Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, media approaches have altered. On Television shows and movies, in newspapers and on the radio, there has been an increase in hate crimes targeting Arabs and Muslims. Most coverage today follows a script that represents Arabs and Muslims only in the context of terrorism. Evelyn Alsultany wrote a book called Arabs and Muslims in the Media in 2012. The stories explained the new standards in racial and cultural representations after 9/11.

By continually representing the Muslim or the Arab as the heartless villain, even cartoon movies contain a biased perspective against the Muslim image in America. All that glitters is not gold, and this is true for films fresh off the reels of Hollywood, as some contain an unfair perspective of Muslims.

There are many things I want to learn and get to the bottom of while researching this topic. My main question is, “Why is this happening?” Honestly, I cannot even believe this topic is actually still an issue. When thinking of movie directors, producers, etc. I would assume them to be a group of progressive and inclusive people because the artist community generally is. So, how have these people let this happen? I would also like to look in to how this misrepresentation affects the minorities of America. There could possibly be underlying psychological turmoil in minorities which causes them to feel less capable. This brings me to wonder if there is any underlying racial bias in everyone because of who is glorified in in movies and shows. In order to answer such questions, I will research to find if any psychologist have done any studies on the effects of television and film on our subconscious in terms of the representation of minorities. I am also curious how other diverse countries such as Canada’s television and film look. I will compare the United States to these diverse counties in my research in order to provide a more global view.

Hence, there are a lot of movies giving bad images on Arabs and Muslim from the silver screen till status quo, this chapter is launched with analysis and we shed the lights on two movies contains that bad images for the other people released by Hollywood.

In this tedtalk, Melissa Boigon, who studies Islam and its relationship to the Arab-Israeli conflict, talks about how Islamophobia has become more of a fear of Arabs over the last 10 years. She thinks that has to do with the connotation to terrorists groups such as Al-Qaeda, and the way middle east conflict is portrayed in The United States today. She also discusses how American Entertainment portrays Arabs, saying that it's propaganda in the form of entertainment.

The film industry’s portrayal of African American people consists of countless stereotypes and inaccuracies. These depictions lead to an innumerable amount of misrepresentations about the African American community. As the latest wave of black films begins to dawn, the clearer the images become of a collective people. Using my personal experiences as a mixed woman of color, as well as including my academic strengths and goals, and points of view regarding various black films, the content of this paper will examine the representation and stereotypes that can be seen in African American Hollywood.

Films have the power to both influence and reflect society. The stereotypes prevalent throughout American culture are reflected in most films. While the United States is becoming an increasingly diverse country, this diversity is not portrayed within American cinema. Minority figures often occupy

Ridouani states that the western representation of Muslims and Arabs is not a recent “fabrication”, but that it was deep-rooted into the West’s conceptualism since the first contact with the Muslims and the Arabs. (Ridouani). Ridouani seems to be very confident with this statement as he continues to tie the rest of the evidence he finds in it. The author talks about the Disney movie Aladdin, and how it began the 21st century stereotyped look that Arabs have. According to Ridouani, princess Jasmine’s original name is Badr Al Budur, however Disney has introduced her as Jasmine. Even if Disney innocently changed her name for easy pronunciation, what they failed to realize is that they have distorted the Arab identity in the western world. Once they changed her name, they also changed her identity; and so with that they also changed her appearance. Ridouani believes that the basis the media uses to actualize their targeted view of Arabs is to allocate them “in three B’s: ‘billionaire’, ‘bomber’, and ‘belly dancer”’ (Ridouani). Those three words have led to what we currently know as the

“When all imagemakers rightfully begin to treat Arabs and all other minorities with respect and dignity, we may begin to unlearn our prejudices” (Shaheen 87).

Arabs, Arab Americans, and Muslims are often stereotyped in movies as sheiks, barbarians, or terrorist. As many Muslim Americans are visibly culturally distinct, it would be of value to explore whether attitudes of non-Muslims toward Muslim Americans resemble attitudes expressed by European non-Muslims toward members of these minority groups.

After several incidents that happened around the world, peoples view on Arabs changed. The media played a big role in “the stereotyping of Arabs”. It is one of the main reasons for people to think the way they are about Arabs. Many

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.

It is important to address the stereotypes of Middle Easterners that may have been learned from the culture in the United States (U.S.). There is a difference between Arab Americans and those that were born and remain in the Middle East. However, it the stereotypes of the Arab American is addressed, it will make the transition to understanding

Arabs, as part of the Eastern world, have been and are continually othered by the West. In fact, the continuous process of vilification and negative portrayals has created some kind of general opinion and understanding of Arabs and Islam both in the United States and in the rest of the world. According to some sweeping generalizations, an Arab should be someone coming from the Middle East. An Arab should necessarily be a Muslim. An Arab should be either a rich sheikh with a beard and a long robe or a Bedouin roaming the deserts with his camels and flocks of sheep. An Arab should be a terrorist driven by the heavenly promise of angelic women in the afterlife and who coldheartedly kills innocent people, mainly Americans and Europeans,

Syed Soharwardy asserts that “Media always tried to portray Islam as a religion of terror and all the Muslims as terrorists. The way the talk-show programs and news are produced and presented, it seems that the media has already decided the guilty verdict, regardless what would be the outcome of an investigation” (Soharwardy). So too do members of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee recognize the media’s predisposition toward bias, as is pointed out in this statement, found on their website: “Key industries of American mass culture, Holllywood and television, for decades have been bastions of anti-Arab stereotyping, and have consistently resisted positive or realistic representations of Arabs and Arab Americans. (Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee).”