The FREQ Show: 00.03 Manufacturing a Muslim Menace

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This is the third episode of Feminist Frequency’s new series, The FREQ Show! With The FREQ Show, we’re answering the question, “What do representations of race, gender and sexuality in pop culture have to do with our current social and political climate?”

In “Manufacturing a Muslim Menace,” we analyze the ways in which the ubiquitous, deeply harmful stereotypical representations of Muslims and Arabs as terrorists and savages in so much popular media contribute directly to Islamophobia in our culture. More than that, they cultivate a political space in which our president can ride Islamophobic sentiment straight into the Oval Office, and then pursue policies rooted in the very Islamophobia that Hollywood has done so much to cultivate.

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"Has the crowd dispersed now?"

"No, its still out there, but unarmed.

Just chanting. You know, standard

'Death to America' stuff."

From True Lies to American Sniper,

From 24 to

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare,

western media is full of images of

evil brown people who need to be wiped

from the earth by noble righteous white men,

heroically fighting for freedom and justice.

And sure, it's so commonplace by this point

that maybe you don't even bat an eye at

old-fashioned American Islamophobia

in our media.

"[laughter]

[characters speaking in Arabic]

[protestors chanting in Arabic]

"This is a hijack!"

[passengers screaming]

"Sit down! Sit down!"

"Nobody move! Nobody!"

"All right!"

"Engage hostile targets as they appear!"

"Waste the motherfuckers!"

"You have killed our women and our children.

"Bombed our cities from afar...

"like cowards...and you dare

"to call us 'terrorists"?!"

"Here, my desert blossom.

"Keep the change!

"Have you ever considered joining a harem?"

"Oh my God. They found me.

"I don't know how, but they found me."

"Nooooooo!"

What?! Back to the Future!!

Even that beloved comedy classic

takes a moment to toss in a few scary brown men

to menace and terrorize our white heroes.

Unfortunately, we can't hop in

Doc Brown's DeLorean

and undo all the harmful representations of

Muslims, Arabs, and Middle Easterners

that have haunted our stories since,

well, basically since the Crusades.

But we can make sure that history

doesn't keep repeating itself.

Ok, ok. Maybe that's not entirely fair.

In some ways, things have changed.

Once upon a time,

non-white actors could hardly

get any work in Hollywood at all.

These days, shows like

Homeland and movies like

Executive Decision are providing some brown

actors with ample opportunity to portray

scary terrorists who get gunned down

while screaming something absurd like

"Death to America!"

It doesn't even matter if you're not actually

of Middle Eastern descent.

If you're vaguely brown, you can stick around

(to play bad guys).

"Oh, are you an artist, Mr. Thurkettle?"

"No, uh, sir. I work for a little company"

"called Texan Oil."

"Well, there is no oil here, Mr Thurkettle."

"Just sand."

Now sure, not every Middle Eastern character

in films is a villain.

In the 1920 box-office smash,

The Sheik,

the dashing hero gets the girl in the end.

But the Arab world of the film is presented as

exotic and dangerous,

and the sheik himself,

the one, good, heroic Arab,

is played by Italian-American heartthrob

Rudolph Valentino.

You see, since he's not really Arab,

he's allowed to get the girl in the end.

If you think this kind of racist coding

to signify the difference between

"good" Arabs and "bad" Arabs went away with the

advent of talkies, think again.

Have you ever noticed how in Disney's Aladdin,

the good guy might as well be

a tanned American surfer dude,

but the bad guys look and sound a little more...

uh, Arab?

"You are late."

"A thousand apologies, oh patient one."

"You have it then?"

"I had to slit a few throats,

but I got it."

While Hollywood has historically given

"good" Arab roles to non-Arab actors,

it has also given not-so-good Arab

and South Asian roles to white actors, too --

denying brown people work and decent

on-screen representation in one fell swoop.

It's basically the world's worst Catch-22.

For example, take Mr. Habib,

the scheming Middle Eastern villain in

Father of the Bride 2,

who's played by Eugene Levy.

"The Habibs would like to buy the house, George."

"It's exactly what they've been looking for!"

"We've lived here for 18 years."

"I don't know if we can get everything--"

[vaguely Arabic soundingibberish]

Those aren't even real words!