Honor Killing as a Politicized and an Ideological Practice in Dale Hurd’s Honor Violence Rising In The West (2011)

Honor Violence Rising In The West (2011) is a documentary film made by Hurd Dale. This short film depicts and narrates the experiences of Muslim women who live and have to endure patriarchy and violence. It was aired on American national television as well as other media outlets. This documentary caused controversy and debates on the issue of honor, the place of Islam, and the situation of Muslim women in the West. This paper tries to shed light on the representation of Muslim women which intends to victimize and stereotype them. In this context, I argue that this film works within the framework of orientalism and employs orientalist mechanisms that aim at distorting the image of Islam as well as Muslim women. This paper also is interested in debating the issue of honor killing and how the process of politicizing this practice turned it into a cliché that became stuck with Muslims. This process, I argue, is employed to serve the Western ideological interests. This paper attempts to discuss how the practice of honor killings tend to reinforce the colonial discourse and at the same time demonize the Islamic religion