How Hollywood Films Fueled Anti-Arab Sentiments Among Americans and Movie-goers Worldwide

MUST READ ARTICLE !! "Another rule for the Arabs : Robert Kilroy-Silk's outburst shows that there is one ethnic group about whom it is apparently still OK to be flagrantly racist" by Brian Whitaker in The Guardian. Also read HERE and HERE and HERE

Jack Shaheen was a former CBS News Consultant on Middle East affairs. About a year ago he wrote the book "Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People." . Read Here comments by readers who had read the book.

"As a film and video librarian, I welcome Dr. Shaheen's groundbreaking study. It came as quite a shock to suddenly recognize a form of racial stereotyping that is so widespread-yet somehow invisible-and almost as old as the cinema itself." John Skillin, Director, Audio Visual Services, Montclair Public Library

The book is about Arabs depicted in Hollywood movies, and how these movies fed movie-goers on a diet stream of cinematic cliches of Arab people, of conflicts in the Middle East, and even American perspective of the recent attacks on the World Trade Centre.

According to the author of the book, these Hollywood movies warped the American views of a people, the Arabs, with a propaganda message sublimely inserted to position movie-goers on the Middle East conflict. It is about creating attitudes of movie-goers to dislike or hate Arabs.

Below excerpts on a commentary piece by Jack Shaheen "Hollywood's war on Reel Bad Arabs "in The Daily Star.

For far too long, Hollywood has played a paradoxically hidden role in paving the way to America's war.... in Iraq. We first went to war with Iraq in 1943, with a movie called "Adventure in Iraq." It depicted an American soldier's "shock and awe" bombing of what the screenplay called that Arab country's "devil worshipers." (The Arab characters were mostly played by Anglo Saxons.)

"Adventure in Iraq" was nothing new.

For more than a century Hollywood has been conditioning audiences worldwide to internalize the defamatory message that Arabs, and by extension all Muslims, are unrelenting enemies of Western values.

Major studios, with increasing momentum have dedicated themselves to producing film after film that featured overt anti-Arab propaganda.

What remains to be seen is whether, misled by America's swift ousting of Saddam, Hollywood will misconstrue our victory as a renewed license to continue its ultimately suicidal barrage or get the real message in time to mend its ways.

When did you last see a movie depicting an Arab or Arab-American as a regular guy?

It's worth pointing out, again, why this stereotype endures: politics, (no) presence or pressure, and profit.

Evil and the fear of evil are a mix that translates into box office. The mix leads producers to exploit the Arab stereotype for profit by feeding moviegoers a steady diet of Arabs as mangy primitives.

Then there's politics.

Since the 1940s our (American) leaders have supported pro-Israeli positions. TV entertainment shows and movies almost always make it clear an Israeli's life is worth more than an Arab's, especially a Palestinian Arab's.

Three times more, by the numbers. How often have you seen Palestinian aggressors killing Israeli civilians?

But have you ever seen a movie showing Israeli settlers or soldiers gunning down Palestinian civilians?

It's no surprise that Hollywood helps mold the public opinion that helps shape public policy.

Jack Valenti was inspired to confirm that by observing: "Hollywood and Washington share the same DNA." Like movies, news reports also focus selectively on a minority of a minority of radicals who chant "Death to America!" as they burn Uncle Sam in effigy.

These Arab and Muslim villain images gratuitously equate 1.2 billion people as clones or mindless utensils of Ayatollah Khomeini, Moammar Gadhafi, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Fair play?

Violent news reports of extremists keep driving home the myth most Arabs are evil.

Such deliberate distortions provide all the excuses image makers eager to exploit the issue need to ratchet up their Arab-bashing.

Here's what West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin said at a recent Writer's Guild "We Hate You" symposium: "I'm going to bring onto the show certain Arab Muslim characters. You're not going to like them."

Sorkin's a man of his word. (Aaron Sorokin is Jewish)

Read HERE article entitled "Hollywood Jews" and HERE an article in Jerusalem Report.

Since Sept. 11, he and other TV producers have saturated viewers with Arab blackguards; (with) dozens of law enforcement, intelligence agency, and courtroom dramas such as

West Wing,

Jag

The Agency,

Law and Order,

Judging Amy,

The Practice,

The Shield,

and the CBS-TV movie, The President's Man: A Line in the Sand.

Today, the networks are vilifying us (Arab Americans)... we could all be a threat to our nation. Regardless of our roots, faith or skin color, whether we're homegrown citizens or newcomers, producers are having a field day projecting Americans of Arab heritage and American Muslims as disloyal thugs and terrorist traitors.

Scores of TV programs, "Sue Thomas FB Eye, 24, Family Law, and The District " keep falsely maintaining that we shot dead our follow Americans and use dirty bombs to nuke Washington, Los Angeles, and Texas.

These TV shows give prejudice a free pass when attacks on mosques, harassment in schools, physical violence, loss of jobs, rude profiling at airports, even arrest and imprisonment in violation of civil rights are increasingly the daily portion of Arab and Muslim Americans.

Instead of empowering our own maligned people to organize and protest this dedicated misrepresentation, all most Arab-Americans do is TALK.

Unless Americans of Arab heritage get their act together, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

Arab diplomats, too, share the blame. They treat this stereotype with yawns of indifference. Gulf nations, in particular, continually waste gobs of money by hiring American PR firms to promote their respective countries and leaders. Once the firms pocket the cash, they place lengthy advertisements in major US newspapers and magazines. No one, except for perhaps a few embassy staff members, reads these useless, boring ads.

US government incompetence is another part of the problem.

Soon after Sept. 11, forty Hollywood executives met with White House senior adviser Karl Rove to help "win the war on evil." So far Rove's Sept. 11 coalition has released only ONE international public service announcement. It features 1984 Olympics champion Nawal-el-Moutawakei-Bennis, talking about commonalities.

Then, intent on reinventing America for 1.2 billion Muslims, Bush appointed a former ad executive, Charlotte Beers, as undersecretary of state to lead a $15 million public diplomacy campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world. Let's skip fancy PR experiments. It won't work.

Because capers like Rove's Sept. 11 coalition and other diplomacy campaigns continue to overlook the basic problem: Hollywood's Reel bad Arabs.

As long as Hollywood continues damning all things Arab and Muslim, Muslims won't buy into transparently government PR ploys.

Daily, worldwide, in more than 100 nations, viewers see American movie stars Arnold Schwarzenegger (True Lies), Samuel Jackson, Jr. (Rules of Engagement), Ken Russell (Executive Decision) and others blowing Arabs to smithereens.

Viewers are also now witnessing a real war as they watch American troops inside Iraq and inevitably confuse the distinctions between the reel and the real.

To help ensure a lasting peace in postwar Iraq and throughout the Middle East, President Bush would be well advised to host a White House conference: Its purpose: To advance peace by spelling out the role Hollywood needs to play to end this blatantly biased stereotype.

High on his guest list could most helpfully appear such government officials and media moguls as Karl Rove, Ted Turner, Rupert Murdoch, Stephen Spielberg and Michael Eisner.

I'd be happy to pass the refreshments before I give my talk.

CLICK HERE to Listen to Jack Shaheen (need RealPlayer, free download on the website)

Read Here review article by James M. Wall on Christian Century "Negative Stereotypes on Film"

Read Here article by Amal Bouhabib in The Daily Star, " Hollywood's penchant for ugly stereotypes"

Jack Shaheen shied away, for political correctness, from saying openly which American ethnic group owns Hollywood, and among them, those who should be held responsible for causing this stereotyping of Arabs in Hollywood-made movies. Read Here review article "An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood " in World Union of Jewish Students website ,

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