ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the representation of Muslim women in conventional cinema. In 1973 Claire Johnston wrote an influential essay, "Women's Cinema is Counter Cinema," in which she argued the need for women in films to "operate at all levels." A critical debate around positive images has been one of the key issues for women's counter-cinema and remains central in the Eighties and Nineties. Women who use films for consciousness-raising and workplace organising are constantly searching for representations that act as strong models to encourage confidence and collective spirit. An analysis of the "deep structure" of the films shows that this kind of oppositional connotation of the "overt structure" is a sham, a ruse to trap any genuine rebellion against gender inequality and the inequitable social system of which women are the victims. Since most female protagonists in Muslim Socials are courtesans or prostitutes they are on public display.
