The Image of Moroccan Women in Josef Von Sternberg’s Morocco (1930)

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to deconstruct an early Hollywood movie on Morocco. A great deal of literature was produced during the first half of the twentieth century in the field of cultural representation, and many stories were fashioned in/on Morocco by the powerful industry of Hollywood. Most of the American movies on Morocco were not unrelated to women and the portrayal of native female characters in American cinema was not exempted from the politics and dynamics of Orientalism; The veil, the hookah, and belly dancers were essential ingredients that prompted a Western obsession with the Oriental harem.These elements were also sites on which Hollywood movie makers fantasized to entertain a particular western audience disturbed by war. Josef Von Sternberg’s Morocco (1930) has ever since been one of the most pertinent cases whereby Moroccan women were negatively imag(in)ed. From veiled objects of desire through sexual beings in service of western protagonists, the movie excelled in depicting native characters as naïve, ‘docile’ and available. Yet, much of what was conceived of was not necessarily ‘true’ or ‘correct’; this research, hence, aims at reconstructing the whole narrative through a postcolonial reading of the film. The purpose of the article is to show where the camera, in terms of the western eye/I crumbles, and thus, demonstrate that the native female characters are not as accessible and available as portrayed through visual productions.

Keywords: Native female characters --- Moroccan women --- Hollywood --- representation --- camera --- scene --- close-up --- shot