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Arab Stereotypes:
The eternal enemy
Following the screening of his documentary – Reel Bad Arabs – Dr Jack Shaheen, celebrated author and media critic, gave an engaging talk at the Qatar National Convention Centre, on how Hollywood has been vilifying and dehumanising Arabs for over a century.
“T
Dr Jack Shaheen 64 > qatar today > november 2013
hose who tell the stories, rule society,” Dr Shaheen began in a quiet voice, pausing for effect. The documentary, adapted from his book by the same name, had just come to its conclusion. There was a stunned silence. Though it might have been common knowledge that the perception of Arabs in the West was skewed, watching how the image took shape through clips from over 60 movies from the turn of the 20th century up until 9/11 was a revelation. Film after film, churned out from America’s most effective propaganda vehicle, Hollywood, depicting Arabs as lecherous sheikhs, sexualised belly dancers, nomadic Bedouins, spoilt rich boys, faceless and voiceless women, and terrorists. “We never see an Arab man with his wife and children, at a playground, at a picnic,” says Dr Shaheen, “or as doctors and nurses saving lives. Just being everyday humans. Because when we humanise them they become difficult to stereotype.” And these were just 60 films out of over 1,100 that he has analysed. “If we were to host a film festival and screen three anti-Arab Hollywood films a day, we’d have enough for over a year,” he says. At first there is a tendency to dismiss his concerns. Maybe he is being over-sensitive. They are just movies after all. Meant purely for entertainment. But Dr Shaheen illustrates how cinema has been used for propaganda since the days of World War I. “Lenin recognised the importance of cinema, even in the era of silent films,” he says. “Around the same time, the president of Paramount Pictures observed how movies were a channel for conveying thought and opinion. Ten
years later Joseph Goebbels, the Nazi propaganda minister, realised that ‘the most brilliant propaganda technique confines itself to just a few points and repeats them over and over’.” And that has what American popular culture has been doing – unnoticed and uncontested. It took the best part of 40 years for Dr Shaheen to bring attention to the problem. “I was teaching in the [US] Midwest – basic courses in journalism, mass communication, criticism in the public arts and working with public television, mostly children’s programming,” he says, talking about his journey. “One Saturday morning my children, 6 and 7 years old, came running to me, saying there were bad Arabs on TV. And there I saw Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Donald Duck – some of our favourite characters – beating up this Arab. This was what first got me thinking. I then subscribed to the TV Guide and every week would pore over it, looking at the description of the shows with Arab names and characters.” For him, the trend was unmistakable. Across the board – comedy, drama, documentary, and children’s shows – he came across the same Arab image. “I submitted this research proposal to my university and it was turned down instantly. They called it Arab propaganda. Overnight I had gone from ‘Shaheen from Pittsburg’ to ‘Shaheen the Arab professor’,” he remembers. “It took me three years and 60 rejection letters to publish my first article, and another six years to bring out my first book, The TV Arab,” he says, reminding the audience that if you are going to effect change, it’s going to take a long time. “I knew I was on to something. It took a while to gather momentum,” he says. “The book Reel Bad Arabs took me 20 years. I travelled to research institutions across the country, looking for films with Arab characters, reading every film review of every movie Hollywood ever released at the Library of Congress. There was no Internet, no DVDs, and the research process was painstaking. And the films that misrepresented Arabs seemed endless. I finally stopped after going through more than 1,100 movies, and keep in mind, all of these were pre-9/11. Imagine their impact on opinion and policy!” he says. Stereotypes exist for several reasons, Dr Shaheen points out. “Political interests, economics (these movies make a lot of money), apathy, ignorance, silence and lack of presence.” To illustrate the last point, of
Saladin from the 2005-movie, Kingdom of Heaven
of presence, he talks about a specific scene in the movie Kingdom of Heaven. The Arab and Muslim hero Saladin has just emerged victorious in battle and as he walks past the destruction and debris he comes across a fallen cross. “He reverently picks it up and places it back on the altar. This wasn’t part of the script. But the Syrian actor playing Saladin, Ghassan Massoud, pointed out to director Ridley Scott that Saladin would have never left it lying there. They tried it, and it was the best part of the movie for me,” he says. The presence and voice of an Arab on the project made possible this subtle peek into the character of a great king. There have been dramatic changes over the past 12 years, Dr Shaheen says. “The emphasis on film in the Gulf with the different film festivals in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha didn’t exist a couple of decades ago. Young people now are aware of this image and they are not going to wait around. Particularly women. A number of Arab and Arab-American filmmakers are making outstanding independent films – All-American Muslim, Just Like Us, The Muslims Are Coming! The Citizen, to name a few. But the problem lies in the lack of support, he says. “These film festival organisers tend to get taken in by Hollywood glamour. Stick with image makers who have your best interests at heart, not those who just want to make money.” He passes the mantle on to the young Arabs in the audience. “Do something,” he says. “Don’t be silent. Don’t be passive. In the words of Martin Luther King Jr: If ever we are to illuminate justice and our common humanity, we must challenge these hateful words and action. To break the appalling silence of good people, we have to be the mover and shakers.”
Crimson Jihad, the Palestinian terror group, who are the antagonists in True Lies (1994), are not only depicted as brutal but also incompetent, according to Dr Shaheen.
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