Posts Pg.150

The movies “Lawrence of Arabia” and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” were made within two decades of each other, both depicting the stereotypical misrepresentation of people of Middle Eastern descent. They both portray the Arab culture with negative connotations, serving us a one-sided character that serves one purpose, to entertain. While Hollywood has continually planted a seed of fear, disdain, and disgust for those of Middle Eastern descent, they have rarely if at all showed them in an accurate and positive way. Hollywood films are controlled by a small group of Jewish white males, which have utilized a constructed ideology surrounding the Middle East, propagating a stream of racism. Movies are mainly presented with the white male as the hero and someone of color as the villain. This has been exacerbated by almost every film that have Arab characters, showing them as greedy, womanizing, terrorists, who are “dangerously” different from those in the Western World. When this portrayal of those of Middle Eastern descent is repeated over and over again in Hollywood films, how can the public not harbor a racist attitude? Movies constantly depict Arab’s as drastically different from those in the West, making us feel little connection with the character and ultimately dehumanizing the way we feel about the Middle East.
I can remember watching “Aladdin” an animated Disney film for kids, and looking back now the stereotypical Arab characters within the film maintained what we think of Middle Eastern culture. The film offered up many wacky, villainous, deviant characters all serving to entertain and make the viewer laugh. One has to wonder though why such negative depictions of Arab’s would be found in a children’s film. If the media is already at work constructing our ideas of other cultures at age five, how biased will our minds be by the time we reach adulthood?
Seeing how films can negatively represent those of an entire nationality/ethnicity makes me wonder about the motives behind such plot lines. Could Hollywood execs simply be taking cues from the political stances of our government? Long running conflicts surrounding the U.S. with many countries of the Middle East has had considerable influence on the way the media and films depict Arab’s. Due to the negative portrayal of this culture, our mass media has controlled and manipulated our perceptions, forming racist thoughts and preconceived notions of what the Middle East is and is not.
After 9-11 our president formulated the Patriot Act, saying that in order keep America safe, the government must be able to have reign over phone lines to monitor conversations, and question whoever they deem a “suspected terrorist”. This meant barging into peoples homes without warrant, detaining innocent American citizens, and even holding those being questioned in jail for months at a time. The racial profiling of a distinct race has caused almost everyone of us to make assumptions or harbor fear from those of Middle Eastern descent. This whole trail of thought wouldn’t have been so successful if it wasn’t for the American movies that have demonized and dishonestly portrayed Arab’s.




Kaitig,