Revista de Lenguas Modernas, N.° 31, 2019 / 63-71 ISSN impreso: 1659-1933 ISSN electrónico: 2215-5643

Homeland’s Discourse

El discurso en Homeland

Daniel E. Josephy-Hernández Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica

Abstract This article concentrates on the discourse employed in Homeland, a television show pro- duced in the United States. After a discourse analysis of three characters and the set- tings of the third season, it is easy to conclude that the show encourages and display stereotypical portrayals of not only the US and the government’s secret-service agencies, but also of Iran and the Middle East in general. It foments an Orientalist image of the Middle-East (the near Orient) as both an exotic place (as explained by Said’s 1978 book Orientalism) and a chaotic, underdeveloped one full of terrorists that must be saved and purged by the United States.

Keywords: Homeland, TV series, discourse analysis, Orientalism, Iran, United States

Resumen Este artículo se concentra en el discurso empleado en la serie de televisión estadouniden- se Homeland. Después de un análisis discursivo de tres personajes y de los escenarios de la tercera temporada, se llega a la conclusión de que la serie fomenta y muestra no solo visiones estereotípicas de los EE. UU. y las agencias secretas del gobierno, sino también acerca de Irán y el Medio Oriente. De esta manera, se fomenta una imagen orientalis- ta reflejando el Medio Oriente como un lugar exótico ─como Said lo explica en su libro Orientalismo (1978)─ caótico y subdesarrollado, que está repleto de terroristas y debe ser salvado y purgado por los EE. UU.

Palabras clave: Homeland, series de TV, análisis discursivo, orientalismo, Irán, EE. UU.

Recepción: 17-09-18 Aceptación: 26-04-19 64 Revista de Lenguas Modernas, N.° 31, 2019 / 63-71

Throw away your television greatest enemy of the US: Iran. The sea- Take the noose off your ambition son follows the actions of Iranian terror- Reinvent your intuition now ist and government official Majid Javadi It's a repeat of a story told (played by Shaun Toub), who plans to at- It's a repeat and it's getting old tack the US one way or another. The analysis carried out here fo- Red Hot Chili Peppers, Throw Away cuses on the discursive aspects and Your Television. narrative and social framing concern- ing Iran in the show’s third season, concentrating on the portrayals of the Introduction “Orient” in a geographic and character sense. It concentrates on three specific omeland is a political-thriller characters and the settings. Two of the show produced by Showtime characters, Saul Berenson and Majid Hand directed by Lesli Linka Javadi, were analysed because of the Glatter and Alex Graves; it has been duality of their nature: The former is airing on television in the United the head of the CIA, the latter is Saul’s States for the past six years. It is equivalent but as “the enemy of the United States”. The third character םיפוטח based on the Israeli show called (Hatufim, “Prisoners of War”), and has discussed in this paper is Farah Shera- received critical acclaim1 because of zi, chosen because she is the only Mus- its intriguing plot, psychological de- lim character who works for the CIA. scriptions, teenage angst and acting Afterwards, the researcher includes by Claire Danes and Damian Lewis.2 a brief criticism of how the settings The show follows the story of Nicholas are displayed on the show. This paper Brody (Damian Lewis), a US Marine aims to prove that the show Homeland Corps Scout Sniper, who, after be- promotes and magnifies racial, cultur- ing captured and becoming a prisoner al and social stereotypes of Iranians, of war by al-Qaeda for eight years, is whilst at the same time magnifying discovered and rescued by US forces feelings of nationalism in the US. and then returned to his “homeland”. However, CIA officer Carrie Mathison (played by Claire Danes), who has bi- Theoretical framework polar disorder, suspects Brody is not who he claims to be and that he is ac- Theun Van Dijk, one of the most tually working for the enemy. prominent researchers in discourse The series is currently in season 7. analysis, explains that “crucial for During its many seasons Mathison CDA [Critical Discourse Analysis] is works for the CIA attempting to disrupt the explicit awareness of [its] role in various terrorist plots that might occur society. Continuing a tradition that within or outside of the US. This analy- rejects the possibility of a ‘value-free’ sis concentrates on the third season of science, they argue that science, and the show, which aired in 2013. In the especially scholarly discourse, are in- third season, the plot moves from Al- herently part of and influenced by so- Qaeda to what the show portrays as the cial structure, and produced in social JOSEPHY. Homeland’s Discourse 65 interaction” (2003, p. 352). Most impor- the nation and larger entities” (Baker, tantly, CDA concentrates on the “spe- 2010, p. 350). This type of narrative cific ways that discourse structures are can be here seen from two points of deployed in the reproduction of social view: out of the show, or within it. In dominance” (Van Dijk, 2003, p. 354). the former, it could be said that the me- These discourse structures can be re- dia portrays Iranians in a specific way lated to gender, political, nationalist, so that they fit within a specific frame or racial issues, to name but a few. of “Iranians are evil” that the media The show analysed here, Home- wants to create. Within Homeland, land, is a work of fiction. In this way, the series has specific institutions (e.g. the show has its own narrative and CIA, news channels) that create a spe- values, which are in itself based on cific framing of Iranians, which will be contemporary issues in the US. When explained later in the article. analysing a discourse, narrative theory [The “meta” narratives] are par- “assumes that the unit of analysis is ticularly potent public narratives that ultimately an entire narrative, under- persist over long periods of time and stood as a concrete story of some aspect influence the lives of people across a of the world, complete with characters, wide range of settings. The boundary settings, outcomes or projected out- between public and meta-narratives is comes and plot” (Baker, 2010, p. 349). particularly difficult to draw, but good There are also three types of narra- candidates for meta-narratives include tives, which all appear in Homeland: the Cold War and the various religious personal narratives, public narratives narratives of Judaism, Christianity and metanarratives. Personal narra- and Islam, given their temporal and tives are “the narratives of individu- spatial reach (Baker, 2010, p. 351). als, who are normally located at the In the case of Homeland, the meta- centre of narration; in other words, narrative would be the “War on Terror” the individual is the subject of the nar- or “Terrorism”, a narrative taking hold rative” (Baker, 2010, p. 350). Within after the September 11th, 2001 attacks Homeland, the main personal narra- on the United States. tives —at least in the first three sea- These images and narratives are sons— are those of Carrie and Brody, created from a “Western” mindset. As the former in her role as a CIA agent a matter of fact, the concepts of “east” dealing with bipolar disorder, the lat- and “west” are in themselves western, ter as a US marine returning to the US in what is called “Orientalism”, a con- after eight years of imprisonment by cept introduced by French sociologist the Taliban. Both narratives intersect Edward Said. Said asserts that “Orien- and interact with each other, as Car- talism depends for its strategy on this rie and Brody develop a romantic rela- flexible positional superiority, which tionship. The “public” narratives “are puts the Westerner in a whole series of elaborated by and circulate among so- possible relationships with the Orient cial and institutional formations larger without ever losing him the relative up- than the individual, such as the fam- per hand” (1978, p. 7). This superiority ily, religious or educational institution, goes to the point that the history of a a political or activist group, the media, nation, in this case Iran, can be written 66 Revista de Lenguas Modernas, N.° 31, 2019 / 63-71 entirely by the US, as Douglas Robin- the media. The following section con- son (1997) explains: “the only ‘true’ or centrates on the analysis of how Home- ‘authentic’ way to write [Persian] his- land reflects the specific stereotypes tory is to write it (imaginatively) from mentioned before. Europe. To write [Persian] history is to write the history of [Persia] as a na- tion, and the very concept of a nation Analysis is European, grounded in the concep- tual framework of European history” Characters. Saul Berenson. Saul Be- (p. 20). Meaning that the very action renson (played by Mandy Patinkin) of Europeans or the US writing or talk- is the head of the CIA, and hence “in ing about Iran and Persian history control” of the situations when the US sets Iran within a specific historical decides to strike its enemies or carry narrative framework, all seeing from out undercover operations. He has me- western eyes. Indeed, “the very possi- dium height, and a thick beard, denot- bility of a history of [Persia] thus im- ing a literary archetype of “the wise plies a Eurocentric view of history that sage”, the wise person that the hero, conceives [Persia] at its strongest and along his (in this case, her) journey, most independent as a mere distorted must consult in order to know what to reflection of Europe” (Robinson, 1997, do next. It turns out that, since he has p. 20). Persian history, when written been the one most in contact with Iran, by “Western” authors, can hence be- he is also the most biased towards the come, or becomes, a mere extension of country. He states, throughout the the West. Homeland, as will be shown season, that Iran is “this close to a below, does precisely this. nuclear weapon”, and therefore must Indeed, the role of media is extreme- be stopped. This is one of the reasons ly important. Already in 1979, Todd why he hunts Javadi (an Iranian man Gitlin, a prominent sociologist and me- and the season’s main antagonist), dia scholar, is concerned by the role of a man he once knew and who was a the media in the forming of specific im- partner agent in Iran when the coun- ages in people’s mindset. Gitlin argues try had diplomatic ties with the US. that “many of the formal conventions of Berenson states that “I saw the man I American television entertainment are knew become a monster, and so I must supports of a larger hegemonic struc- stop him”. He states that Javadi has ture” (1979, p. 251). Ergo, the image become a monster, but the series fails of “the foreign”, i.e. the “Middle East” to mention, for instance, what might created in Homeland not only has its have caused him to become a monster. own Orientalist narrative, but is, at the In other words, the perspective the same time, part of a larger hegemonic series shows is only from Saul (or the structure that seeks to create a specific, US), never from Javadi (or Iran). stereotypical image of the people who Through Berenson’s personal nar- hail from that land. Hence, in Home- rative within the series, the show cre- land, three particular theoretical in- ates a specific public narrative outside tersections can be found. That of (1) of the show itself, permeating the the narrative, (2) Orientalism, and (3) negative image of Iranians as evil, JOSEPHY. Homeland’s Discourse 67 savage warmongers who somehow Javadi was in charge of bombing a Syn- got their hands on a nuclear weapon. agogue in Buenos Aires. In episode 6 of This relates to what Louis Althusser, a season 3 (“Still Positive”), Javadi goes French Marxist, calls “interpellation or to the US and violently kills his ex-wife hailing, a term for the calling of a person by repeatedly stabbing her in the neck into subjectivity/subjection. The idea with a broken bottle. Javadi is hated is that by calling someone something, by the other major Iranian character especially from a position of author- of the show, Farah Sherazi, who feels ity, you transform that person into the betrayed by the CIA when the latter, thing named” (Althusser in Robinson, having the opportunity to place Javadi 1997, p. 21). In Homeland, the inter- in a court case for all the terrorist acts pellation that occurs is that the “West”, he had committed both in Iran and the from a position of power, calls Irani- US, decides to instead use Javadi as an ans terrorists, and by naming them asset in Iran (Javadi had stolen money that converts them into terrorists, not from Iranian bankers, something that something else. In this way, the nar- might cost him his life, so the CIA uses rative and stories related to Iran (and this to bribe Javadi and place him as the Middle East) are normalised; this is a US asset inside the Iranian govern- what Baker calls “narrativity”, and “one ment.) This is a classical example of a of the effects of narrativity is that it nor- US-orchestrated coup, and the viewer malizes the accounts it projects over a can see this in two ways: as an admira- period of time, so that they come to be tion of US power, or as a criticism for perceived as self-evident, benign, incon- the US’s “intromission” and invasion testable and non-controversial” (Baker, of other countries. Regarding these ac- 2010, p. 11). Hence, within the show, a tions, Berenson himself states in the specific narrativity, that of Iranians as show: “It could change the entire geo- terrorists, exists. political spectrum of the Middle East”. Finally, a notable scene occurs be- Majid Javadi. Majid Javadi (played fore Javadi kills his ex-wife: Just as he by Shaun Toub) as mentioned before, is observing (stalking) her from a car, actually used to work for the CIA in he is eating a hamburger. Here the the 1970s, but is now a threat to the show creates a framing stating that, no interests and security of the United matter where you are from and what States. Javadi is the archetype of a your culture or race is, you will still “brutal” and “vicious” Iranian terror- love “American” hamburgers. Here you ist. In the first episode of season 3 (“Tin can find an implicit cultural submis- Man Is Down”), Saul mentions that sion to “American” values and diet. 68 Revista de Lenguas Modernas, N.° 31, 2019 / 63-71

Figure 1. Javadi eating a hamburger.

Farah Sherazi. Farah Sherazi is an as she has placed at risk “her family’s Iranian-American who lives in the US (in Iran) safety”. To this, Farah replies and works for the CIA. She is, quite “Because I’m American!” Farah —even bluntly, the archetype or “poster girl” if she is not accepted in the US by of how an immigrant should behave. many people and by its culture— still In the first episode of season three, feels a need to defend the country. She she is shown entering the CIA whilst is perhaps unconsciously hoping that, wearing a hijab. Everyone within by doing so, she will be finally be ac- the CIA stares and gaze at her, their cepted into the US and its culture, and judgemental eyes asking why she earn her colleagues’ recognition. is there in the first place. They do not let her inside the building, until Saul comes to her rescue. Nonethe- Opening theme less, the first thing he does after let- ting her in, is to chide her for wear- The opening theme creates a spe- ing the hijab: “What the hell are you cific framing of how the US has been thinking? We just suffered an attack engaging in a war against “terror” here, and you come in wearing that and “terrorism”. It shows specific im- thing!” recriminates Saul. It is clear ages of not only the show’s characters, that neither Saul nor the CIA is tol- but also actual speeches, e.g. George erant of the hijab, even if the agency’s W. Bush saying “Air and naval forces own internal policies allow it. Finally, of the US launched a series of strikes her father asks her why she works at against terrorist forces”; Bill Clinton the CIA, and scolds her for doing so, expressing “This was a despicable act JOSEPHY. Homeland’s Discourse 69 of terrorism”; and Barack Obama ex- the fictional and the real one, collide, claiming “We must, and we will, re- with the real one creating a specific main vigilant at home and abroad”. setting of what the show is about. The There is a very noteworthy juxtapo- opening theme creates a narrative sition of images, as the speeches by framing about terrorists and Middle former president(s) are collocated Eastern people by showing images of with scenes and characters of the 9/11, an event normally related to ter- show. In this way, the two universes, rorism and Al Qaeda.

Settings in the Middle East

Figure 2. Homeland’s Beirut (actually Israel).

Figure 2 displays what Baker the Coca Cola shirt —where women (2010,:p 351) calls a meta-narrative, wear hijab and follow the strict rules which is a public narrative that per- of Islamic clothing. The walls are cov- sists for a long period of time. In this, ered with graffiti and the buildings much like in the rest of Homeland, seem abandoned with many broken the meta-narrative is clear, and per- windows. It is an exotic, different and fectly exemplifies Said’s concept of “uncivilised” place, dirty and chaotic. Orientalism: The Middle East, in this However, the reality is very different case Lebanon, is an exotic place, full from what is portrayed in the show: of street markets that try to sell lo- cal cuisine and clothes—even if they are influenced by the US, as seen in 70 Revista de Lenguas Modernas, N.° 31, 2019 / 63-71

Figure 3. Actual Beirut in 2015.

The writers decided to portray Bei- and derive much of their meaning from rut as an exotic, uncivilised place, with the temporal moment and physical the usual “positional superiority” that site of the narration” (2010, p. 352). Of Said writes about: It is a fantastical course, the show is actually completely image of the Middle East, created by out of synch with reality due to the ra- and viewed through the standards of cial, social stereotypes it shows, and the US. As a matter of fact, the Leb- now even more so because of the nu- anese ministry of tourism sued the clear deal struck between the US and show’s producers because of its unfair Iran. Still, even if the deal has been cel- portrayal of the city.3 ebrated —and criticised— worldwide, and inside the US and Iran, the show continues demonstrating and permeat- Other aspects ing stereotypes that are aired to people who might not be (fully) aware of the An unfair criticism that could be deal. With an average of 1.7 million4 made of the show is that it is out of viewers per episode each week, the synch with recent events that have show could diminish the importance taken place in the “diplomatic” world. of the deals and permeate the stereo- At the end of 2013, the US and Iran types. Nonetheless, in the final episode resumed diplomatic talks for the first of season 03, problems between the US time since 1979. But, as Baker ex- and Iran are solved (because of the US plains, “narratives are characterised orchestrated “coup” in the series); Iran by their temporality, meaning that opens its doors for nuclear inspection, they are embedded in time and space just like what happened in real life. JOSEPHY. Homeland’s Discourse 71

Conclusion 4. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/ live-feed/homeland-season-2-dexter- Homeland portrays Iranian society, ratings-375374 culture and people in a clear-cut fashion. Iranians are either “good” or “evil”. The Bibliography show’s third season contrasts Javadi, the main antagonist who has “remained Baker, M. (2006). Translation and Iranian” and has not been assimilated Conflict: A Narrative Account. Lon- by the US, with Farah, the “good” Ira- don: Routledge. nian who is harassed for wearing a hi- ___ (2010). “Narratives of Terrorism jab by her boss and peers, but has been and Security: ‘Accurate’ Transla- assimilated by the US and works for its tions, Suspicious Frames”. Critical government. The show presents Iran in Studies on Terrorism, 3(3). an Orientalist manner by showing Iran Beaumont, P. (2013). Homeland Is a not only as an “exotic place” (Said,1979), Brilliant Drama. But Does It Pre- but also an underdeveloped one that is sent a Crude Image of Muslims? an incubator of terrorists bent on de- The Guardian. stroying the US. Ultimately, the show Gitlin, T. (1979). Prime Time Ideology: portrays Iran not through the eyes of its The Hegemonic Process in Televi- characters, but in reality through the sion Entertainment. Social Pro- eyes —or biases— of the scriptwriters blems 26(3). and directors who paint a conservative Joyner, A. Homeland: US-Iran Deal and uninformed view of Iran, resulting Shows CIA Thriller out of Touch. in the country’s Orientalisation. In this International Business Times. way, the scriptwriters support “a larg- Wikipedia. Homeland. In: https:// er hegemonic discourse” (Gitlin, 1979, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeland_ p. 251) of what Iran ought to be in the (TV_series) eyes of its viewers. Massad, J. (2013). Homeland, Obama’s Show. Al Jazeera. Van Dijk, T. A. (2003). Critical Dis- Notes course Analysis. Schiffrin, Debo- rah, Deborah Tannen & Heidi E. 1. 2012 Primetime Emmy Award for Out- Hamilton (eds). in The Handbook standing Drama Series, and the 2011 of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blac- and 2012 Golden Globe Award for Best kwell Publishing. Television Series – Drama […]. Robinson, D. (2007). Translation & 2. As well as the Primetime Emmy Award Empire. London: St. Jerome. for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Said, E. W. (1978). Orientalism. New Series and Lead Actress in a Drama Se- York: Random House. ries for Damian Lewis and Claire Danes respectively”. (Wikipedia) 3. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar- ticle-2220040/Lebanese-government- sue-Homeland-producers-portrays- Beirut-terrorists.html