Media and Literary Representations of Arab Women in Selected Plays by Yussef El Guindi

Abstract

Throughout ages, misrepresentation has been a major problem across cultures. The misrepresentation of the "Other" is quite common both in formal and informal media cultures. Not only in the West, Arabs and Muslims are misrepresented in various media discourses, but also in the East, Arab women have particularly been the target of these intended misrepresentations. The aim of this dissertation is to depict the oppressive misrepresentations of both Arab and Arab-American women as a result of hegemonic patriarchal and Western ideologies propagated through main stream Arab and Western media. This thesis focuses on the works of the Arab-American playwright Yussef El Guindi Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda's (2005), Karima's City (2005) and Threesome (2015). El Guindi's two short plays Such a Beautiful Voice is Sayeda's and Karima's City are adaptations of Salwa Bakr's novels The Beautiful Undiscovered Voice (1992) and Thirty-one Beautiful Green Trees (1992) published in her collection of stories The Wiles of Men and Other Stories (1992). Whereas Salwa Bakr's novels were a scream in the past that was, unfortunately, not heard, El Guindi's two short plays recall the very same of oppressed women's scream in modern times. Therefore, through Arab-American theatre, the Egyptian-American playwright, Yussef El Guindi shares the Egyptian novelist, Salwa Bakr, the same goal of emancipating Egyptian women. He stresses that oppression is doubled when misrepresentation occurs in a culture different from the country of origin. Since women are silenced, marginalized and treated as inferior to men in most Arab communities, it is critical and problematic for them to voice their disapproval of the prejudiced patriarchal ideology as well as hegemonic Western culture.