Current Trends in Film and Media
Hypervisibility of Muslim and Arab AmericansHollywood and the American media portray Muslim and Arab Americans as an imminent threat to American society by constantly speaking of their intent to commit terrorist acts and painting all people of Middle Eastern descent as being anti-American. Also, the American media and to some extent Hollywood have cultivated this idea that Sharia law will overtake America due to growing amount of Americans who descend from the Middle East. This barrage of media propaganda heightens the visibility of the Muslim-American community, which composes only 0.6% of the US population, therefore turning the American public against an extremely small community whom they believe to be conspiring to attack their traditions and values. Furthermore, the media only portrays Muslims who have roots in the Middle East and not those in Africa or other Asian countries, thereby associating Islam with a particular set of ethnic groups. By this association many Arab Americans are profiled as radical Muslims even though only 40% of Arab Americans are Muslim with the other 60% being predominantly Christian. This ‘hypervisibility’ of the bloodthirsty, evil terrorist has been on the rise in American media since 9/11 and it shows little sign of stopping as seen with the accolades garnered by the 2014 film American Sniper.
In this clip, a Fox News anchor speaks of Sharia Law creeping into the United States solely due to the fact that a YMCA has decided to start a swimming class for Muslim girls and in order to cater to their religious and cultural obligations will have an all-female staff and a closed pool. Outrageous statements such as these bombard the American public daily therefore portraying all Muslims as an evil community who desire only to destroy the American way of life.
|
Oversimplification and Stereotypes in HollywoodThe film recounts the experience of a US Navy SEAL in the Iraq War, however it relies heavily on racist stereotypes and an oversimplification of historical and societal context by portraying the Iraqi people are depicted as savages while the American soldiers are seen as innocent champions of democracy. The fact of the matter is that the actual relation between the two groups is extremely complex and it is an erroneous simplification to classify them along the lines of good and evil. However, this example serves to demonstrate the extent to which Hollywood and the media rely on stereotypes in order vilify minority groups that they deem undesirable, such as African-Americans being portrayed as drug-dealing criminals and Hispanics as illegal immigrants. The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called for Clint Eastwood and Bradley Cooper to speak out against the surge in Islamophobic rhetoric that occurred after the film had been released.
In this video, Burger King reinforces the stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs as being a backward, exotic people who ride camels and live in the desert. They seem incompetent with atrocious accents much to the entertainment of the two white American women in the commercial. Furthermore, Maz Jobrani pokes fun at the fact that Hollywood directors expect him to play an evil terrorist when he goes to auditions solely due to the fact that he is of Middle Eastern descent.
|