American TV Programs Imaging of Arabs as Terrorists and Villains

Introduction

According to Shaheen (2015), American TV programs and films have vilified Arabs as terrorists and villains. This stereotyping has been there for decades, even before the September 11 (9/11) terror attacks, which dates back to The Sheikh (1921), a film that starred Rudolph Valentino, who was stereotyped as an Arab villain. This representation remains a pervasive motif, and this was exacerbated by the 9/11 attacks, an event that extended Hollywood's malignant wingspan that cast a shadow of prejudice, fear, and distrust over American Arabs lives. According to Shaheen (2015), Arab Americans are diverse and separate n the basis of politics, religion, traditions, faith, and origins, just as the general society we live in, but a common characterization unites them - vicious stereotypes and pervasive bigotry, to which they are increasingly being subjected in various motion pictures, TV shows, films, as well as video games, mostly released by special interest groups (Fadda-Conrey, 2011). As Shaheen (2015) highlighted, a 2012 poll by Willliam Roberts pointed out that 55% of Arab American Muslims have been subjected to discrimination and 71% fear being discriminated in the future, including instances of death threats and false arrests. For situations, after 9/11 over 2,000 were detained and most of them being Arabs and Muslim immigrants, highlights the extent to which Arabs are discriminated. Williams also reported that 60% of Americans have not met a Muslim and after 9/11, about 30 new anti-Islamic hate groups have emerged in the US. Even though almost two decades are passed since 9/11, the stereotypes still exist.

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The 9/11 terrorist attacks wreaked havoc and shook the core of the world as many countries were indirect o directly affected, and still people to date remember it as a terrible criminal act (Alalawi, 2015) According to Alalawi (2015), in the post 9/11 climate of the war on terror, Hollywood political thriller films carry a new cultural currency. As a result of the terrorist act along with the scale of its implementation and outcome, defense strategies and security preparedness was upgraded, which consequently led vigilance and a sense of peace and unity. However, when people started healing from the terrorist activity, Hollywood went ahead on stoking the anger and prejudice through the depiction of Arabs as antagonists, which has largely contributed to the institutionalizing of prejudice against the Arabs in not only the USA but also the rest of the world. In fact, being an Arab or Muslim even for individuals with Muslim sounding names, being a target of discrimination is common because of the strong association with terror activities, which consequently exacerbate attacks and discrimination against the Arabs (Shaheen, 2009; Shaheen, 2008). This leads to nefarious and inhuman treatment for Muslims and Arabs, especially those who come from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan (Alalawi, 2015). Additionally, according to Al-Jenaibi (2014), the role of the media in this backdrop has been significant, especially in Hollywood films, which unfairly portray Arabs and Muslims as extremists with no regard to human life.

Problem Statement

Alsultancy (2012) points out immediately after 9/11 attacks, there was an increase of sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims on US media and whenever a Hollywood film or drama represented them as terrorists, they were sure to include a positive representation of an Arab or Muslim, which was critical in offsetting the negative depiction. Even the then President, George W. Bush made a distinction between Arab and Muslims enemies and friends and stated that the enemy of the US was not the many Arab and Muslim friends, but radical terrorists and every government that supported them (Alsultancy, 2012; Alsultany, 2016). Despite these sympathetic sentiments towards Arabs and Muslims, workplace and airline discriminations, hate crimes, and bias incidents increased exponentially. Many of instances of violence were reported by the Council on American-Islamic Relations, as well as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, including a few murders. Despite the fact that for almost two decades have passed since the terror attacks, the incidents of discrimination, prejudice, and bigotry against Arabs have persisted, and this may be attributed to the fact that Hollywood films portray Arabs as extremists. Therefore, this warrants the investigation whether such films from Hollywood have fueled the terrorist stereotypes among Arabs that have been sustained have the society to date.

Objectives of the Study

As such, the objective of the current study is to examine, study, understand, perform content analysis, and consequently showcase the role played by Hollywood films in misrepresenting Arabs. Therefore, the study covers aspects such as race, gender, culture, and the Muslim religion. Importantly, the main goal is to showcase the theme that pertains to the negative portrayal of Arabs and the Arab world before the world. The paper will also

Research Question

The following research question will guide the current study:

RQ: In what ways do Hollywood films misrepresent, portray, and stereotype Arabs in the post-9/11 timeframe?

Hypotheses

The study tests the following null and alternative hypotheses:

Ho1: Hollywood films have not misrepresented, portrayed, and stereotyped Arabs in the post-9/11 timeframe as terrorists and extremists with no regard to human life.

Ha1: Hollywood films have misrepresented, portrayed, and stereotyped Arabs in the post-9/11 timeframe as terrorists and extremists with no regard to human life.

Significance of the Study

It is hoped that the current study along with its findings and analysis will help change pervading narratives and conversations in the media, particularly in filmmaking industry so that a meaningful change can be achieved and avoid the adverse stereotyping of Arabs, or at least for the entertainment platforms, such as Hollywood to act responsibly by refraining from reinforcing and encouraging preconceived stereotyping and notions.

Methodology

The study aims to understand the presentation of characters of Arab origin. The study involves a close examination of Hollywood motion pictures that deal with how Arabs are represented. Essentially, this is the period after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the selection of post-9/11 films is vital to understand how Arabs are depicted, which will allow the researcher to directly examine the effects of real-world events on the creation of Hollywood motion pictures. Since the central theme for 9/11 was terrorism, the study mainly aims to investigate how Arabs are represented as terrorists in Hollywood films. These films are detailed in Table 1 below.

Table 1

The five films that are detailed in Table 1 were chosen after searching with the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), while only selecting English language films that contained the theme of terrorism in their plots. The researcher excluded all documentary films with a similar idea. The literature review was also a significant criterion for including the five films as it positions them as important media artifacts within the representation of Arabs as terrorists in Hollywood motion pictures. This approach for studying representative films has been used in previous studies on Hollywood depiction of terrorism (Vanhala, 2011), which allows for the researcher to avoid the study being chronological.

Even though terrorist events, for example, 9/11, have been mediated via other genres including superhero and science-fiction films, this current study is limited to direct representation of the depiction of Arabs in terrorist activities of the action genre. In essence, this approach is of importance to the current study as it offers a direct connection between real-world events, in this case being 9/11 terror attacks, and their cinematic depicting without the need of mediating analogies other genres use in discussing such events. Other films that directly mediate terrorism, including World Trade Centre (2006, dir. Oliver Stone), United 93 (2006, dir. Paul Greengrass), and Munich (2005, dir. Steven Spielberg), were eliminated primarily because this study focusses on only fiction films. Essentially, fiction films allow for greater freedom for telling a story, and thus, the numerous possibilities permitted by works based on fiction better demonstrates common representations to which the researcher in this study seeks to locate.

Therefore, the primary data for the current study will be developed after a close examination of the five films presented in Table 1, during which they will be watched to analyze content, and thus, offer an understanding of how Arabs are represented. Slocum (2011) articulates that a close examination of films is a vital step towards comprehending how popular media shape public perceptions. The current study utilizes content analysis to highlight the representation of Arabs in Hollywood films.

Literature Review

According to Padgett (2014), various racist stereotypes have been associated with the Arabs for centuries, which include playing the role of a villain, thief, seducer, and hustler - the barbarian that lurks at the gates of civilization. New images characterized the 21st century: the suicide bomber and the fanatical terrorist, and consequently Arabs have become all-purpose buffoons and villains in American media, such as films, television, books, and computer games. Some of the stereotypes include portraying an Arabs as sheiks, Bedouins, terrorists, maidens, burkas, Arab street, and belly dancers. According to Padgett (2014), the sheik is a stereotype where Arabs are portrayed as having long, sunglasses, beards, and pockets that have been stuffed with petrodollars and driving a large SUV while a Bedouin is stereotyping Arabs as nomads who trek dessert sands on camels and subsequently sleeping is a tent. As terrorists, Arabs are mad dogs who are happy to sacrifice their life to innocent children and women just because they have been promised 79 virgins in heaven because they are Muslims. As maidens, Arabs are stereotyped as beautiful princesses who wear veils, attended by many females and guarded by eunuchs.

The West has viewed Arabs as stereotypes, which is very obvious in their depiction in films. Arabs, especially those of Muslim religion, have historically been looked down upon by Western nations and stereotypes about Arabs are not new to Western culture. Acceding to Abdullah (2015), the problem can be traceable back 1400 years, which at the time religious sect, Christianity and Muslims were involved in major crusades in the 1100s, as well as in the Ottoman and Moorish control in Europe. Arab religion, Islam, started to threaten the position of the Christian church and the ruling class. In effect, Western elites, mainly the churches and government were highly involved in ensuring that a negative image about Islam and Arabs was presented to their counterparts. There were a lot of battles against Islam, and consequently, a war of words ensued to prevent Islam from having sympathizers and converts in the West. The negative portrayal of Arabs in media began intensively after WWII, particularly after 1960. Different events, including Israel-Palestine conflict, massive migration of Arabs and Muslims to Western nation...