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A Villainous HistoryThroughout the history of Muslims in western cinema the majority of the time they are depicted as the enemy and a threat to non-Muslim western society. Since 1896 Arabs have been depicted as brutal, heartless,uncivilized religious fanatics bent on terrorizing the west. (Shaheen Pg.2) More current trends in cinema is depicting the Islamic faith with male supremacy, holy war, and act of terror and Muslim men as hostile alien intruder. When looking at themes surrounding these villains they tend to show hostility towards westerners. Common themes in these movies tend to show Arabs trying to rape, kill, or abduct fair-complexioned western heroines, Anti-Christian Arabs, Arabs invading the United States and terrorizing the innocent and Arabs intent on acquiring and using nuclear weapons Very rarely are Muslims and Arabs depicted in a positive light in cinema.
DehumanizedThroughout the 100+ Years Arabs have been in films only a handful have shown Arabs and Muslims of Heroic. This means that the majority of the 900+ films representing Muslims have been made to disenfranchise the group . For Generations cinema have repeatedly instilled negative images of Arabs. For Generations films have regarded them as "Camel-Dicks", Pigs, Devil-worshipers, jackels, rats, ragheads, towel-heads etc. For over a century these false ideas of Muslims have been embedded in U.S. society and as a result have created a detachment between what they consider Western "civilized life" and the Middle East which to them is a far away land full of uncivilized barbaric muslim who are inherently violent and fanatically religious. As a result we we no longer see them as ordinary people carrying on with their lives like we all do instead we percieve these people different from us. People start to see them as hostile and a threat to our way of living.
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ArablandArabland was created through Orientalism which generalizes the Middle Eastern. With the generalization of the region cinema has turned the Middle East into a homogeneous region where backwards thinking is common, Male superiority and women oppression is common along with intolerance and hostility towards towards westerner and other religious groups. In Arabland women wear the Burkas, they tend to be belly dancers maidens and at times terrorists. They also tend to be subservient and oppressed. Muslim men tend to have excessive sexual desire especially towards western women, Big black beards, wear turbans, dress in traditional clothing. They tend to be terrorist, Hagglers, incompetent They depict almost all Arabs as Muslims even though they only account for 12 percent of the Arab population. In Arabland all the stereotypes towards Muslims and Arabs become the reality in film and as a result leave lasting impressions in the way we perceive things
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Popular Islamaphobic Films |
Rules of Engagement: This movie to Saheen is one of the most anti-muslims films as it encourages viewers to hate Muslim Arab. This movie was produced in cooperation with the Department of Defense and the U.S. Marines Corp. What made this movie so anti-muslims was that the opening scene of marines gunning down 83 unarmed innocent Yeminis including men women and children but in the end of the movie the U.S. Marines and the Marine Colonel who decided to kill the Yeminis had justification for killing them as the cameral revealed that the Yeminis including the boys in girls in the crowd were hostile towards the U.S. marines and they were shooting to kill the U.S. Marines
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Aladdin- One of Disney’s most successful animated movies is also at fault at promoting Islamophobic ideas. Although this movie does not have the Fanatic religious extremists or Muslims hostile towards westerners it follows an older trend of portraying Muslims and the Middle East. This movie shows trends of older films portraying old stereotypes of the Middle East and Muslims. These stereotypes include a barbaric society, disreputable Arabs, and saber wielding merchants practicing barbaric legal practices like hand chopping, belly dancers. With a movie as popular as this it has a wide influence of the way young people would perceive the Middle East and in this case it would be that they are barbaric and savage people.
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