Remediating the Hoax
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5854164 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gillian Whitlock (0000-0002-6728-0305) |
| Year | 2011 |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue | 69 |
| Pages | 349-367 |
| Publication date | 2011-09-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Australian Feminist Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1321-7568 • E-ISSN: 1465-3303 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/08164649.2011.606605 |
| OpenAlex | W2190891013 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 8 |
In 2004 Norma Khouri's bestselling story of honour killing, Forbidden Love (2003), was revealed to be a hoax. Unexpectedly, in the aftermath of the hoax the fate of Khouri and her book became the subject of a major feminist documentary film by Anna Broinowski, Forbidden Lie$ (2007). The film offers a rigorous consideration of the hoax and its importance in debates about the politics and ethics of transnational and cross-cultural feminist engagements with narratives of distant suffering now. The film reincarnates the hoaxer into a renewed vivid presence, that opens possibilities for thinking about (and with) the hoax and, at the same time, raises questions about the ethics of feminist campaigns against honour killing. Notes 1. For example Forbidden Lie$ was awarded the Al Jazeera Golden Award for long films during the fourth Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival that was held in Qatar in April 2008. 2. This is taken from Luc Boltanski's 1999 Boltanski , Luc. 1999 . Distant suffering: Morality, media and politics . Trans. Graham Burchell . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar] germinal study of spectatorship and witnessing trauma, Distant suffering: Morality, media and politics. 3. There were two German editions of the book scheduled for publication, both published by Rowohlt and titled I Miss You, My Sister. The paperback was withdrawn before release. German editions are catalogued as 'fiction', and the publisher Alexander Fest suggests that memoirs as a genre 'always lie between literature and non-fiction. Americans call this 'faction'' (Mangold 2004 Mangold , Ijoma 2004 . Die Gier nach Realität wird größer . Sueddeutsche.de, July 29. Available from http://www.sueddeutsche.de/kultur/verlegerische-vorsicht-die-gier-nach-realitaet-wird-groesser-1.413386 (Accessed May 2005). [Google Scholar]). Rowohlt also bought the book on the basis of a synopsis and short chapter, and the hard copy sold 35,000 copies. Despite being labelled as 'fiction', the book was withdrawn by Rowohlt in July 2004 (Mangold 2004). I am grateful to Mahsa Mahamied for her research into the German history of Forbidden Love. 4. I am grateful to Thérèse Taylor for access to this material. 5. Moallem argues that the Western trope of the Muslim woman as the ultimate victim of timeless patriarchy defined by the barbarism of the Islamic religion anchors a gendered opposition that recurs in Eurocentric feminist discourses, 'under the sign of the veiled woman 'we' increasingly come to recognise ourselves not only as gendered and heteronormative subjects but also as located in the free West ...' (2005, 20). On the issue of honour killing, 'civilisational thinking' asserts that the problem is inherent in Islam or Arabic culture, as opposed to a more contextualised and historical approach that examines the specific conditions where collective and patriarchal clan structures exert total control over the bodies of women. For example Unni Wikan's research indicates the importance of examining the increase of honour crimes in exilic communities in large European cities, as traditional values are reinforced in exile (2008, 167). 6. In interviews, Norma Khouri cited the UN working estimate that annually about five thousand persons (not always women) die in honour killings. Unni Wikan writes that in many countries the denial of honour crimes and honour killings is a major problem, yet Jordan is an exception: 'Jordan, where an estimated twenty-five honour killings take place yearly, stands out as a country where the authorities admit that honour killing is a major problem and make active attempts to deal with it ... What makes the situation in Jordan so interesting is the openness of the debate' (2008, 83–84). In her film Broinowski interviews men and women who have been longstanding activists on this issue in Jordan. 7. Knox and Overington won a prestigious Walkley Award for investigative journalism in recognition of their work on the Khouri hoax in 2004. 8. Nichols comments on epistemological doubt and reflexive documentary are useful here: 'Knowledge is not only localised but itself subject to question. Knowledge is hyper-situated, placed not only in relation to the filmmaker's physical presence, but also in relation to fundamental issues about the nature of the world, the structure and function of language, the authenticity of documentary sound and image, the difficulties of verification, and the status of empirical evidence in Western culture' (1991, 61). Nichols observes that feminist documentary in particular uses reflexivity as a political strategy, to juxtapose the unquestioned givenness of ideological constraints with alternative positions and subjectivities (1991, 63). 9. 'She talked with some pride and humour', Anna says now, 'about the way Norma [as a young girl] had a little bird she loved and how Norma would leave bird seed for it on all the window ledges. And her mother, who was working as a nurse, said to her one day, "If that bird seed is still there when I come home, I'm going to kill it". And the bird seed was still there when she got home ... and the mother sort of laughed at me and said, "So I went like this", and she snapped the bird's neck in front of Norma. Norma was seven years old at the time' (Leser 2007, 50). 10. I discuss the case of Souad in Soft Weapons, chapter 5, drawing on Taylor's critique. Thanks to Leigh Gilmore, Julia Watson and Sidonie Smith for extensive discussions on literary hoax that have fed into this paper
Aesthetics · Art · Hoax · Honour · Literature · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Subject (documents · Cinema and Media Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law
| Citations per year | 0.07 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2012 - 2012 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |