Religious Hegemony and "Muslim" Horror Movies

The present paper examines horror films originating in Muslim contexts and available on U.S. streaming services. Using Gramsci's concept of hegemony, the paper examines how such films negotiate and articulate with the dominant Hollywood mainstream horror genre with particular attention to the hegemonic power of the mainstream with its Christian iconography and assumptions.


Introduction
Despite many international film efforts and even the great commercial success of industries such as Bollywood, 1 no other production center rivals the global dominance of Hollywood as the most powerful influence on movies and the defining authority on many genres. 2 Digitization and liberalization of media laws and social attitudes in many parts of the world have, however, resulted in a diversification of movie production. Film production has seen increased prominence in previously unlikely centers such as Gulf Arab nations, Indonesia, and Malaysia. The growth of horror film production from Muslim-majority nations raises questions about the evolution of film in that culture and their articulation with dominant mainstream tropes and conventions.
The present paper investigated the emergence of films from Muslimmajority countries rooted in various Islamic traditions and cultures and available on US streaming platforms. Using a selection of films that have been available to broader audiences through platforms such as Netflix, the study examined supernatural or religious themes in these films in the context of the hegemonic dominance of Christian iconography and themes in mainstream films. The analysis is particularly concerned with the extent to which the films examined follow norms of mainstream horror and the films' techniques for articulation with external audiences.

Gramsci, Hegemony, Religion and Film
The notion of hegemonic power as a continuing struggle for meaning emerges out Italian authorities imprisoned Antonio Gramsci in 1926 when film was still a silent medium but already powerful as a source of social and cultural narrative. Gramsci, in 1916, noted that film was quickly eclipsing theater as a popular medium but did not fully endorse the moving pictures, writing that: The reason for success of the cinema and its absorption of former theatre audiences is purely economic. The cinema offers exactly the same sensations as the popular theatre, but under better conditions, with the choreographic contrivances of a false intellectualism, without promising too much and delivering too little. 4 The evolution of modern film into a major vehicle of discourse and ideology invites examination of film in the context of Gramsci's notions of cultural hegemony 5 including the power to spread ideas and beliefs through storytelling.
Despite ongoing debates about the evolution of the concept of hegemony, 6 the broader notion of cultural influences in a globalized and media-rich environment continues to be an important area of inquiry. Scholars have explored various aspects of Gramsci's notions of cultural hegemony in film in several geographical and historical contexts 7 and applied Gramsci's ideas to specific films (such as Zombieland 8 ) to explore implications of social power and subdominant groups. 9 Shin and Namkung 10 explored Gramscian "filmic hegemony" in which the historical dominance of United States film making combines with the dominance of modern United States popular culture. These influences manifest Gramscian consent when audiences acknowledge U.S. films and cultural tropes as de facto standards for judging other content. Audiences normalize this notion and willingly consume these materials even if the ideas and cultural norms contained in them are foreign.
Landy 11 suggested that by the early decades of the 20 th century, Gramsci was already observing an international social dimension to cinema with some "sensitivity to the increasing dominance of Americanity." Schiller 12 and McPhail, 13 among others, argued in the 1970s and 80s that, through dominance in international media technologies and content, wealthy developed nations exercised hegemonic power over developing nations. The hegemonic power of American film has been a continuing theme in academic investigation. 14 Consider, for example, Shin and Namkung's analysis of cultural hegemony in the James Bond 007 films in which they argued that: American values are diffused worldwide via the motion picture industry. The 007 series is a masterpiece that successfully adjusted to the Hollywood system where American capital and structure prevails. The films are controlled by U.S. funding and reflect American perspectives vividly. Between the lines in the scripts, filmgoers are urged to link the United States with positive-hence legitimate-values and accept American's dominant position. 15 Other Hollywood blockbusters have similarly presented cultural and political ideas that privilege particular dominant groups including Caucasian males in Cameron's Avatar 16 and Western cultural ideas in the Indiana Jones series. 17 Weaver-Hightower described The Indiana Jones franchise as "allegorizing contemporary fantasies of US global domination," and spreading "a vision of the US in a neo-imperial relationship to the rest of the world" that involved "revising history to insert US characters into a global imperial dynamic in which they were largely historically absent." 18 Implicit in the neocolonial fantasies and hegemonic discourse of such films are undercurrents of Christian religion which, though central to the stories, often passed unnoticed. From the assumed supernatural power of the Ark of the Covenant to the use of the imagery of the Crusades and the portrayal of (non-Christian) Indians as savage consumers of monkey brains, religious assertions pervade the content. These often intertwine with implicit political claims. Weaver-Hightower noted, for example, that: …(T)he American Jones's acquisition of the Ark is sanctioned by the Christian God, who burns the Nazi swastika from the crate containing the Ark, melting the Nazis and Belloq with supernatural fury while sparing Jones and his love interest, the plucky Marion. In this story US policy carries God's stamp of approval… 19 Gramsci saw both media and religion as vehicles of hegemony (and sites of hegemonic struggle) making specific reference to the struggle between Muslimmajority nations and the West. As Boothman has noted: "What Gramsci always has in mind in his line of thinking on Islam, on the Muslim world and on the analogies and comparisons with the Christian world, is the question of rival hegemonies." 20 We may also consider what scholars such as Engstrom and Valenzano as well as Lewis have characterized as the relatively powerful position and implicit acceptability and positive treatment of religion (predominantly Christianity) in US media over many years. 21 Hegemony depends on the subject being a willing participant in the normalization of ideas. As Ghulam Hussain has noted "hegemony rests on the manufacture of 'consent'… sought through popular ideologies and narratives." 22 Dubois wrote of the "Gramscian sense of hegemony, in which the ideas, symbols, and categories of the powerful gain a universal currency, and are unknowingly but willingly adopted by the powerless." 23 This universal currency may present itself as broad narrative patterns resulting from the overwhelming force of global media with theistic assumptions and specifically Christian symbols. Thus, to read or interpret most horror films with religious themes, viewers must willingly (even if temporarily) accept the power of the cross, holy water and Bible verses. Lash identified the use of such symbolic discourse as an instrument of hegemonic struggle, noting (after Laclau, Butler and Žižek 24 and Kristeva 25 ) that the symbolic "carries out normalizing functions of domination." 26 This struggle over contested meanings is central, as well, to Hall's (re)presentation which posits an interplay between the dominant discourse and resistive processes of deconstruction and countering. 27 Studies of such phenomena as fashion 28

Movies in the Arab and Muslim Contexts
Despite the historical importance of Egyptian cinema 31 and its popularity with Arab-speaking audiences, the notion of cinema in Muslim-majority countries has been problematic. Strict moral codes 32 and fears about movies having political and anti-religious social influence 33 continue to constrain social responses to filmic content. Religious hardliners often still hold to prohibitions against images of humans or other animated beings. 34 Challenges facing film makers in, and about, Islamic environments were evident in Akkad's The Message (1976) 35 where the director (who earned degrees in theatre and cinema production in the United States) 36  point-of-view shots to suggest what the Prophet was seeing. 40 Faruque has described this film as a "blockbuster in the Islamic world" and one which, with its English version, attempted to "make Islam's history and message accessible to a global audience." 41 The film's initial and continuing popularity with audiences in Muslim-majority countries and internationally 42 raises questions about the absoluteness of Hollywood's hegemonic dominance, particularly where audiences may seek out "authenticities" which Hollywood simply cannot produce. In this important example, we may observe something of the power struggle implicit in Beyond Hollywood's widespread negative portrayals, film has also addressed issue of identity in Muslim-majority countries. Sayfo positioned this identity role as a hegemonic struggle against Western dominance, noting that: (E)arly features of Egyptian film were part of a nationalist movement that was opposed to the West, yet at the same time admired it and accepted its supremacy. From the very beginning, some of the Egyptian directors favored historical topics and they often used analogies from the past as tools for anti-imperialist struggle. 52 A focus on national identity was evident, also, in the ban on foreign films after the 1979 Iranian revolution 53 as much as in the subsequent development of film production in Iran in the 1990s. Other countries including Malaysia 54 and even Saudi Arabia 55 have more recently embarked on supporting film production in furtherance of their national identities. Digital production and distribution technologies have also enabled more widespread commercial production activity in both film and television.

Horror, Religion and Films
Martin traced the term "horror" back to the Greek for shiver (as in fear or revulsion) and noted its use in Greek theatre. 56 Horror emerged as a film genre from early efforts such as Georges Méliès' La Manoir Du Diable in 1896 57 and has diversified into a broad range of content that aims to "frighten, shock, horrify, and disgust" audiences through references to elements such as the grotesque, the unknown and the supernatural. 58 Even with horror that does not overtly pertain to religion, Detweiler has argued that, in the movies, "our fascination with monsters might just reflect an innate desire to experience the sacred." 59 Assumptions about the inherent truth and universal applicability of Christian ideas, values, and faith, ("pervasive Christianity") 60 are evident in many genres of Hollywood film 61 but particularly instrumental in horror. Stone has remarked that "horror films frequently construct evil… even if unconsciously, within familiar religious coordinates-and in the West that has meant specifically Christian coordinates." 62 Corbin and Campbell noted that in Coppola's version of Bram Stoker's Dracula: 63 "the film opens with Count Dracula going off to defend Christianity from the invading Turks." 64 Other famous horror films such as Rosemary's Baby 65 and Hellraiser 66 feature elements such as Satan, demons and hell that are generally religious in nature but specifically Christian in detail and presentation. When Frank Cotton is torn apart in Hellraiser, for example, he speaks the biblical verse from John 11:35, "Jesus wept." 67 Other films directly rooted in Christian ideas and theology include titles such as The Omen 68 and The Exorcist. 69 Gjinali and Tunca questioned the presumed universality of responses to the global (Christian) horror mainstream, noting that for Muslim audiences, the horror exists only as a subjunctive premise without real-life relevance: A person from the Muslim faith knows that such movies, where supernatural fantastic monsters/creatures are extensively used in foreign movies, will not appear in real life because this person does not believe in such monsters… 70 Supernatural horror films from Muslim-majority countries face the challenges of articulating with the established global mainstream while expressing sometimes deeply local symbols and ideas. Partovi, for example, has noted that despite parallels with the global mainstream, the "horror" in an Iranian supernatural horror film is rooted "in Iranian popular (religious) culture, partly drawing inspiration from Islam." 71 Similarly, Gjinali and Tunca, have noted an increase in horror offerings from Turkey since the 2000s that have focused on elements of local folklore and Islamic ideas for their source of horror. 72 Among the most prominent supernatural antagonists in the emerging Muslim film universe are the beings collectively known as the Jinn ‫)الجن(‬ sometimes conventionally transliterated as Djinn (the latter form used here only when adopted in original works or citations). Though understood to refer to these supernatural beings, the term "Jinn" is also closely related to a broader notion of the unseen or hidden. 73 According to the Qur'an, God created the Jinn from smokeless fire 74 and, unlike angels, Jinn have free will. Belief in Jinn was common among pre-Islamic Arabs and other nearby cultures, 75 including Jinn worship among some groups. 76 The Qur'an and the traditions of the Prophet Muhammad (hadith/‫)أحاديث‬ contain numerous mentions of Jinn. 77 The term Jinn is often problematic as it moves from general to specific usage and, among different groups, can reference several types and classes of supernatural being, including Ghouls, Jann, Sheytans (devils), Efreets, and Marids. 78 The term may also extend to other spirits such as ghosts with quite different properties. 79 Jinn as a broad category of beings are not direct analogues to the Western demon, though parallels exist. In many Muslim cultures, for example, the Jinn are strongly associated with phenomena such as possession and are thought to influence human affairs through this and other techniques 80 which might include interfering with the meanings of messages 81 or even physical interventions such as abduction of children 82 or burning down houses. 83 As Khalifa and Hardie put it: "…according to Islamic belief, Jinn are real creatures that form a world other than that of mankind, capable of causing physical and mental harm to human beings." 84 The Jinn in Islam challenge the Manichean distinction between heavenly angels and infernal demons of Western philosophy (Jinn having the choice of being good or evil and being accountable for their actions). Muslim communities often believe that the Jinn are so close to humans that they can even interbreed and at least one Qur'anic verse alludes to this possibility. 85 Despite their very name suggesting that they are unseen, scripture, traditions, and folklore surrounding Jinn provide an array of descriptions. One hadith describes a crowd of Jinn as being like "thick masses of clouds." 86 Other sources describe them, when seen, as tall figures, often dark, and sometimes taking animal forms. 87 Illustrations such as those in the 14 th century Persian Book of Wonders (Kitab-al-Bulhan/‫البلهان‬ ‫)كتاب‬ present Jinn with hooves, horns, and fangs.
Other descriptions suggest that Jinn are shapeshifting, taking on forms that mask their presence from human eyes, or attract humans to deception or harm.
The Jinn are also associated with the "evil eye" or nazar ‫.)نظر(‬ 88 Both Jinn and humans are believed to be capable of casting the "evil eye" 89  When religious figures like a jinn is (sic.) used in the movie, because the viewer sees himself/herself as the main character in the movie, he or she will think that they will experience something similar and that the jinn will haunt them… 92

Research Focus
The present analysis addresses several concerns about the emergent horror film The methodological approach used in the present study may best be described as what Holsti has called latent content analysis. 93 This is an interpretive approach focusing on not just describing content but also on elucidating the underlying meanings of the material in its social context. 94 The author viewed the selected films, taking note of (and marking timestamps for) religious or local More than two thousand years have passed since the ghoul was first envisioned by a few Arab Bedouins in the heartland of Arabia, but it has refused to fade away from people's memories. It eventually crossed the desert border to enter Asia and Africa. But it was Antoine Galland who made the ghoul travel further to reach Europe after giving it its new form. 99 Featuring no attempt at cultural or historical integrations, The End attempted to justify using familiar vampire horror movie tropes in a Kuwaiti physical and linguistic context by explaining the vampires as arriving from Europe.
The struggle with established genre conventions in this case was even broader than just articulating with dominant horror/vampire content. The film also attempted to include elements of action movies featuring mismatched cop duos and even randomly included a Bollywood-styled song and dance number. At times, the performance of prayer is an indicator of religiosity (or lack thereof).
In the first instalment of the Emirati (Mazraeat al-Jada/ ‫الجدة‬ ‫,)مزرعة‬ 105 for example, the group of friends discuss the evening prayer, but the film depicts only one character, Saeed, performing the prayer. The scene included a close-up of his finger raised in the shahada ‫.)الشهادة(‬ This is a gesture familiar to Muslim audiences but would have little meaning to others. The film portrays Saeed as being the one member of the group with some religious knowledge and the others playfully call him Maulana ‫)موالنا(‬ at times, a term denoting a learned religious person or scholar (more commonly in the Indian subcontinent and perhaps applied derogatively here). 106 Saeed, however, makes the point to his friends after evidence of the Jinn's presence, that he is not "an exorcist priest" and that he does not know "how to deal with Jinn." 107 It is unclear whether this distinction between everyday religious practice and specialized religious knowledge is one that a filmmaker would have to make for Muslim/Arab audiences.
Thus, it may be meant as a clarification for external audiences who might confuse rituals such as salaah and fumigation with formal exorcism.
The lack of salaah is an equally important indicator which film makers used to reflect supernatural influence or vulnerability. In the Egyptian film Warda, we are told that the character Warda regularly performed her daily prayers but suddenly stopped after supposedly coming under the influence of the Jinn. In the 2013 film Djinn, 108 produced in the United Arab Emirates and directed by Hollywood horror veteran Tobe Hooper, we learn that the character Salama has not observed daily prayer in a long time. When she begins to fear supernatural influence, she attempts to perform the prayer ritual but encounters difficulty either remembering or reciting the words of Surah An-Nas (which makes specific reference to Jinn).
Protective charms and devices in the films take several forms with some variety from differing cultural traditions. In Anvari's 2016 "Under the Shadow (Zeer-e-saye/ ‫سايه‬ ‫")زير‬ 109 from Iran, a child, Medhi, gives the protagonist's daughter, Dorsa, a protective charm of cat's fur, which may be rooted in ancient Persian literature. 110 In Hooper's Djinn, Salama's mother gives her a wall hanging featuring the word "Allah" in Arabic alongside a nazar eye symbol, saying (in translation), "You never know who might visit" and noting, after a skeptical glance from her other daughter, that "It wards off envy." 111 Despite being relatively common in the films, such symbols are not universally accepted even in the diegesis. When the nazar appears in the Turkish Dabbe series, for example, there is some divergence from the other films in terms of the accepted value of the symbol. The protagonist, Faruk, in Dabbe 5 asks for permission to throw away all the evil eye beads from the house of a possessed person saying (in translation) that: Evil eye beads are the elixir of strength for the devil and the jinns… The eye on that bead is the eye of the devil. The single eye is the symbol of Satan even since Babylon. You seek the devil's help and take refuge in him by invoking the evil eye bead to help you. 112 The films feature several practices to deter evil forces including utterance of Qur'anic verses, sprinkling water over which verses have been uttered 113 and ritual fumigation. 114 In Grandmother's Farm, Saeed recites Sura An-Nas over a bucket of water and later sprinkles the water throughout the farm buildings. The films also present references to other orthodox ritual practices (other than salaah) invoking them in scripts for various purposes. In Djinn, Salama's mother tells her (in translation): "Well… Now that you're back, it wouldn't hurt to go for an Umrah… So God will bless your new life here." 115  In some of the films, there is even awareness of pre-Islamic folklore. In Dabbe, the Possession, for example, the exorcist creates a system of mirrors to communicate with Jinn. He explains that it has been the best way to communicate with Jinn since Babylonian times. In Munafik 2, the influence of local folklore is sometimes implicit. Several of the visuals of supernatural beings, for example, feature long dark fingers and fingernails, which may draw on the Malaysian folkloric demon, Kuntilanak. The audience learns that the book is an anthropological study of the folklore of, as one character notes, "people down south." 124 As Shideh reads the text for the first time, we discover that the winds are magical forces which may be anywhere and which focus on places where there is fear and anxiety. The dominant thinking regarding Jinn and free will extends to these creatures of the wind, described as being capable of either good or evil. 125

Explanations and (External) Audiences
The films articulate local and traditional background information for viewers in general but often with a focus on external audiences who may not be familiar with In Under the Shadow, Shideh (who has been a medical student, and is secular in her outlook) argues with Mrs. Ebrahim that Jinn are not real. This debate continues throughout the movie when supernatural/religious events defy explanation. In this initial argument over whether Jinn are real, Mrs. Ebrahim argues (in translation): "they are very real, it's even in the Qur'an." 126 This particular statement raises several questions that relate to the film's articulation with the mainstream. Is the audience expected to assume that an educated Iranian woman does not know that the Qur'an mentions Jinn? If not, then it becomes possible that the statement in the context of its own narrative might be a rhetorical device to win an argument by referencing the authority of the holy book. It may also, however, be a director's ploy to indicate this fact to external audiences.

Discussion
The films examined here, developed and produced outside of the dominant (hegemonic) Hollywood horror mainstream, demonstrated some of the challenges of articulating local culturally specific material with established (global) tropes, genre formulae and audience expectations. A user at IMDb.com addressed these dynamic tensions, opining that the Emirati production of Djinn was "an oldfashioned haunted house tale" that followed "a fairly well-worn horror formula" with the "twist of being set in the United Arab Emirates." 127 That reviewer perceived the "twist" of a "Middle Eastern setting" as bringing "interesting cultural elements" to the film but saw the film's storyline as derivative of more established works in the genre such as "Rosemary's Baby" and "The Others." 128  form (e.g., found-footage), content (e.g. vampires) and motifs (e.g. coffins and mirrors) may well reflect acquiescence to the dominance of the Western mainstream. In this regard we may note the observation on hegemony from Artz and Murphy who noted that: "subordinate groups… willingly participate in practices that are not necessarily in their best interests because they perceive some tangible benefit." 131 Intertextuality, however, is not a process free of power relationships.
Indeed, it is the very dominance of some forms that allow them to be successfully borrowed or reused. Gramsci has distinguished between entrenched or "fixed" cultural elements and less-dominant elements that attempt to challenge or "interfere" with the established and "common sense" hegemonic norms. 132

Other Hegemonic Concerns
Hegemonic influences do not exist in isolation. The films' references to Islamic beliefs and practices often demonstrate hegemonic influences within and among Islamic societies. In Munafik 2, for example, the Malaysian characters strongly reflect dominant currents of Wahabi Islamic dogma originating in Saudi Arabia. They debate, for example, the outlawed practice of religious innovation (bid'ah/ ‫,)بدعة‬ a favorite target of Wahabiism.
At the same time, the portrayals of Islamic ideas and motifs were associated with traditional sites, villages, or other rural settings. In Djinn, for example, the couple returns to their home country from the United States and moves into a tower built on the site of a traditional village while in Warda, Dabbe and Munafik 2, the films' supernatural events occur in traditional villages. This association of Islamic ideas with ancient traditions invokes folklore and history to validate supernatural storylines. However, it is important to note that Gramsci saw "modernity" as a tendency of dominant ideas to "expand, develop, and become universal in… political, ideological and cultural forms." 142 The observed general trend towards the rural and traditional may thus also suggest a relegation of the non-dominant Islamic folklores to the past or to the village in the context of a broader dominant, hegemonic modernity.
One of the privileges of hegemonic power is the ability to label or define the terms of reference of subdominant narratives. Bearing in mind that the term Jinn involves a broad reference to not just specific mythical beings but also to the general notion of the unseen or supernatural, the prevalence of Jinn references in films originating in Muslim contexts provides opportunities for external labeling.
Specifically, these films find themselves categorized in Western popular review and criticism as "Jinn movies" which misrepresents their diversity of content and form.
In the films examined, we find dynamic tensions between acquiescence to the dominant horror mainstream and exposition of Islamic religion and folklores.
This hegemonic struggle reflects attempts to negotiate an increasingly global market for horror films while utilizing Islamic concepts that appeal to local audiences and their deeply felt and relatable fears. The evolution of such films, should they continue, may map important developments in the negotiated hegemonies of cultural and filmic expressions over time.
For all their weaknesses and their borrowings from the mainstream, these films provide an alternative locally authentic narrative against the dominant (Western Christian) horror mainstream. In doing so, they challenge entrenched (often fanciful) Western notions of Muslim ideas, faith, and cultures. Perhaps most importantly, they give voice to these otherwise subaltern narratives and legitimize, through filmic portrayal, Muslim horrors and fears as lived experiences rooted in deeply-held belief systems rather than as mere fairy tales.
Whether these portrayals will do anything to change overall perceptions of Muslims and Islam globally remains to be seen. In the specific context of horror films, however, these narratives provide a voice for cultural ideas hitherto marginalized and subject to external (mis)representations. These ideas make for more powerful experiences for locals but also provide the basis for emerging challenges to dominant external mainstream perceptions or "kernels of counterhegemony." 143