polygamists and that\u2019s how polygamy works with us: everybody sleeps on top of each other in wanton disarray. I felt like I had taken crazy pills. He wakes up, and shoos them off of him, like they\u2019re dogs who slept on the bed when they weren\u2019t supposed to. (brain exploding)<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not just women who get the shaft from this movie: the male behavior in this movie (Israeli or Palestinian) reinforces the idea that Middle Eastern men have no respect for women, treating them as property, sexual objects, or both. Which is worse? Showing these women as passive receivers as sexuality, or showing men as hypersexual beasts with no self-control or regard for the women they shtup<\/a>? Answer: both. In this movie, everybody\u2019s a loser.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went to see You Don\u2019t Mess With the Zohan this weekend. I\u2019ve never been a huge fan of Adam Sandler\u2019s, so it was mostly to see Maysoon Zayid make a cameo in the film (tip: at one point, she slams the phone down and yells, \u201cSHARMUTA!\u201d Which was worth half the cost of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":411,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema"],"yoast_head":"\nMessing with the Zohan--Sexism in Sandler's Movie<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I went to see You Don\u2019t Mess With the Zohan this weekend. 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