Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (part 1)

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People . This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged form the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs--from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-wielding "terrorists"--a long the way offering devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypic images, their development at key points in US history, and why they matter so much today. Shaheen shows how the persistence of these images over time has served to naturalize prejudicial attitudes toward Arabs and Arab culture, in the process reinforcing a narrow view of individual Arabs and the effects of specific US domestic and internationl policies on their lives. By inspiring critical thinking about the social, political, and basic human consequences of leaving these Hollywood caricatures unexamined, the film challenges viewers to recognize the urgent need for counter-narratives that do justice to the diversity and humanity of Arab people and the reality and richness of Arab history and culture. Director: Sut Jhally Biographical Summary: Dr. Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University, is a leading scholar of Arab representations in US popular culture. Shaheen is the author of the groundbreaking study The TV Arab and, most recently, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, the most comprehensive review of Arab screen images ever published. Analyzing over 900 Hollywood films made from 1896 to 2004, Dr. Shaheen exposes American cinema's systematic and pervasive degradation and dehumanization of Arabs. Articles: "Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs." Howard Rosenberg | Los Angeles Times TV Critic

Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood. They're portrayed basically

as subhumans - Untermensch, a term used by Nazis to vilify Gypsies and Jews.

These images have been with us for more than a century.

For 30 years, I've looked at how we, particularly when I say we - image makers, have projected

Arabs on silver screens. In my latest book, "Reel Bad Arabs - How Hollywood Vilifies a People",

I looked at more thank 1000 films - films ranging from the earliest, most obscure days of

Hollywood to today's biggest blockbuster.

And what I tried to do is to make visible what too many of us seem not to see -

a dangerously consistent pattern of hateful Arab stereotypes.

Stereotypes that rob an entire people of their humanity.

All aspects of our culture project the Arab as a villain. That is a given. There is no deviation.

We have taken a few structured images and repeated them over and over again.

Whether one lives in Paducah, Kentucky or Wood River, Illinois, we know basically the same thing.

"Listen to the sound…"

"Jesus!"

"....of Allah!"

We know the mythology, the mythology namely, Hollywood’s images of Arabs.

We inherited the Arab image primarily from Europeans in the early days,

maybe 150 years, 200 years ago. The British and the French who traveled to the Middle East and those

who didn’t travel to the Middle East conjured up these images of the Arab as the oriental other -

- the travel writers, the artists who fabricated these images and who were very successful

as a matter of fact. And these images were transmitted and inherited by us.

We took them, we embellished them and here they are.

"When you cross the mountains of the moon into our country, Mr. Turello, you’ll be stepping back 2,000 years."

We have this fictional setting called Arab Land, a mythical theme park, and in Arab Land,

you know, you have the ominous music, you have the desert. We start with the desert,

always the desert as a threatening place. We add an oasis, palm trees, a palace that has a

torture chamber in the basement. The Pasha sits there on his posh cushions, with harem maidens

surrounding him. None of the harem maidens please him so they abduct the blonde heroine

from the West who doesn’t want to be seduced.

When we visit Arab Land we must be aware of the instant Ali Baba kit.

What we have, we have the property masters of Hollywood going around and they’re cladding

the women in see-through pantaloons, belly-dancing outfits, they’re giving the Arab villains scimitars –

you know, these long, long scimitars. We see people riding around on magic carpets, turban charmers

programming snakes in and out of baskets.

Yesteryear’s Arab Land is today’s Arab Land.

"You are late."

"A thousand apologies, oh patient one."

"You have it then?"

"I had to slit a few throats, but I got it."

Disney’s “Aladdin” was seen by millions of children worldwide. It was hailed as one of

Disney’s finest accomplishments. But the film recycled every old, degrading stereotype from

Hollywood’s silent, black and white past.

Singing: ♫ Oh, I come from a land, from a far away place where the caravan camels roam;

where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric but, hey, it’s home.♫

“Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face, it’s barbaric but, hey,

it’s home.” Now how could a producer, with a modicum of intelligence, just a modicum

of sensitivity let a song such as that open the film. But this moves way beyond one song.

"You must be hungry, here you go."

"You’d better be able to pay for that."

"Do you know what the penalty is for stealing?!"

"NO! No, please!"

The Arab is a one-dimensional caricature, a cartoon cutouts used by film makers as stock villains

and as comic relief.

And so, over and over, we see Arabs in movies portrayed as buffoons

their only purpose being to deliver cheap laughs.

You see this in the Joey Heatherton film “The Happy Hooker Goes to Washington.”

"Every night I was forced to perform unspeakable acts with circumcised dogs!"

"Well, dogs are better than sheep. They’re cleaner, I know. I’ve tried both."

And over and over, again, they’re portrayed as inept. So, in a movie like “True Lies”

not only are the Arabs dangerous, they’re also incompetent.

"I, we, are all prepared to die. One turn of that key, two million of your people will die, instantly!"

"What key?"

"That key! Who’s taken the key?!"

One actor who excels in his portrayal of Arabs as buffoons is Jamie Farr in “Cannonball Run 2.”

"I have a weakness for blondes" (kissing noises) "and women without mustaches."

All the stereotypes are here: Too rich, and stupid, to know the value of money.

"Get me 12 suites! Better yet, the entire floor!"

And of course he’s oversexed, lecherous, uncontrollably obsessed

with the American woman.

"Here, my desert blossom, keep the change. Have you ever considered joining a harem?"

And, so another pattern is the lecherous Arab.

In “Jewel of the Nile”, Sheik Omar tricks Kathleen Turner. How? He convinces her to come with

him to Arab Land, then he imprisons her.

"You stay here, and you write what I tell you to write."

We see the same sort of ominous seduction in "Protocol." The entire plot revolves around

an Arab Emir’s infatuation with the blonde, blue-eyed Goldie Hawn. In the Bond film

“Never Say Never, Again” Kim Basinger is abused by the most sleazy looking Arabs imaginable.

She’s tied to a pole, stripped to her underwear and auctioned off to primitive looking Bedouin.

And in “Sahara” Brooke Shields is also kidnapped and presented to the lecherous Arab sheik

for his own perverted pleasure.

(grunting, growling)

"Get away from me you dirty creep!"

More than 300 movies, nearly 25 percent of all Hollywood movies that in one way or

another demean Arabs, contain gratuitous slurs or they portray Arabs as being the butt of a cheap joke.

"We were going into Mecca, see, and the plane is full of Arabs, with these animals –

goats, sheep, chickens. I mean, they don’t go anywhere without their Goddamn animals.

We had to put plastic in the cabins, you know, they urinate, they defecate."

You have films by Neil Simon like “Chapter Two.” The beginning of the film, the protagonist

arrives back from London, and his brother says, “How was London.” And he says, “Full of Arabs.”

"How was London?"

"Full of Arabs."

Yeah, imagine if he had said “full of Blacks”, “full of Jews”, “full of Hispanics.”

I mean, that’s ridiculous. Why do we do these things?

One of the most offensive films with gratuitous images, “Father of the Bride 2.”

It features Steve Martin selling his house to a Mr. Habib.

"We like house very much, when you can move out?"

"Excuse me?"

"The Habibs would like to buy the house, George. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for."

"Yes, when you can move? We need house a week from Wednesday, and my wife wants flower

dishes in kitchen. You sell, we pay top dollar."

When Habib’s submissive wife tries to speak, he shouts gibberish at her.

And then he offers Martin a fifteen thousand dollar cash bonus to move out in 10 days.

When Martin tells Mr. Habib he doesn’t want to sell the house -