Stereotypes In Jack Shaheen's Film 'Reel Bad Arabs'

Birth of a Nation uses its histrionic plot to show how tangled destinies of a southern and northern family before and after the Civil War. It willingly portrays southern blacks as spiteful and uncivil, the northern whites as crafty, dishonest, and conceited, and the film’s southern whites as anguish recurrent radical and erotic mortifications at the hands of white northerners and black southerners before factually being saved by the thoughtful, Ku Klux Klan. The film is divided to show the different aspects of those two sides during this historical time. During this time Africans were coming to America and it started the reconstruction on our country. D.W. Griffith made this film to show us the reality of racism at this point in time.

In this movie the African Americans were treated nicely but in reality they did not feel this way. The masters mistreated their slaves but in the movie they were actually having conversations. There is a scene in the movie where a group of African Americans were shaking hands with the white Americans. The producer of the movie wanted to inform others that the “birth” of America was founded on the basis of equality rather than discrimination. If the producer of the movie did not show how the slaves were mistreated, the people will just see the world in only that point of view; the slaves’ point of view does not exist. Ruling countries oppressed both the undeveloped, barren places and the African Americans. The Birth of the Nation is a perfect example of a form of travel writing; the Americans wanted to inform others about America but this movie was only produced in their perspective. Rather than recording the reality, the produces or writers record history with the input of their own influences.

Quentin Tarantino’s film Jackie Brown, released in 1997, challenges the pervasive stereotyping of not only blacks but specifically black women. Nowhere is the cinematic devaluation of African Americans more evident than in images of black women which, in the history of cinematography, the white ideal for female beauty has overlooked. The portrayal of black women as the racial Extra has been fabricated through many semblances in the history of American film. Film scholars and feminists alike have long been plagued with lament for the negativity and stereotyping that sticks with black women in American cinema. In this paper, I will argue that Jackie Brown highlights and stresses the racial variance of the female African American protagonist,

If a movie of this sort had such an emotional impact on me, it is no wonder people embraced these ideas back then. The use of new and popular media methods in those days was more than adequate in transferring the black inferiority ideas to the general public. Beginning at the early 19th century with the happy, dancing, toothless, drunken Negro with big, bold and white lips to the image of the mid 21st century African-American, the media has always used these images to convey inferiority. These images implied inherent traits in the black community. This whole community was represented in the new media as one who can not be collateralized and integrated in to society without being happily enslaved. Most of these images had great commercial values that made it all the more impossible for the rest of the nation not to embrace the African American stereotypes.

The history of African Americans in early Hollywood films originated with blacks representing preconceived stereotypes. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film, Birth of a Nation, stirred many controversial issues within the black community. The fact that Griffith used white actors in blackface to portray black people showed how little he knew about African Americans. Bosley Crowther’s article “The Birth of Birth of a Nation” emphasizes that the film was a “highly pro-South drama of the American Civil War and the Period of Reconstruction, and it glorified the role of the Ku Klux Klan” (76). While viewing this film, one would assert that the Ku Klux Klan members are heroic forces that rescue white women from sexually abusive black men. Griffith

Movies and entertainment outlets speak volumes about the current state of a nation’s culture. Cinematic creations in the United States allow small voices to be heard and controversial issues to be addressed. However, a repetitive and monumental issue continues to be addressed, yet continues to persist in our 21st century culture, racial inequalities. Since the inception of the United States, black men and women alike have been disenfranchised at the hands of the “white man” in America. Instead of continuing the conversation today, the issue is continually silenced referencing the successes and achievements of the Civil Rights Movement in the 20th century. Nonetheless, an unfortunate reality looms upon this great land; racially based systems and structures continue to exist in 2015 the in United States. This paper synthesizes three films focused on racial inequalities in different time periods. Separate but Equal (1991), Selma (2015), and Crash (2005) illustrate how influential the Civil War amendments are, while serving as an uncanny reminder of how the racial prejudices during the 20th century continue to exist in our great nation today. Needless to say our nation has made great strides, but still has a long way to go.

It was a part of the American and Israeli propaganda of that time. Exodus deals with the struggle of the Israelis and ignores the other side. Arabs are portrayed as the Other, negative Other (Stam 121). They cannot and should not be understood, their story is not important as they are irrational human beings. Shaheen focused a lot on this film in his work and found numerous scenes which were, he believed, disrespectful and distorted the reality (Reel 626). Exodus seems to completely ignore the fact that both Arabs and Jews were fighting for the same goal- freedom and

For many centuries racism has being an ongoing problem and occurrence in many societies, especially in America. Many different measures have been taken to try and diminish the racism that clearly infests this beloved country, but none have ever truly worked. Although these measures have never effectively worked to erase racism out of our society as a whole, some have opened people's’ eyes in creative ways to understand that it is no joke. One measure that has somewhat worked is through media and the arts such as cinema, literature, and paintings. An example of cinema is Jordan Peele’s movie, “Get Out” that portrays racism through a sense of horror that captivates a viewer's mind to see and understand the underlying theme of it all. “Get Out” is about a young African-American man named Chris who falls for a young Caucasian woman named Rose. Together they are going up to meet Rose’s family who put on an act to make it seem like they are somewhat normal, but in reality lure young African-Americans into their home every year to auction them off to a group of older white people so they can use their bodies for pseudo-immortality. Peele’s horrific movie “Get Out” opens a viewer's eyes and mind to the different concepts of racism and how brutal and unjust it is to people of color.

With the long history of Hollywood’s stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims (the history of which is explored throughout this online exhibit), the NVP survey results are not really surprising. Jack Shaheen, Evelyn Alsultany, and other scholars have argued that Hollywood faces less stigma for stereotyping Arabs and Muslims as opposed to other ethnic, racial, and religious groups. Imagine Jewish or African American characters being portrayed in such persistently negative ways as Arabs or Muslims. In reality, Jewish people and African Americans (see also: Who Else Has Been An Other) were portrayed in blatantly racist and offensive manners for decades. In fact, many of the present-day offensive stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims are based on horrible caricatures of Jews and African Americans from more than a hundred years ago.[1] Jewish people were often portrayed as thieves and liars with big hook noses, and African Americans were almost always represented as simultaneously child-like but dangerous to the American (read: white) way of life. But civil rights organizations spoke up and continue to speak on behalf of these groups and have fought for more accurate representations.

Muslims in film and television are regularly depicted as malicious individuals. Many movies today paint muslims in a negative light. There is a major absence of decent variety in Muslims, as in Muslims are not just terrorist. Hundreds of movies have been made with the lazy story line: muslims want to kill Americans and they need to be stopped. This isn't right since when individuals watch these movies and consider Muslims to be just psychological militant it regularly overflow as a nonsensical dread of Muslims.

Imagine a young boy in the streets of Tehran staring straight at a blank light grey cement wall in the middle of the night with the moon and a couple of lamp posts as lighting. Spray can in hand, he points it eye level and presses his skinny brown fingers down on the cap, shooting red paint onto the wall. Three hours later, the young boy is in the same position as when he started, except the wall is no longer blank. Written on the wall, using sharp calligraphy, is a bold statement promoting democracy in Iran. This form of art expression is not the only controversy to come about in the modern Middle East. The culturally rich region has become more and more intricate as time goes on and has resulted in numerous complexities that effect the people

The misrepresentation of minorities is frequent in Hollywood films and Arabs are one of the many minority groups Hollywood misrepresent. Arabs are portrayed negatively in films for long time even before 9/11. The Arabs characters are portrayed with always having accent, wearing traditional attire, untrustworthy, aggressive and almost always associated with terrorism. The continuously falsification could lead to stereotypes, misjudgment, and damage to Arabic culture.

All of this proves that Hollywood is not doing a good job in making up for the blatantly racist films of the twentieth century. Hollywood needs to do more to reverse the stereotypes of early film because such stereotypes are still seen today along with their respective repercussions.

The film “Reel Bad Arabs” attempts to reveal the racist and demeaning representation that Hollywood has placed on Arab and Islamic people. Narrating the film is Dr. Jack Shaheen of Southern Illinois University, who wrote the book upon which the documentary is based. Throughout the film several clips and quotes are used to demonstrate the prejudice and misrepresentation, from such films as The Sheik, The Delta Force, The Indiana Jones Films, Disney’s Aladdin, and The Mummy. Many Arab characters in such films are treated as a “lesser” people, as they are portrayed as either evil, incompetent, sex objects, or savages. The film claims that these false depictions are what fuel American’s racism (against Arabs) and Islamophobia.

Since white were not allowed to hire black actors or did not want to hire black actors they began to portray the black characters, demeaning stereotypes were being created as blacks were presented in an unfavorable light. This was an additional issue they faced, were they were purposely portrayed in films with negative stereotypes that reinforced white supremacy over blacks. These images of black characters that reflect negative