The Secret Society: Descendants of Crypto-Jews in the San Antonio ...

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Her talent and desire for attention lead to a fame that in turn necessitates her descent into
nothingness as a result of culturally-based female marginalization.
Rushdie in the Media
In October 2006, British Member of Parliament Jack Straw raised controversy over
the issue of veiling in Islam by stating that he would require Muslim women to remove the
veil covering their faces before admitting them to his office. 11
In the midst of the debate,
newspaper headlines, including ABC News, glaringly carried Rushdie’s statement that “veils
suck.” 12
Rushdie, who twice won the Booker Prize for his creative talent and flowing prose
in Midnight’s Children, who repeatedly demonstrates in his novels his full command of the
English language, chose to publicly declare his political, cultural, and religious views in the
media using vulgar language lacking either nuance or depth. However, this choice, too,
reveals his command of the language; Midnight’s Children contains numerous examples of
Rushdie’s intense awareness of the power of media over a public that generally equates news
with Truth. And while newspapers printed Rushdie’s statement within quotation marks—
indicating that “Veils suck” merely represents one man’s opinion—their visibly attaching
Rushdie’s name to the quote only reinforces the audience’s perception that his represents the
“authentic” view. The media further authorizes his views by elevating them to bold
headlines, playing upon the scandalous nature of his remarks. 13
Rushdie ventriloquizes for
the media and its own anxieties and prejudices toward Islam, so that in the Western world,
“Rushdie” has become a household name equated with intense suffering inflicted by the
violent censorship of oppressive Muslim regimes.
In his Salman Rushdie and the Third World, Marxist critic Timothy Brennan
addresses the problematics of celebrity Postcolonial writers. Brennan argues that