Arabs And Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People

It is no surprise that the Middle East has been present in American cultural rhetoric. Topics featuring Arabs and Muslims have appeared in various media format from news coverage, to discussions, to the accessible Hollywood fraternity. The earliest of American movies have portrayed Arabs and Middle Easterners in exotic ethnic terms. This has served as the perfect framework for movie productions in which they have played the villain opposite American ‘good guys’ and so created stereotypical image of ‘otherness’. Before I discuss the consequences of such representations I refer to Sut Jhally’s documentary based on Jack G. Shaheen’s book of the same name, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People. The documentary looks at movies that have depicted the Arab as a caricature, a cartoon model, and a terrorist. The consumers have absolute control over the experience of viewing images for the very fact that the scenes in these films do not share or speak directly with the audience. My reaction to this has resonated with a sense of falseness and dissatisfaction. The intent here is to not debate whether these depictions are good or bad; it is to present the ways these images are imperfect. The documentary establishes how the maintenance of hegemony in a world of inequality is doing the world no favor in terms of image. Jack Shaheen’s narration in the documentary validates how Hollywood movies are particularly guilty of propagating these incorrect portrayals of Arabs yet Shaheen is also victim in his biased behavior towards the Arabs.

Jack Shaheen points out how Hollywood movies have perpetuated a condescending image of Arabs and created cultural misconceptions. The unsightly face of an Arab or Muslim being does “become symbolic of the...

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...edly objected to covering the religion of Islam. He brings up how the media and entertainment world represents aggression as the nature of Islam. According to Said the Orient is constructed in relation to the West, as it is a mirror image of what is inferior and aliens “other” to the West. He finds that Muslims and Arabs “are essentially covered, discussed, apprehended, either as oil suppliers or as potential terrorists” (Said, 9). Rather than provide “the human density” of their lives, “a limited series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world are presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression” (Said, 26). Shaheen’s main concern is the scarcity of likeable Arab characters in Hollywood cinema. He remarks when was the last time the audience saw a movie depicting an Arab or an American of Arab heritage as a regular guy?