Reel Bad Arabs

Reel Bad Arabs

            The portrayal of Arabs in popular media throughout Western culture has been one with a highly negative connotation. The way in which we demonize Arabs has been adopted into our mentality as a social norm. We don’t even question why Arabs are seen as terrorists or enemies in every movie we watch. By making a certain group of people seem bad throughout popular films, we tend to believe it without question. Through film we categorize people under certain groups and stereotypes that become passed down through generations. These stereotypes become invisible to us since our brains are infected with misinformed facts from youth. In the documentary “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” those detrimental stereotypes are highlighted and explained. We are in turn left thinking about how we have never questioned these famous films and the portrayal of certain people.

            As a whole I found the documentary to be mind blowing. Exposing the truth about how Western culture thinks of Arabs was painful to accept yet motivational in the sense that it helped identify the stereotypes that must be fixed. The most interesting and controversial moment in the film was when Dr.Shaheen talked about the Disney Channel movie Aladdin. One of my favorites growing up, I never thought about how people were being portrayed in the movie. The open market scene when a starving child steals an apple, and the owner catches him forcefully with the intention of cutting off his arm just passed through my head as normal. In America that’s unheard of. Automatically we associate violence with Arabs without even stopping to think. Also I found it extremely interesting how Arabs are portrayed exactly how Nazi propaganda portrayed Jewish people. It shows how racism infiltrates our minds without notice. Another interesting moment was the bombing in Oklahoma City done by Timothy McVeigh an Irish Catholic man. It was amazing to see how the media especially the news automatically discussed the ‘Middle Eastern influence’. There was never a moment of blatant racism towards the Irish Catholics in Oklahoma City, but immediately we associated the bombing specifically with Arab people. Almost as if saying that only Arab people felt the need to hurt American people, and that American people would never harm those around them. It paints a very uncomfortable picture in my mind judging innocent people and making them evil without noticing the positives.

            I don’t feel that in the beginning there was any specific reason as to why we associated Arabs in a negative light and it just remained normal to us. We always feel the need to associate evil with a certain group or person and the film industry chose Arabic people. These invisible stereotypes instill more socio-political consequences. Not only are we as a whole country scared of people we know nothing of, but innocent people are stereotyped as evil terrorists. After 9/11 every person in this country feared Arab people based on twenty-two Arabs who chose to inflict harm on innocent Americans. We didn’t care if they were potential friends or lovers we automatically shut ourselves off from the positive. Living with this constant fear is detrimental to our growing society. If it continues to be passed on from generation to generation there will be no possibility of growth and change.

            Throughout the whole documentary I recognized about four movies. Shockingly enough I didn’t notice the blatant racism that each movie contained until watching this documentary. I remember the first time I saw Disney’s Aladdin. I absolutely loved it! It didn’t occur to me that most of the information was misleading and flat out wrong. I just enjoyed watching a beautiful princess and her lover fly around on a magical carpet. I do on the other hand remember being afraid of the market owner and Jafar. Their clothes and turbans seemed to be extremely different and for some reason it always stuck to me that if I saw that particular style of dress I would be scared. This documentary definitely helped point out the racism that I never noticed, but at the end of it all there is still a sense of fear that I associate with Arab people however bad that sounds.

            This documentary has clearly expressed how the power of popular culture, especially film, has planted a misinformed thought in our minds since young children. Furthermore it has taught me to always be aware of subtle yet blatant racism in social media. Although it has shaped my constant fear of Arab culture I am now aware that it is there and I must always be mindful of it. Popular culture proved to be an extremely powerful influence on my ideas growing up, but the lesson this documentary highlights is how we should be able to recognize it and know its wrong.