Arabs in Hollywood

It's no secrect that hollywood frequently gets things wrong when it comes to depticting the world at large. For instance, much of arab/middle-east histroy suggests a rich culture where civilization originated (if you look at the bible as a historical document). But much of this rich history is overshadowed by the many problems that have recently plagued that area (well...not recently per se many of those issues are deep-seeded and long running but you get what I mean).
Traditional Hollywood as depicted the middle-east as an "exotic", "mystical", "strange", non-westernized, not white, violent, unstable and all other types of adjectives to describe "other" . Always it's the "white man who rides in on a white horse" who comes and saves the day, maybe with the help of an arab companion to help him "navigate" this strange land that he can't possibly comprehend by himself.
Ugh. Gag me with a spoon.
Obviously this view is stilted and bias in many ways. Has it changed? Yes and no. In the old studio-era hollywood pictures of the '30s and '40s, for instance "The Sheik" arabs are depcited as this grizzly beasts who are always wearing turbans and robes and hawking and spitting. Arab women are either "exotic" brazen beauties or defenseless, dominated by the overprotected men in their lives. Naturally, they are always the villians. These images are meant to terrify then-america, which had no excess to other types of information like the internet or intergration in social situations-in other words the world was "larger" back then.
In more recent depictions arabs have been depcited as terrorists (pick a film, any film) or the targets of terrorist activites (think "Stealth"), so they're STILL the bad guys or often times, may be even worse, their depcited as feeble or somehow unable to bring about peace by themselves (therefore the noble, brave, smart americans must come in and "save" them).
So, yes,it has changed.
Is it any better? no.
Why? Why this particular depiction of Arabs versus others. Well, simply put, it's the way of Hollywood. No one "gets out" of being stereotyped (there are 400, 500, page books about the stereotypes placed on black people and a number of other miniorites) this is simply Hollywood is overun with white men with little or no knowledge of the people they are making films about.
Plus, the arabs have the other disadvantage of us currently being at war with a middle-eastern country making "good" representations of them even more difficult. Although this is something of a recprical relationship, we potray them as being "odd" or "other" in some way and the arab filmakers potray americans as being overcaffinated, rich, fat, idiots. Everyone gets these stereotypes stuck in their heads as a "refrence" of sorts and the ability to overcome these stealted views is wholly negated.
Is it because that we are always taught a format of history, based heavily on colonists-view of the world, which revires eurpean and american history but alienates other histories such as middle-eastern, african, asian, etc.? If we taught a history that viewed both as cultrually rich and valued, would things be diffrent? Probably, but how would we go about this? Very few are willing to "rewrite" their jilted view of the world on their own even though the information is there for the taking so it would obviously have to be taught when they have no choice in the matter (i.e. School)
But the problem with that is that it would, in a sense, "ruin" the american moral. History isn't patriotic. In fact, when you go in search of it often times it shows us as being greedy, selfish and stupid above all. It's better to just keep things the way.
Change is costly.