So I’ve just come back from an excursion to see Towelhead, the new film by Alan Ball (Six Feet Under, American Beauty) that purports to uncover the “truth” about one poor little girl’s nascent Arab sexuality. It was already an ordeal just to pronounce the film’s name at the ticket booth, without feeling pangs of self-inflicted offense.
I came away from the film reeling from a heavy emotional cocktail: confusion, queasiness, embarrassment, and slight nausea. At least 5 people walked out after the first molestation scene (I heard this happened in other movie theatres where the film was shown). The film’s plotline helps to explain some of this: a thirteen year-old girl named Jasira is caught between her negligent, self-pitying American mother and her overprotective, sometimes violent Lebanese father (an engineer for NASA in Houston); she moves in with her dad after her mother catches her “shaving” her bikini line with the mother’s live-in boyfriend; Rifat, Jasira’s dad then puts her on lockdown in his sterile suburban home, trying to force-feed her a Lebanese culture too little too late; Jasira’s new neighbor, an army reservist, takes a creepy liking to her, all while Jasira starts to fall for an african-american classmate; new neighbors enter the picture, a pregnant hippy and her peace corps husband returning from a tour in Yemen (who speaks with a HORRIBLE accent in Arabic, in the few scenes where he so valiantly confronts Jasira’s father); this last husband-wife team “saves” Jasira by offering her shelter from her abusive father and introducing her to — salvation!!– a sexual health book adjusted to the young adult sensibility.
Basically, the film sounds out the warring voices of a debate we have come to know far too well having grown up in Diaspora– surrounding the perils and sometime benefits of raising an Arab child away from their “roots”. Cultural Relativism (represented in the father’s right to raise his daughter any way he sees fit) versus Interventionist Human Rights (represented in the overly concerned hippies whose help comes whether you want it or not). My mother, once I showed her the preview for this film, exclaimed: “Great! Another film that will convince every Arab father never to let his daughter come study in the United States, ever again!”
One great, redeeming facet of the film: you will hear every cherished early 90′s alternative soft-rock jam you can remember, from the Cranberries to Four Non Blondes, or something like that.
Peter Macdissi, was excellent playing a bisexual Lebanese-Armenian hustler in that other Alan Ball stage production All That I Will Ever Be. Here, there are a handful of hilarious moments where he nails the nerdy peculiarities of being a Lebanese engineer in a Texas suburb: he calls rednecks “peasants” and charms women with archaic french aphorisms. The rest of the time, he comes off like a caricature of a caricature, an act of stand-up which loses its ability to represent anything “Lebanese” sincerely since it holds it in such low regard.
What’s most disappointing is that, for all its pretension about lamenting the sexualization of young girls, the movie does more of the same, putting the 20-year-old body of actress Summer Bishil on gratuitous display in seemingly every frame. The film carries an important message about acknowledging youth sexuality and not calling every instance of inter-generational contact “rape” (especially when the younger lover shows considerable agency in pursuing sex). But that message gets lost behind what is at the end of the day just another visual exploitation of an exotic Other’s body, that might have been better suited for the Paris 1900 World Fair.
There are nevertheless a lot of thrillingly uncomfortable scenes in this film– reminiscent of Todd Solondz’ and Harmony Korine‘s best work– as well as some provocative avenues to explore regarding the lines we draw around adolescent sex, across cultures.
After exiting the theater both stimulated and disturbed, my grad student friends and I wondered aloud if “this shit would fly” in a graduate seminar at Columbia taught by, let’s say, Joseph Massad, with a syllabus focusing on belligerent universal humanism and the absurdity of sexual categories. The answer was a resounding “Hell to the No!”.
Related posts:
- Because I didn’t feel like working today…
- Just Because I Feel Like It…
- I don’t feel any safer
- Caaaaaaan you feel the hoob tonight?
- Just Like Back Home
One quibble: Ms. Bishil was only 18 when she played this 13 year-old girl, acc. to the L.A. Times, which profiled her a few days ago.
Cf. Judy Garland in “Wizard of Oz.”
This eve’s new critics on ABC’s movie show were extremely opposed on “Towelhead.” – A F Saidy
Posted by SaidyChess | September 14, 2008, 7:31 pmI really want to see this, but the closest it is playing to me is in Evanston. It’s not even playing in Chicago.
Posted by ally | September 14, 2008, 7:54 pmAs it should be. I guess Chicago has some taste.
Posted by renoona | September 14, 2008, 8:50 pmWhat an unfortunate title for a movie. The title alone makes me want to boycott it. It’s good to hear that the movie was bizarre…more reason not to watch it!
The transliteration of Peter Macdissi name is uber funny. I suppose he’s trying to sound less Arab.
Posted by Madame Mansour | September 14, 2008, 9:53 pmYeah, transliteration. I once knew someone with the last name Khouri who spelled it Courey.
Posted by ally | September 14, 2008, 11:41 pmSlate’s review sounds about right:
“”Provocative without being thoughtful, Towelhead is an exercise in button-pushing that seems unsure of what it wants to say (except to assert, correctly, that being a sexually abused biracial teenager in suburban Houston would really, really suck).”"
Posted by Joe | September 15, 2008, 12:46 amguess that’s what an echo chamber sounds like
Posted by Anonymous | September 15, 2008, 12:12 pmOh, and the Massad reference reminded me: Those who deny the righteous hegemony of universal humanism are actively aiding and abetting bullshit like this: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080915063…
Posted by Joe | September 15, 2008, 12:17 pmGood thing Israel has a police force that will deal with this problem.
The Palestinian police force is the one throwing acid in unveiled women’s faces.
Posted by Anonymous | September 15, 2008, 6:37 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmhi joe, i don’t think massad’s critique of universal humanism would go that far… it is against human rights *interventions*, not necessarily against human rights in their home context. human rights as preached by NGO’s would be great if only they were truly universal and not reflective of a specific western idea about what it means to be human. In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.
Posted by Mehammed "Abou" Mack | September 15, 2008, 8:05 pmI would like to see this movie although it might be discusting once again to see Arabs portraied as abused sex objects, while they are not. As if Arab American issues is only about sex and wearing the Hijab! I have lived in America and 2nd generation Arabs there have 2 major issues:
1. Identity
2. Know to read and write and speak the Arabic language
Arabs in the middle east as practicig pre marriage sex much more than in the US.
Posted by Ali | September 16, 2008, 12:24 am“”In the example you mentioned, the israelis (as a society that includes both the orthodox and the unorthodox) already have methods they have come up with *themselves* to handle the problem, and have not been force fed “better” methods from abroad.”"
Sorry, but this is unadulterated ‘bullshit’. The ‘methods’ the Israelis have come up with are giving the orthodox ‘benign neglect’ which allows them to violate universal (Sorry, no, they’re not just “Western” — they’re rationally and empirically derived, and they’re for everyone) notions of human rights because their silly “god” tells them to.
I’d be plenty up for America making a muscular intervention into rooting out these motherfuckers’ ring-leaders and busting up Chasid control of their Jerusalem neighborhoods as a condition of our continued support for Israel.
Posted by Joe | September 17, 2008, 6:56 pmWow, that’s the kind of Jew we like around here! Which Jewish neighborhoods will you exterminate and can I help?
Posted by Anonymous | September 17, 2008, 7:04 pm“”Wow, that’s the kind of Jew we like around here! Which Jewish neighborhoods will you exterminate and can I help?”"
Calling them ‘Jewish neighborhoods’ is too innocuous. “Illegal settlements constructed by psychotic religious fuckwads” sounds a bit better.
Can you help? Sure. Raise your kids as secular Jews (I assume you’re Jewish, anon?) and have *lots* of them, to counteract the demographic effects of the religious types’ breeding. And advocate that the Israeli government should allow any avowed atheist to make aliyah with the same incentives offered to jews. That’d help.
Posted by Joe | September 19, 2008, 2:23 amOh, nevermind, you were talking about neighborhoods in Jerusalem, not the other post where I said that removing illegal settlers with lethal force is a justifiable policy.
“Exterminate” is the wrong term for what I’m advocating for Jerusalem. Which neighborhoods would I assert a much more muscular secular-state presence, possibly with some sort of forced relocation of influential rabbis who are getting in the way (and no crying about forced relocation, the Israeli state plays that game all the time, if they’re going down that road might as well get some good out of it)? Basically any in Jerusalem that’s controlled by the black hats to an extent that they’re the de-facto authority of the ‘hood.
The religious right in Israel needs to learn some humility, and they respect no lesson other than force.
Posted by Joe | September 19, 2008, 2:27 amYes, there are many who need a lesson in humility, and not just the black hats.
Posted by Anonymous | September 19, 2008, 5:47 am