Edward Said's Orientalism is a theory of the West's reconstruction of the East in its own system of thought. In analyzing this construction, Said made a discourse analysis that revealed how those who have power with the Foucauldian approach construct knowledge. According to Michel Foucault, those who have power build knowledge in discourse. In the media discourse established by the West which has power today, the East has a “crowded,” “non-sterile,” “backward,” “irrational” image. The issue of women in orientalism is also important. Because the woman is among the most easily marginalized segments, the Oriental woman becomes an object. In fact, gender, culture, religion, ethnicity and geography are marginalized on women. The aim of this study is to examine the construction of Oriental woman in Western films in the context of Orientalism theory. Iraqi women in The Exorcist (1973) and Moroccan women in The Sheltering Sky (1990) were analyzed.
