Reel Bad Arabs Review

The documentary Reel Bad Arabs is an in depth look on the portrayal of Arabian people in cinematography. The film provides the viewer with many examples of Arabs being made out as shallow, hateful natured killers with a blood lust for Americans. Arabs are the most maligned group in the history of Hollywood – so says Dr. Jack Shaheen, host of Reel Bad Arabs. These notions have become so accepted in everyday societal queues that they’ve become chronically attached to the stereotypes that come along with Arabian culture.

There are several provocative or controversial moments in the documentary that caught my interests. The first that caught my interest the most is the undeniable fact that the majority of the films shown as examples are some of the most successful films that have ever been released to the public. Starting from when we are young we are introduced to the belief that there is nothing more of the Arabian culture than “the three Bs”- belly dancers, billionaire sheiks, and bombers. Aladdin is one of Disney’s great successes. Set in an Arabic culture, one of the first things you hear is a song by the traveling merchant, he sings, “Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place/ Where the caravan camels roam/ Where they/ cut off your ear/ If they don't like your face/ It's barbaric, but hey, it's home.” That’s one of the first movies I saw when I started comprehending aspects about life, a crucial part in my life, and for one of the first things a person hears about an entire group of people is that they are “barbaric” and for it to be normal enough to call “home” would show why they are criminalized from the start. The second point that grabbed my attention was how cut and paste many of the Arabic characters from Hollywood truly are. The characters are almost carbon copies of each other, all serving the same purpose, all with the same ambitions and goals. It seems that Arabs fall into three separate categories: The Muslim main villain screaming praise Allah, the comic relief billionaire lusting after women, or the erotic belly dancers provided as a visual stimulant. For example, the movie Black Sunday, released in 1977, concerns an Arab terrorist plot to bomb a stadium during the Super Bowl. Where the plots change from movie to movie, the same character motivation holds true. Back to the Future, eight years after Black Sunday in 1985 went so far as to name a specific country, referring to antagonists in the film as "Libyan nationalists.” Both set of characters have different goals to accomplish with violence, but the reoccurring tool for these villains is violence.

               The American film society approaches the subject of Arabian subjugation in such a supercilious manner. The reasoning behind the cavalier attitude of film producers is because of history and the media. History has shown that some of the most defining moments in American culture have occurred when we were either threatened or attacked by the Arabians. The media then replays these events continuously which give an American citizen the reason to believe that Arabians are “barbaric” and violent. Americans see moments in time where a group of people have threatened them and that makes us susceptible to believe that they are guilelessly terrorists. This collective belief makes it easy for filmmakers to make a universally known villain with little to no effort on their end.  This representation of Arabians is culturally insensitive and when something that requires little to no thought is what gets shown across the nation, all it does is spread the negative notion  that the Arabs evil. On a universal frame, all this does is make America’s foreign relations worsen.

               Reel Bad Arabs showed many films both displaying positive and negative stereotypes of the Arabian culture. I knew a total of three movies that were displayed and they all showed Arabians in a negative light. These movies weren’t my favorite so that made me wonder whether or not the message of Arabs being evil got across to me. The three I saw were Back to the Future, True Lies, and Rules of Engagement. Back to the Future was my favorite of the three, but when I saw it on the list of the movies, I was surprised. I had no idea that “Libyan Nationalists” were a part of the Arabian culture. It honestly wasn’t a thought in my mind, which may mean it has become such a normal thing in my mind and in my life. Same holds true for the other two films, no direct distinction between an Arabian and a bad guy. As an eighteen year old, I witnessed the attacks on the World Trade Center as a second grader, eight years old with not a real understanding of the serious loss our country had endured. But immediately after I heard what had happened, I then heard who did it, and to the masses it seemed as though it wasn’t a surprise. We had grown up with Arabians as the enemy on television, so why would it be any different when we see it as an actual occurrence through the same media outlet as the one that I watched my movies that were already full of Arabian evils. My reaction to the stereotypes of the Arab culture has absolutely changed from the way I looked at them as a youth. I feel watching a documentary like Reel Bad Arabs makes you realize the wrongs happening right in front of you.

               Media has a substantial influence on how we think and how we feel about several different facets of both American and universal values. We must be aware of ideas fueled by apprehension so that we can combat those views with understanding that some indexical relationships are meant to be challenged and sometimes changed so that we can improve relations with the people who we wrongly accuse of threats on our safety. The result of these changes could lead into a society that accepts not only the Arabian culture as a welcome way of living, but all other ways of living as well.