Posted by
InchDeep on Friday, May 02, 2008 1:11:52 PM
‘Hollywood
vilifies Muslims’
read the article here.
In the article under the section of “World news” the author,
who is not named, sites several examples how Arabs and Muslims are portrayed
negatively in movies and television. The writer notes that these portrayals of
Arabs and Muslims are distorted and propagate unfair stereotypes.
There are many problems with these assumptions. The first,
and most obvious, is that we did not make up Muslim villains. There have been
Muslims killing people in the name of Islam, for centuries. They are not a
recent creation. Ever since it's inception Islam has had it’s greatest success,
for lack of a better term, when it was spread by the sword.
Next, these movies do not portray all Arabs and Muslims as
evil. The vast majority of people do not believe this about Muslims. We believe
that there is faction within Islam that are radical, and want all people to
live under Sharia Law. They will die to make it happen. The movies and
television programs portray those who belong to these factions. The storylines
are pulled from events that are seen, and read about nearly everyday, in the
media. Not a day goes by where there is a not a bomb going off, or a terrorist
plot being foiled. Does in not make sense that these events would make it into
movies and television.
The writer then goes on to suggest why this unfair portray
is allowed to continue. He quotes Jack Shaheen, author of the book “Guilty - Hollywood’s
Verdict on Arabs after 9/11” as saying “What enables these images to persist
and prevail? One of the primary reasons is silence,” Silence? Every time
anything comes out that even slightly offends Muslim sensibilities there are
mass protests. People have died over cartoons that were published depicting the
Prophet Mohammad. There are protests in the street, usually with someone or other
being burned in effigy while shouting death to America.
The real silence that frightens us here in the west is the
Muslim worlds silence when ever there is a terrorist attack. There are people
killing innocent civilians in the name of Islam, and no one speaks out. Where
are the protests? Where are the people burning Osama bin Laden in effigy and
yelling down with terrorism? I will tell you where they are, hiding. Because if
they dare to speak out they are labeled as insulting Islam and are threatened
with death. Or, even worse in their heart of hearts they too believe all would
be peaceful under Islamic Law and are just sitting back and waiting for the
happy day Islam rules the world. They are perfectly content to let the
terrorist carry their water to make it happen.
To the author of this article I say the movies and
television programs will stop when the followers of Islam rise up and crush
those who kill in the name of their religion. It’s the only way. Join the fight
for real. The next time innocent people are killed in the name of your religion
take to the streets to denounce it. Then maybe you can make it into a TV movie
of the week or on to the big screen. We are waiting.
ENTIRE ARTICAL BELOW.
Friday, May 02, 2008
BEIRUT: American films and TV
dramas shot since the Sept 11 attacks have reinforced screen images of
Arabs and Muslims as fanatics and villains, ingraining harmful
stereotypes, argues an author on the subject.
In
his book “Guilty - Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11”, Jack
Shaheen praises some post-Sept 11 films for offering a more sympathetic
image of Arabs and Muslims, who he argues have been castigated for
decades by Hollywood.
But he says too many have portrayed them
in ever darker shades, criticising films including “The Kingdom” (2007)
and “The Four Feathers” (2002) and condemning the creation of a new
“Arab-American bogeyman” in TV dramas such as “24”.
“In the
United States, you can say anything you want about Islam and Arabs and
get away with it. In other words, as someone said, ‘You can hit an Arab
free’,” said Shaheen - also author of “Reel Bad Arabs - How Hollywood
Vilifies a People”.
Shaheen, an American of Lebanese descent,
has examined the treatment of Arabs and Muslims in some 1,000 films,
including more than 100 shot since Sept 11.
From action movies
such as “True Lies” (1994) to comedies including “Father of the Bride
Part II” (1995) and Disney’s animated “Aladdin” (1992), Shaheen
identifies films that have perpetuated damaging stereotypes of Arabs
and Muslims.
“The images have remained primarily fixed and have
only been changed in the sense that they have become more vindictive
and damaging,” he told Reuters in an interview in Beirut.
“What
enables these images to persist and prevail? One of the primary reasons
is silence,” said Shaheen, a retired professor of mass communications
who worked as a consultant on “Syriana” (2005) and “Three Kings”
(1999). “There’s nobody in authority, no political leader, no Hollywood
personality who has taken a stand and said demonising Arabs and Muslims
is the same as demonising Jews or blacks or Asians or any other racial
or ethnic group.”
In “Guilty”, Shaheen credits films including
“Babel” (2006) and “Rendition” (2007) for “more complex, even-handed
Arab portraits”. But “very few people are listening”, he said. “It’s
been very difficult, it’s like being a salmon trying to swim upstream.
“What
is done is selective framing of radicals: people saying ‘death to
America’. You cannot deny the reality - there are people who really
want to kill Americans. But those are basically the only images we see.”
He
describes last year’s “The Kingdom” - an action movie about FBI agents
hunting terrorists in Saudi Arabia - as one of the most damaging
depictions of Arabs of recent times in which “even Arab children cannot
be trusted”. Shaheen also charts a new trend of turning American Arabs
and Muslims into “the new bogey person” and criticises the TV drama
“24” for its “vicious images of loathsome Muslim Americans as well as
Americans with Arab roots”. Hollywood’s depiction of Arabs has eased
the path for US administration policy, he argues. Decades of portraying
Arabs and Muslims as the enemy “made it that much easier for us to go
into Iraq”, he said.
“There were very few people protesting.
“The images help enforce policy,” he said. “As the policy becomes more
even-handed, perhaps films will reflect that. “Plato said: ‘Those who
tell the stories rule society’. Nothing has changed, and the story
tellers of today have a tremendous impact on the world as we perceive
it.”