Introduction
There is a certain way in which the Arabs and Muslim religion are represented in the Hollywood films. This representation is commonly a portrayal of Arabs and Muslims as primitive, uncivilized, bad, terrorists and good-for-nothing people. It has been a huge issue that has remained on the rise within the American Hollywood industry, where every scene that involves Arabs and Muslims is always shown in a manner that communicates war, lawlessness, primitiveness, illiteracy and bad manners. This practice has become quite significant to the extent that it influences the way people in the West view Arabs and Muslims at large. The negative stereotyping of the Arabs and Muslims within the Hollywood movies has become so significant that it has caused the disapproval of people from the Middle East as bad people who are not good for humanity. It is even quite bewildering when the American government buys into these stereotypes. The main question in this paper is whether there a relationship between the negative representation of Arabs and Muslims in the Hollywood movies and the foreign policy of the American government towards to the Middle East region. It is the thesis of this paper that there is indeed a strong relationship between American government foreign policy towards the Middle East region and the representation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies.
Literature review
There has always been a misrepresentation of Arabs and Muslims in the Hollywood movies as primitive, illiterate, terrorists and bad people. This negative stereotyping was even enhanced by the 9/11 attack in the United States of America. It has become so significant that it is legitimized in the minds of many Western people when viewing their Middle East counterparts. In fact, it has become the main basis for the modern day discrimination against Arabs and Muslims in Western countries. Many researchers and analysts opine that this negative stereotyping of the Arabs and Muslims has always informed the foreign policy of the American government towards the Middle East region. It is important to note that Hollywood has always led a propagandist and limitative role in the American imperial policy in the Middle East.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The Hollywood movies like Exodus 1960 film and Beaufort 2007 are some of the main conveyors of negative stereotyping about the Muslims and Arabs. These movies make the Middle East to remain the topic within the American cultural rhetoric. It is notable that right from the start days of Hollywood, film-makers have always represented Arabs and Muslims from the Middle East using exotic ethnic terms (Arti, 2007). In fact, this stereotyping has now become the perfect basis for most film industry productions where the villains with bad attributes are from Middle East and play against the protagonists from America, who are portrayed as good guys. This phenomenon led to the growth of the negative stereotypical image of otherness (Arti, 2007). The otherness stereotype regards Arabs and Muslims as others. These Arabs and Muslims from the Middle East are feared within the American culture. This defamation of the Arabs and Muslims perpetuated by Hollywood movies has contributed to the current dichotomy between America and the Middle East. In this dichotomy, the Middle East remains subservient to America, which considers it as a region that cannot survive without its help and intervention.
Orientalism, which is the name coined by Said (1987) to explain the negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims within the American media, is the justification for imperialist foreign policy of the United States of America in the Middle East. Orientalism is the self-serving negative view of Asians by the Americans as perpetuated in the Hollywood movies. This concept of orientalism involves viewing Arabs and Muslims as second-rate human beings who have deficiencies and inferiority. In this concept, which is the basis for the negative representation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies, races in the Middle East have a primitive culture centered on serious levels of illiteracy hence need the Anglo-Saxon tutelage. Furthermore, as Said (1987) mentions, the negative representation of the Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies is intimately connected to the military, economic and political strategies used by the American government in the Middle East.
There are three specific dogmas in which the Arabs and Muslims are represented in the Hollywood movies. The first one entails creating a systematic distinction between the Americans who are civilized and erudite and the Arabs as well as Arabs and Muslims who are backward. In most Hollywood films, the Arabs are portrayed as villains, cowardly and barbaric. They are represented as sinister and not deserved to be part of humanity. The Muslims are represented as a disgrace to humanity (Arti, 2007). They are stereotyped as people who are always up to something bad. The Arabs are portrayed as people who lack basic morals. For instance, it is common to see in films Arab players on planes brutally raping and killing innocent women. The Arab actors who commit these heinous atrocities in albeit in Hollywood movies are captured by only the American heroes or heroines. Most of the Arab actors are given roles that portray them as criminals (Said, 1997). In the same films, the American army is shown rescuing the Middle East region from attacks and other issue of humanitarian concern. Such movies seem to convey the notion that the Middle East will remain reliant on the support of the American government. There are many Hollywood films that keep showing the Iraq civilians being rescued by American soldiers from the hands of oppressive regimes.
What follows is the real application of these films in real life. The American government uses the justification presented in these films to carry out its activities in the Middle East region. Some of these activities include military actions. It is notable that for many years the American soldiers have never been withdrawn from the Middle East.
The portrayal of Arabs and Muslims as inferior has had a strong influence on the hegemonic foreign policy of America in the Middle East. The Middle East is also portrayed as a perilous region that must be controlled. This view portrayed in Hollywood films has got the better part of most reasoning within the American leadership circle. Recently, the current United States President, Donald Trump, issued an Executive Order banning immigrants from the Middle East and other Muslim countries like Libya. Although this order has been the basis of hot legal battle, which has halted its implementation, it reflects the height of the negative profiling meted on the Arabs and Muslims, especially in Hollywood movies.
American Sniper by Clint Eastwood is an example of the latest movies, which continue with the over a century old practice of maligning and misrepresenting the Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood. This film is an Iraq war drama. Notably, the first Iraqis who appear in this film are one young mother and a boy possibly aged 12 years. Chris Kyle, the movie’s hero, sees the two Iraqis through his powerful scope while atop a rooftop. Chris Kyle is a real-life Navy Seal. His tours in Iraq form the basis for the narrative in this Hollywood movie.
The young mother is donned in her burqa and ḥijāb. She is seen giving a grenade to the little boy and sends him towards a group of American soldiers. Although tortured by the act, Kyle executes both of them before the boy makes it to the group of the American soldiers. The woman and the boy are represented as dangerous and immoral. The import of this Hollywood when interpreted from the perspective of real life situation is that the Arab and Muslim mothers train their young sons to engage in acts of terrorism while still at tender age. It means that even the tender aged boys from the Middle East are already dangerous to the security of humanity and deserve to be killed. The fact that it is an American hero, Kyle, who executes them means that only the Western people can correct the savageness of the people from the Middle East. It is, thus, a movie that seeks to lend credence and justify the United States activities in the Middle East region.
Jack Shaheen (2001) gave a good analysis of the misrepresentation of Arabs and Muslims in his work. His work is based on an analysis of 900 Hollywood films. Following his detailed analysis of the Hollywood films, Shaheen (2001) concludes that these movies portrayed the Middle East in quite exotic terms. According to Shaheen (2001), these exotic terms stoked bad feelings, loathing and distrust. Shaheen (2001) clearly states that the Hollywood’s portrayal of Arabs and Muslims as a pestilential was overtly alienating and real racism. Jon Semmerling (2006) also added his two cents on this discussion by noting that Hollywood was incessantly constructing a view of Arabs and Muslims as evil.
Hollywood has always been the American government’s propaganda machine in its policy within the Middle East region. Hollywood has always followed the line taken by the American government in a bid to justify it. This scenario is the premise for the existing strong relationship between the American foreign policy in Middle East region and the representation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies (Arti, 2007). The American government views the Middle East as a real threat, an idea that is in tandem with the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies. The perspective of the American government is that the Arabs and Muslims in Middle East are only united in their opposition against the United States and Israel (Arti, 2007). The American has had active involvement in Middle East issues like when it assisted the overthrowing of the elected government in Iran and imposed brutal dictatorship leadership of Shah with the aim of getting supply of oil. America has also had active intervention in the Lebanese civil war (Arti, 2007). Moreover, the United States has always sided with Israel in its perennial conflicts with Arab nations like Palestine. In all the foreign policy implementation actions of the United States in the Middle East, Hollywood has always presented the American role in the region as informed by need for protection, but not invasion. The films portray America’s policy in the region as only meant to protect it from radicalism and terrorism.
Method
In answering the main question of investigation in this paper, the secondary articles and books on the same issue were used. Moreover, a number of films were analyzed to get the real representation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies. Therefore, the answer for the question in this paper is consistent with the common view of researchers who have analyzed it and reported findings in articles and books.
Conclusion
The purpose of this paper was to find out whether there is any relationship between the representation of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood films and America’s foreign policy in the Middle East. It has been established that there is a strong relationship between the negative stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood movies and America’s real activities in the Middle East region.
References
Arti, S. (2007). The evolution of Hollywood's representation of Arabs before 9/11: the relationship between political events and the notion of'Otherness'. Networking Knowledge: Journal of the MeCCSA Postgraduate Network , 1 (2).
Said, E. (1987). ‘ Orientalism’. Penguin Group.
Said, E. (1997). Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See The Rest Of the World. Random House Inc.
Semmerling, T. J. (2006) ‘Evil Arabs’ American Popular Film: Orientalism Fear . University of Texas Press.
Shaheen, G, J. (2001). ‘Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People ’. Olive Branch Press.
