Critical Studies in Media Communication

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Queer utopias and a (Feminist) Iranian vampire:

a critical analysis of resistive monstrosity in A Girl
Walks Home Alone at Night

Shadee Abdi & Bernadette Marie Calafell

To cite this article: Shadee Abdi & Bernadette Marie Calafell (2017): Queer utopias and a
(Feminist) Iranian vampire: a critical analysis of resistive monstrosity in A Girl Walks Home Alone at
Night, Critical Studies in Media Communication, DOI: 10.1080/15295036.2017.1302092

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1302092

Published online: 16 Mar 2017.

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CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION, 2017
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15295036.2017.1302092

Queer utopias and a (Feminist) Iranian vampire: a critical

analysis of resistive monstrosity in A Girl Walks Home Alone at
Night*
Shadee Abdi and Bernadette Marie Calafell
Department of Communication Studies, University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

In 2014, the black and white vampire spaghetti western, A Girl Walks Received 27 August 2016
Home Alone at Night (AGWHAAT) follows the narrative of the Girl, a Accepted 28 February 2017
forlorn chador-wearing feminist-vampire-vigilante in the fictional
KEYWORDS
world of Bad City. In this queer utopia, the Girl preys on immoral Iran; monstrosity; queer;
men so that she can protect the female residents of Bad City from feminism; horror
the violence of patriarchy. We explore themes of monstrous
feminisms and queer doublings to consider how the film uses the
trope of the vampire to manifest queer utopias and reflect Iranian
and Iranian-American feminist themes.

Ana Lily Amirpours (2014) film, A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (hereafter,
AGWHAAN), took Hollywood and the horror community by storm. The black and
white Iranian vampire spaghetti western received a positive critical response of 95% on
the popular movie review website, Rotten Tomatoes, and earned an estimated $544,032,
in domestic box office revenue (Rotten Tomatoes, n.d.). The film features Sheila Vand,
as the title character, the Girl, a forlorn chador-wearing feminist-vampire-vigilante,
attempting to rid the fictional world of Bad City (translation: Windy City) from the vio-
lence of patriarchy.
The interconnected cast of characters and their interactions with the Girl are significant
to understanding the film. Arash (Arash Marandi), the Girls love interest, is a James Dean
looking protagonist, in a film which otherwise suggests men are vile depictions of human-
ity. His U.S. American cool aesthetic intrigues the Girl, who on the outset does not know
how to engage with a man who is not bad. Arash lives with his father, Hossein (Marshall
Manesh), a heroin junkie, whom he has cared for since the death of his mother. Then there
is Saeed (Dominic Rains), a pimp drug dealer who supplies Hossein with heroin. Saeed is
stylized in 1980s hip-hop aesthetics, with a Vanilla Ice hairdo, Adidas style track suit,
heavy gold chains, the word ( Pimp) tattooed on his head, and SEX tattooed on
his throat. Through Saeed, we come to know Atti (Mozahn Marn), a prostitute whom
the Girl develops a fondness for, and attempts to save from Saeed. Finally, there is the

CONTACT Bernadette Marie Calafell Bernadette.Calafell@du.edu Department of Communication Studies, Uni-

versity of Denver, 2000 E. Asbury Ave., Sturm 200, Denver, CO 80208, USA
*
This essay was presented on the Top Paper Panel of the Organization for Research on Women and Communication at the
2016 Western States Communication Association.
2017 National Communication Association
2 S. ABDI AND B. M. CALAFELL

unnamed little boy (Milad Eghbali), whom serves as an innocent bystander, witnessing all
that goes on in Bad City.
Born in the UK, Amirpour eventually landed in Bakersfield, California, after her
parents, described as atheists, left Tehran at the start of the 1979 Iranian Revolution
(Aftab, 2015; Leigh, 2015). She first had the idea for AGWHAAN when she was a
student at UCLA working on a short film and an extra walked through the set
wearing a chador (Aftab, 2015). After Amirpour tried it on, looking at herself in the
mirror, she felt like a bat. She immediately thought, Iranian vampire and wondered
why no one had thought of it before (Aftab, 2015). Having chosen Iran as the setting
for the film, Amirpour wrote the script in Persian and hired an entirely Iranian cast
(Leigh, 2015). Additionally, while the film is set in Iran, it was shot in southern California,
materializing a geographical location aesthetically influenced by both.
The first film of its kind, AGWHAAT is not only a significant text in horror; it also
offers an opportunity to engage possibilities of social resistance for Iranian-Americans
negotiating often discordant Iranian cultural/familial/social identities. We examine the
film through theories of monstrosity and Iranian feminism to understand its creation of
a queer utopia through the monstrous feminist anti-hero and queer doublings.

Vampires and monstrosity

Calafell (2015), Poole (2011), Ramirez-Berg (2012), and Phillips (2005) examine how rep-
resentations of monstrosity are tied to specific events and the cultural anxieties of societies.
Calafell (2015) argues for studying monstrosity not as lingering within the human psyche,
but instead intimately connected to our pasts, presents, and futures as a society (p. 5).
Monsters become a frame for understanding the cultures that produce them, exemplifying
specific cultural moments as well as ideologies surrounding Otherness (Cohen, 1996).
Thus, monsters are shapeshifters whose meanings morph within their given contexts
(Calafell, 2015; Hoglund & Khair, 2013). Cohen (1996) further argues that monsters chal-
lenge and unsettle us, as they defy easy categorization, and our fear of them is often driven
by our desire for what is unfamiliar. No more is the reciprocal relationship between fear
and desire, and morality and immorality, present than in the vampire (Byron & Stepha-
nou, 2013).
Similarly, Dowdle (2010) maintains that vampires can be a gauge of societal norms
around sexuality and repression, noting that a vampires hunger for blood can also be
understood as a sexual hunger. Recent popular representations of vampires in the Twi-
light series, for instance, depart from traditional sexualized codings by portraying vam-
pires who choose to practice celibacy. Additionally, Benshoff (2002) writes that
vampires are often coded as queer because they exist in shadowy closets (p. 91),
noting that the monster as homosexual rhetoric emerged in the early days of
HIV/AIDs, as gay men were seen as contagions - vampires, who with a single min-
gling of blood, can infect a poor innocent victim, transforming him or her into the
living dead (p. 92).
It is also imperative to consider the racial and class codings of vampires. Perhaps, most
notable in vampire lore and class codings are novelist Anne Rices vampires who Grady
(1996) describes as aristocratic, elegant erotic, and occasionally ethical (p. 226).
Abbott (2007) likens vampires insatiable hunger and speed to the global elite who
 CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 3

only care for accumulating more capital and profit and not for the human consequences of
their greed (p. 219).
Chambers and Chaplin (2013) argue that more recent representations of vampires
move away from the monstrous embodiment of evil, or of a culturally vilified otherness,
the vampire has increasingly become a site of identification (p. 141). Despite stemming
from traditional literary tropes of heroism, this type of vampire, occupies a highly
ambivalent moral universe in which monstrosity no longer signifies any kind of
cosmic principle of evil; rather, the vampire embodies a fraught, victimized otherness
which becomes for the reader/viewer a potent source of sympathy and identification
(Chambers & Chaplin, 2013, p. 141). The authors further assert that this vampire gains
an audiences sympathy and identification not in spite of being a vampire, but
because of it; the vampire condition becomes that of the rebellious outsider (belonging
to a) persecuted minority (Chambers & Chaplin, 2013, pp. 141142). Chambers and Cha-
plins (2013) framing is important when considering the representation of the Girl in
AGWHAAN.
AGWHAAN marks a critical departure from these representations. We assess what the
transgressive possibilities of this vampire are, particularly when we consider how people
with lineages connected to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) have been histori-
cally coded in the United States, as simultaneously invisible and threatening, traits associ-
ated with vampires. Technically considered Caucasian by the U.S. census, most Arab and
Iranian-Americans endure commonplace realities that mark their bodies as the antithesis
of white, as monstrous, anti-patriotic threats to the state. For example, after 9/11 the
United States initiated a Muslim registry targeting Muslims from the MENA region. Pre-
sident Donald Trump supports its continued use. This presents a dangerous lived reality
for Arab and Iranian-Americans in the United States, particularly in our current political
climate, where hate crimes are rapidly increasing towards those who are visually read as
non-white. Informed by this, we use the perspectives advocated by Calafell (2015),
Cohen (1996), Phillips (2005), and Poole (2011) to understand how the film manifests ten-
sions and cultural resonances for Iranian-Americans who consistently must negotiate
their Americanness and their Iranianness in a post-9/11 culture that has become increas-
ingly hostile to people from the MENA region. Against this context, AGWHAAN mani-
fests feminist themes of possibility, identification, and anxiety.

Iranian and Iranian-American feminisms

To understand the significance of the film it is important to situate it within the context of
Iranian feminism, which through familial and cultural connections, informs the lives of
Iranian-American women. Although the film is set in Iran, it manifests tensions that con-
tinue to be relevant to Iranian-American women in the diaspora. Thus, we draw on both
Iranian and Iranian-American feminisms to unpack an Iranian vampire who manifests
issues that continue to inform the experiences of Iranian-American women.
The fall of the Persian Empire fundamentally reshaped the economic, educational,
social, and political foundation of Iran, resulting in the complete restructuring of gendered
expectations and the states regulation of women (Poya, 1999). Iranian feminist scholars
have long documented the significant role women have played throughout Irans political
and economic history (e.g. Afary, 2004; Mahdavi, 2008; Moghadam, 2002; Najmabadi,
4 S. ABDI AND B. M. CALAFELL

2004, 2013). Following the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Iranian feminists were divided into
two distinct categories: Islamic feminists, concerned with womens liberation through
Quranic reinterpretations, and secular feminists, calling for a complete emancipation of
religious ties to the state (Barlow & Akbarzadeh, 2008). Despite these ideological differ-
ences, Islamic and secular feminists have sustained a history of cooperation toward
womens liberation and continue to reclaim their identities (Barlow & Akbarzadeh, 2008).
In 2009, the Iranian Green Movement drew attention to a younger generation of
Iranian feminists and activists (Tahmasebi-Birgani, 2010). With more than half of
Irans population being under the age of 30, young Iranians have been demonstrating a
louder, more visible form of political resistance that urges the state to enact significant
social and economic reform reflective of Irans rapidly changing social climate (Barlow
& Akbarzadeh, 2008). As such, the current feminist aesthetic paints contemporary Iran
with women challenging gendered expectations, specifically by utilizing social media,
reclaiming sexual agency, embracing makeup, and donning brightly colored and form
fitting manteaus in place of traditional chadors (Naghibi, 2007). Still, it is essential to
note the contradictions of what is morally encouraged and what is actually practiced
within the Islamic Republic of Iran. For example, even when resisting gendered expec-
tations, women are still responsible for child bearing, rearing, and socialization, while
men continue to be privileged in relation to child custody, divorce, and inheritance
laws (Shaditalab, 2006). While there are many differences in the lived experiences of
Iranian and Iranian-American women, many of the cultural expectations remain steadfast.
Thus, while we may see Iranian-American feminists flout traditional cultural expectations,
as exemplified in AGWHAAN, we also see how those norms and values continue to mani-
fest themselves in divergent lived experiences of Iranian and Iranian-American women.
At this time, limited communication studies scholarship has considered Iranian and
Iranian-American womens perspectives. Abdi (2014), Abdi and Van Gilder (2016),
Van Gilder and Abdi (2014) examine the ways that Iranian-American women must nego-
tiate familial relationships and cultural discourses surrounding queer identity. Their sus-
tained Iranian cultural practices, religion, and relationships with family, both in the
United States and in Iran, create complex and transnational identities that defy borders
and simply identity categories.

Queering monstrous feminism and queer utopias

Driven by theories of monstrosity and Iranian feminism, our analysis explores the queer
utopia, reflective of the aforementioned identities, alongside the possibility of resistance
for (queer) Iranian and Iranian-American women in AGWHAAN. We examine queer
utopias through themes of a monstrous feminist anti-hero and queer doublings.
Our approach to queerness is informed by queer of color scholarship, which sees queer
as a practice or verb, as well as a continually shifting identity and space. Anzalda (2012)
argues for a vision of queerness that is predicated upon an intersectional understanding of
identities. Furthermore, her conception of queerness is located in a borderlands space
where those who are strange, out of place, or queer live. Anzaldas (2012) borderlands
are tied to the Southwestern U.S.; the Mexican and U.S. border. This land, previously
Mexico, represents for Chicanxs, who are ideologically and materially in a middle
space, not being Mexican nor American (because of the continual violence of racism,
 CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 5

sexism, and homophobia), a sense of being out of place. However, Anzalda (2012) argues
for the reclamation of space ideologically, as a site of empowerment, in part because of the
ability of those who dwell in the borderlands to consistently shift positions and live in
ambiguity. Thus, those who live in the borderlands are shapeshifters who can navigate
between constantly shifting or queer terrains.
Building on the work of queer feminists of color, like Anzalda (2012), Muoz (1999,
2009) further nuances the performances of queers of color in the everyday. The complex
working through of discourses that can be simultaneously oppressive and empowering
results in spaces of disidentification (Muoz, 1999). Furthermore, Muoz (2009) writes,
Queerness is essentially about the rejection of a here and now and an insistence on poten-
tiality or concrete possibility for another world (p. 1). This desire for a better future or
space of possibility connects to Anzaldas (2012) redefinition of the borderlands as a
space of possibility. Halberstam (2011) writes that studies of queerness and failure offer
the ability to imagine alternatives to hegemonic systems. This is the queerness that
drives AGWHAAN. The film, in its feminist and queer leanings, uses the genres of spa-
ghetti western and horror to imagine spaces of possibilities that dont yet exist or are in
the process of becoming. The in-between space of Bad City, neither the Islamic Republic
of Iran nor the United States, exists as a transnational middle or hybrid borderland of hope
and belonging for a diaspora. While this film uses an Iranian aesthetic, Persian language,
and Iranian actors, it is in and of itself a discussion of hybridity and of conflicting and
complicated cultural anxieties. We see this in Amirpours discussion of her identity that
in many ways points to the possibility of Bad City, and the film itself, being a diasporic
middle space or borderland, Yeah, its a mash-up, but it becomes really liberating,
because as a kid growing up I wanted to be American, like my white American friends,
but I am Iranian and my culture is very fixed and strong and its been an overwhelming
presence in my life. How do you explain that is part of who you are? (quoted in Aftab,
2015). Additionally, both Amirpour and Sheila Vand agreed, with this movie, we kind
of made our own place that was as Iranian as we are, which is a mash-up of so many
things (quoted in Ito, 2014). These concrete utopias can also be daydreamlike, but
they are the hopes of a collective, an emergent group, or even the solitary oddball who
is the one who dreams for many (Muoz, 2009, p. 3). The concrete utopia of
AGWHAAN is described by Amirpour as a fairy tale that is not beholden to the rules
or laws of the real world (Edelstein, 2014). Thus, a queer utopia needs a feminist
monster, a fairy tale or malleable figure, to serve as an anti-hero to help actualize it. In
our analysis, we further develop our understanding of queer utopias in AGWHAAN
through our discussion of the monstrous feminist anti-hero and queer doublings.

Monstrous feminist anti-hero

Like any good western, AGWHAAN sets the scene for the dire need for a hero. It begins
with Arash walking through the city casually passing a ravine filled with dead bodies. His
casualness signals the normalcy of this image. The song that plays as the movie starts
becomes warped the closer he gets to the dead bodies, as the title of the film boldly
appears across the screen. The audience is soon shown the head of a pumpjack methodi-
cally undulating into and out of a landscape that marks the liminal geographic space
between Iran and the United States. The machine, whose sole purpose is to extract oil
6 S. ABDI AND B. M. CALAFELL

by force, is a symbolic gesture of pulling life from beneath the surface. This theme of taking
life is further echoed by the dead bodies lined throughout the ravine on the outskirts of
Bad City. The pumpjack speaks to larger cultural debates about the acquisition of oil
from the MENA region by the United States, and the methods by which the United
States has upheld necessary international oil trade to preserve U.S. economy. Much like
the vampire needing blood to survive, the United States relies on international oil trade
to survive economically. The pumpjack immediately sets the tone of the film, as Bad
City seems like a post-industrial wasteland.
The queer utopia of AGWHAAN is predicated upon reimagining a superhero as a
vampire, a monstrous feminist. Similar to heteronormative panics around queerness
often being seen or unspoken, one of the potential strengths of vampires is that their mon-
strosity is not always visible. In the queer utopia of Bad City the vampire is a feminist that
strongly embraces the chador, a symbol that many mainstream U.S. feminists have long
considered abject (Abu-Lughod, 2013). The chador, which covers her entire body,
allows the vampire to be simultaneously visible and hidden, therefore enabling possibilities
for transgression. By re-imagining the chador as a superheros cape and a source of
strength, Amirpours vision embraces the complexities and contradictions that many
(queer) Iranian and Iranian-American women must live within.
Unlike other female vampires who are often highly sexualized, calling attention to their
bodies as a source of power, the vampire in AGWHAAN finds her empowerment in her
quietness and her ability to blend in, challenging stereotypes of passivity associated with
women in the MENA region. The Girl rarely speaks, but when she does it is in Persian.
However, in highly emotive scenes, English language music seems to speak for her,
such as the pivotal scene in her apartment when she emotionally connects with Arash.
This choice speaks to the complexity of her identity as a transnational subject and may
echo Amirpours own diasporic subjectivity. For example, the Girl plays Death by
White Lies as she silently stands with Arash behind her. This is noteworthy as a
running commercial throughout the film features a man telling women to take care of
their children and the house before their husband leaves to find a new younger wife.
This commercial, as well as the vampires choice of embracing the chador, illustrates
the tensions surrounding the need for women to be both hyper visible and invisible. Fur-
thermore, the vampire is the only woman in the film who wears a chador as others dont
cover or simply use a hijab (head cover) over their hair.
We first learn that the Girl is a vampire when she goes with Saeed back to his apartment. As
he is making Atti perform oral sex on him, he sees the Girl and is intrigued. When he sees her
again he invites her back to his apartment during which he tries to seduce her with drugs,
music, and his dancing. Saeed, who is obsessed with demonstrating his strength and sexual
prowess, imagines himself in control, as he has previously been seen in control with everyone
else. However, he is clearly not in control as the vampires true nature is revealed when her
fangs descend. High, Saeed initially thinks her fangs are cool, but when he finally realizes
that he is her prey, it is too late. She begins seductively sucking his finger mimicking oral
sex, harkening back to the scene she witnessed between him and Atti, before biting off his
finger. Saeed falls to the ground screaming trying to slither away, but the Girl bends down,
gazing at him ambivalently. She then turns the tables by tracing his lips with the finger and
making him suck it. Thus, in making him suck the finger that she bit off she not only symbo-
lically castrates him, but also mimics a sexual dominance that he used against women, against
 CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 7

him. The Girl is the anti-hero who uses monstrous feminism to free Bad City of one of its
biggest criminals; a drug dealer and pimp who performed toxic masculinity and violence.
The vampires role as an anti-hero also comes across when she meets with a young boy
on the street. As he rides his skateboard he senses someone behind him. After several
moments of a cat and mouse game, she appears in front of him as he literally runs into
her. Asking if he is a good boy, pressing him for an answer, he finally answers, Yes.
As she implores him not to lie, she asks him several more times. Eventually, the
vampire bares her fangs as she tells him, I can take your eyes out of your skull and
give them to dogs to eat. Till the end of your life, Ill be watching you Be a good
boy. Running away scared he leaves his skateboard behind which we see her riding in
the next scene. Her actions with the boy serve a measure to intervene in early formations
of masculinity and the (re)production of patriarchy.
Another significant example of her role as monstrous feminist occurs when the Girl
senses that Atti is in trouble and flies in like a superhero with her cape-like chador to
rescue her the moment after Hossein has forcibly injected her with a heroin needle. Hos-
seins addiction has led to his familys debt to Saeed and his desire for drugs (which he calls
his medicine) that are killing him. Through Hosseins addiction, we also see how illness
and depression manifests itself in his continual mourning for his dead wife. This loneliness
and sickness leads him to try to forge a connection with Atti.
In a scene at Attis home, Hossein asks her to dance for him in a reversal of the prior
scene in which Saeed tried to seduce the Girl with his dancing. We hear his voice as he
says, I want to watch you. Hossein seeks to exert control here, though he has no
control over his addiction. In a moment of desire for a connection and patriarchal
power, Hossein forcibly injects Atti with heroin against her will, telling her they are
going to have a good time. We soon see the Girl walking through Bad City and stopping
as if she senses something is remiss. She slowly turns around and moments later she jumps
through the door with her chador floating through the air like a cape. With lighting speed
and strength, she lifts Hossein off the bed killing him by biting him. Later, the two women
work to dispose of his body. The vampire responds to the symbolic act of penetration by
needle as she becomes the one who then kills and penetrates Hossein with her fangs. By
replicating the act of penetration, the Girl is queering the heteronormative notion that
women cannot penetrate or that penetration is solely the property of cisgender men.
The Girls reclamation of agency (both for herself, and for Atti) within this context,
should be read as a disruption of the patriarchal realities that many Iranian and
Iranian-American women adhere to. Additionally, as Atti is not disturbed by the Girls
monstrosity, we argue she also sees herself as a cultural outsider or queer in Bad City.
By the end, we see the Girl free Atti from Saeed and Hossein, and Arash from caring for
his junkie father. Arashs gratefulness manifests at the end of the film when he wants to
leave Bad City with her to start a new life, despite knowing she killed his father. In
acting as a vampire anti-hero, the Girl also disrupts dominant narratives of vampirism.
Byron and Stephanou (2013) and Grady (1996) argue that vampires are often constructed
as capitalist bloodsuckers. However, the Girl has little interest in this, if anything she is
trying to make sense of a postindustrial world whose resources have been plundered.
For example, she ignores all his money when she kills Saeed, but gives Atti his gold so
she can use it to start a new life outside of Bad City. The Girl is a protector of women,
and, by virtue, humankind in general.
8 S. ABDI AND B. M. CALAFELL

Queer doublings
Another key aspect of the films queer utopias is what we term queer doublings or relation-
ality where we see the vampire and another central character as mirroring one anothers
sense of being outsiders and lonely. They desire the utopic space and community. By the
end of the film both Atti and Arash know the Girl is a monster; however, they accept her,
monstrosity and all, because we argue they see their Otherness reflected in her. Her mon-
strosity and melancholy in some ways mirror their own feelings of sadness and of being
outsiders constrained by patriarchy. Specifically, we see this in her relationships with
Atti and Arash. These doublings point to queer potentialities and utopias as they are
driven by a sense of hope for the future. As Muoz (2009) writes, We must strive, in
the face of the here and nows totalizing rendering of reality, to think and feel a then
and there (p. 1). He further argues, The field of utopian possibility is one in which mul-
tiple forms of belonging in difference adhere to a belonging in collectivity (p. 20). Like-
wise, in theorizing liminality, Turner (1977) describes it as a time of enchantment when
anything might, even should, happen (cited in LeMaster, 2011, p. 107).
When the vampire first meets Arash, he is high after taking drugs at a costume party.
Arash, dressed as Dracula, asks her where he is. Following this small talk, he tells her, Im
Dracula. Dont worry, I wont hurt you. As he turns to walk away she follows him until he
turns around and asks her why she is there. She does not answer so he continues speaking
to her and then sweeps her up into his cape to hug her. Looking confused and shocked by
this intimate act, she invites him back to her home.
Once they reach her home, a pivotal scene occurs. Having removed her chador (her
superhero cape) she walks over to the record player and puts on Death by White
Lies. She silently listens to the music, staring at the record player with her back to
Arash. As she intensely listens quietly she seems to be in despair or no longer in
control of her emotions, perhaps conflicted about what to do with Arash. The music
mirrors her mood as it describes the fear associated with change, being vulnerable, and
falling in love. Arash slowly approaches behind her, pushing his face into her hair. As
the vampire turns she locks eyes with Arash and then pushes his head back so his neck
is in her proximity. She leans in and it initially appears she will bite him; however, she
instead rests her head upon his chest, listening to his heartbeat. We hear his heartbeat
thump loudly over the music. The scene illustrates a deep moment of intimacy between
Arash and the Girl. She chooses not to enact violence upon Arash, instead relishing in
the possibility of humanity denied to her. She may long for that which she does not
have, which is potentially symbolic of her ambivalent relationship to power and monstros-
ity as it causes her alienation. It allows her to fight patriarchy; however, she is still living
within a patriarchal society in which her raced, classed, and gendered body is disciplined.
Immediately following the scene with Arash in her apartment, we are introduced to a
transgender woman, dressed in a western style fringed shirt and bandana headscarf
playing and dancing with a balloon. The balloon had been previously floating in the air
somewhat unattainable; however, the transwoman now has a hold of it and is delighting
in it. She invites the viewer to join her in the dance and its euphoria. We see the joy of the
transwoman capturing and dancing with the balloon mirroring the joy the Girl feels in
finding intimacy with Arash. The transwoman harkens to the laws established after the
1979 Iranian Revolution which made same-sex sexual acts illegal, and condemned gays
 CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 9

and lesbian individuals to punishment or death through a codification of a particular

interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) (Bucar & Shirazi, 2012, p. 418). Subsequently,
the Iranian government began to offer state funded sex reassignment surgeries (Bucar
& Shirazi, 2012; Najmabadi, 2004). Thus, the transwoman in the film not only marks
this oppressive history, but points to the power of liminality, and the possibility of
queer utopias. Like the vampire, she is an outsider. In her scenes she is most often
alone. She is not a central character and exists on the periphery of the film, much like
the Girl exists on the margins of Bad City. However, her moments of euphoria, as evi-
denced in her dance, serve to mirror the feelings of the Girl, and potentially signal new
potentialities that are starting to be concretized not only in her or the Girls life, but in
Bad City in general.
Like the transwoman and Arash, the Girl has forged a connection with Atti who first
interacts with her after she keys Arashs car (in Saeeds possession). As the Girl follows
her, Atti demands to know what she wants and they eventually return to Attis home.
The vampire offers her the gold jewelry she took from Saeed. As the women remove
their head coverings, Atti asks the vampire if she is religious. Finally speaking, she
responds, No. Atti continues, Do you want to do what I do? Its not easy. If thats
why you are following me around Im not a teacher. The vampire responds, You
dont like what you do. Atti proceeds to ask why the Girl was watching her. The
vampire shares, Youre sad. You remember what you want. You dont remember
wanting. It passed long ago. And nothing ever changes. Atti retorts, Idiots and rich
people are the only ones who think things can change. As the vampire stares at Attis
map of the world she states, Youre saving your money. For what? No answer is given
and we are quickly taken to a shot of the Girl outside walking on the sidewalk. It is
unclear what else was shared between the women. However, their interaction marks a
moment of a shared sense of sadness, desire, and hope for other potentialities. Whether
it is Attis hope to leave Bad City and prostitution behind, or the Girls desire for connec-
tion, it is clear the women are bonded in their sadness and desire. Furthermore, Mendoza
Forrest (2011) notes that prostitutes or whores were seen as evil just like menstruating
women in ancient Persian writings. Given our argument about the reversal of menstrua-
tion or bleeding by the vampire, the queer doubling of the vampire and Atti is
unsurprising.
We mark the closeness or intimacy between Atti and the vampire within this context.
The female vampire does not possess the (white) patriarchal power that vampires such as
Dracula do. Thus, her relationality and Otherness as not only a monster, but as a woman
within a patriarchal world, make her choice of male victims significant, as does her choice
to align herself with women. The shared intimacy of Otherness in a world in which
womens bodies are commodities that they must continue to fight for control over, is sig-
nificant as is the lack of sex in favor of Other or queer intimacies. Halberstam (2011)
argues, Heteronormative common sense leads to the equation of success with advance-
ment, capital accumulation, family, ethical conduct, and hope. Other subordinate,
queer, or counterhegemonic modes of common sense lead to the association of failure
with nonconformity, anticapitalist, nonreproductive life styles, negativity, and critique
(p. 89). Halberstam (2011) echoes Muozs rejection of the impoverished present.
This rejection of heteronormative common sense in the present undergirds our con-
ception of queer intimacy in AGWHAAN. Moments of queer intimacy are driven by
10 S. ABDI AND B. M. CALAFELL

the characters desire for be-longing and something better. Rowe (2005) describes
be-longing as a sense of self that is radically inclined towards others, toward the
communities to which we belong, with whom we long to be, and to whom we feel accoun-
table (p. 18). Similarly, Calafell (2004) describes the space between two bodies as home,
drawing on work on the ambiente. The vampire creates community rather than progeny.
Writing of the postcolonial gothic, Anatol (2015) argues that this genre often depicts
characters who refuse to use their bodies as the locus of patrilineal preservation
(p. 126).
LeMaster (2011) cautions against films that humanize vampires as they can limit the
representations for queer audiences, instead calling for liminality. The doubling we see
between the vampire and each of the characters is not about humanizing her, instead it
is about marking the queerness or abjection of each of the characters. Their connections
are moments of queer potentiality and Othered belonging undergirded by liminality.
Muoz (2009) writes, I point to a queer feeling of hope in the face of hopeless heteronor-
mative maps of the present (p. 28). Certainly, the film presents the hopeless heteronor-
mative maps of the present through Attis narrative of prostitution, the transwoman, and
the failed moments of heterosexual connection Arash experiences earlier in the film. For
each of these characters the present is not enough as it is impoverished and toxic for
queer and other people who do not feel the privilege of majoritarian belonging, normative
tastes, and rational expectations (Muoz, 2009, p. 27).
Calafell (2015) writes about intersectional decolonial monstrosity in demonstrating
the present is not enough as queer temporality drives a future perfect of performativity
that gestures not only to a thing done or imagined, but a thing projected forward (p. 68).
The relationality and queer utopias of AGWHAAN are driven by intersectional desires not
just for something better, but something that sustains them. By the end of the film, Arash
leaves Bad City with the Girl to start a new life, perhaps driving toward the queer utopia
they both desire. Atti, thanks to the Girl, now has more resources to leave Bad City should
she choose, and the transwoman seems content, having found her place in Bad City.

Conclusions
Through a critique driven by monstrosity, Iranian feminism, and queerness, this project
contributes to the incorporation of transnational feminist perspectives within communi-
cation studies scholarship, specifically pertaining to the MENA region and its diaspora.
The consideration of the intersection of monstrosity and Iranian feminism provides an
outline for potentialities of queer utopia. The inclusion of MENA feminist critiques
within Western feminist discourse allows scholars to expand upon, enhance, and call
for more inclusive feminist scholarship within communication studies, media studies,
and feminist studies. Providing counter hegemonic examples of MENA women resisting
cultural suppositions, affords cultural scholars unique insight into the ways in which
MENA women are fully capable of saving themselves.
Furthermore, our essay demonstrates the ways that the trope of the vampire becomes a
resistive tool for (queer) Iranian and Iranian-American feminists. The fantastical nature of
the vampire allows for a queer utopia through themes of the monstrous feminist anti-hero
and queer doublings. Theorizing these themes, we find that queer temporality and rela-
tionality undergird them as they create moments of resistance that blend glimmers of
 CRITICAL STUDIES IN MEDIA COMMUNICATION 11

the past, present, and future. These themes perform new ways of being in the world or
identities that reflect globalized, postcolonial, and diasporic lived experiences where
lines between cultures are simultaneously rigid and malleable, particularly for those in his-
torically marginalized communities. We argue, The film reframes female monstrosity as a
source of physical power that enables women to combat a culture of gender violence
(Kelly, 2016, p. 98).
We find it significant that the Girl does not have a backstory or a name. While some
might read this as disempowering; we wonder about the potential this ambiguity
permits for MENA women to read their own stories into the narrative of the Girl. Abu-
Lughod (2013) titled her book Do Muslim Women Need Saving?, AGWHAAN powerfully
answer her query by working against hegemonic ideologies that position Muslim and
MENA women as passive victims. Instead, perhaps it is time we start listening to and cen-
tering their voices, as we question who is really in need of saving.

Acknowledgment
We thank Dr. Robert Brookey and the anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful feedback and
support.

Notes on contributors
Shadee Abdi (M.A., California State University, Long Beach) is a doctoral candidate in the Com-
munication Studies Department at the University of Denver.
Bernadette Marie Calafell (Ph.D., University of North Carolina) is Professor of Communication
Studies at the University of Denver.

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