Hollywood's bad guys - The Arabs

Shooting the Arabs

They're the studio's villains of choice when comes to depicting terrorists, arms dealers or torturers. And after September11 , it looks like getting worse. Author Jack Shaheen escorts Sean Clarke through the shabby history of the Hollywood Arab

If Hollywood does take up the story of blonde, blue-eyed Private Jessica Lynch, there's at least one man who won't be optimistic about the film's treatment of her Iraqi captors. Professor Jack Shaheen has spent 20 years cataloguing Tinseltown's portrayal of Arabs in over900 movies. He's found that, with very few exceptions, Arabs are presented in the movies as "subhuman" and destable to a degree that the studios would no longer dare with any other ethnic group.
Shaeen's new book, Reel Bad Arabs, compares the case of Pocahontas - Disney's Native American animation, on which Native American groups were widely consulted in order to produce an acceptable portrait - with that of Aladdin, one of the Arab and European world's most cherished folk tales, which features "hook-nosed Arabs" singing of their milieu: "it's barbaric, but hey, it's home." This, as Shaheen doesn't point out, in a story set in the Baghdad Caliphate, the most culturally powerful and one of the most enlightened polities of its time.

"The tragedy" he admits, "is that we've begun to unlearn other stereotypes" - about Blacks, Jews, Native Americans. "But we haven't with this one. And9 / 11took it to another level."

So why is it still acceptable to slander the Arabs? "The stereotype is embedded in the US psyche," Shaheen explains. "I think it reflects American policy in the region. Politics plays a dominant role, especially with the wars." Shaheen takes "the wars" back as far as the Iranian hostage crisis of the1970 s, pointing out that many people in Hollywood cannot distinguish between Arabs and Iranians.

Shaheen even thinks the dehumanisation of Arabs in Hollywood can affect the US public's attitude to war in Iraq. "For instance," he says, "we hardly ever see Arab suffering. Look at the war coverage - it's almost invisible. It's almost as if the bombs are falling on empty buildings. And that's been true historically, when every news report that comes out of Israel rightly shows Israeli suffering, but wrongly passes over Palestinian suffering. We have not allowed ourselves to empathise with Arabs or see them as being like us."

The importance of all this, Shaheen says, is also felt within US borders. "Many people think this is a harmless question of entertainment - it's 'only a movie'. But the dangers are real, and I think the dangers are taking place right now with the denial of civil liberties to people who are being rounded up because they have Arab roots. And there's no outrage at all about what's taking place."

By contrast, there is rage in abundance within the Arab world itself. "Arabs to whom I've spoken love American movies. But one fellow I spoke to in the United Arab Emirates told me that some of these films make him feel like he's been physically hit in the stomach, that he wants to go out and throw up."

Shaheen sees clearly who's to blame for this situation - he talks of Arab Americans increasingly changing their names to disguise their ethnic background, of his own lectures being cancelled by groups fearful of a backlash in their community. "As long as the Attorney General and this administration continues to single out and profile Arabs in this country I see this increasing. I don't see an end to it." But when asked who's to blame for Hollywood's prejudices, he identifies a less obvious culprit: the Arab American community itself.

"Hollywood can villify anything and everything Arab without getting any pressure not to do that. There's no lobby in Hollywood. There are two power centres in the US; Washington DC and Hollywood. One influences policy, and the other influences perception. No Americans of Arab heritage have recognised the importance of lobbying those who impact perception."

"I think there's been a reluctance on the part of Arab Americans and American Muslims to become involved in the creative process. We live in an open society. I think if we were part of the creative process ... if we had a few Palestinian film-makers in America we'd see Palestinians presented in a better light. The lack of presence comes from a failure to recognise the importance of becoming involved in the process of shaping their own images."

The lessons for the makers of Saving Private Lynch are obvious. Unless they want to become involved in a conspiracy of indifference which is stereotyping millions of people, Hollywood needs to reach out to the Arab community. The models are there; Shaheen himself worked as a consultant on the Gulf war thriller Three Kings, and Brad Pitt reportedly demanded a screenwriter with Irish Republican sensitivity rework the script for The Devil's Own. Who knows? If they get it right, Saving Private Lynch could even prove a box office hit in the free and prosperous Iraq we're all being promised.



Source: Guardian/UK