Date: Fri, 27 Jul 2001 13:42:48 -0600 (MDT)
Subject: "Hollywood's blacklist - where have all the good Arabs gone?"




Hollywood's blacklist - where have all the good Arabs gone?
Wednesday, July 25, 2001 (Daily Star)

At his home in Hilton Head, South Carolina, Lebanese-American Jack
Shaheen can finally and at long last, relax.

The renowned author and media critic latest book, Reel Bad Arabs: How
Hollywood Vilifies a People, published by Interlink Books, hit American
bookstores two weeks ago - and it only took 20 years to get there.

An offshoot of Shaheen's first project, TV Arabs, a ground-breaking book
about television's portrayal of Arabs published in 1984, Reel Bad Arabs
chronicles a century of films that denigrate Arabs.

Beginning with motion pictures made in 1896 up to the present, Shaheen's
book looks at over 1000 films in which the Arab people are subjected time
and again to relentless stereotypes such as terrorists, oil-hoarding
sheikhs, and American-hating Muslim fanatics.

Brute murderers, sleazy rapists, religious fanatics, and abusers of women,
are only some of the other images Shaheen encounters.

No other group has been more vilified than the Arabs, said Shaheen. And
the tragedy of it all is that as the perception of others
(African-Americans, Asians, Native Americans, women) has changed
dramatically toward a fairness and balance over the past years, the image
of Arabs in film has only worsened.

What Shaheen expected to be another two- to three-year project rolled into
two decades. The films just kept coming, he said, with one worse than the
next.

And I still haven't finished, he insists. I've already found 10 more
following the publication of the book.

With the help of his wife Bernice, Shaheen scoured computer databases for
films depicting Arabs by typing in key words like desert, camel, Egypt,
Arab. Some of the films were easy to find: Cable TV opened up a whole slew
of new releases; movie guides and reviews proved invaluable resources.

Some were more difficult to come by: About 140 silent features were either
destroyed or are now unavailable.

>From the Library of Congress in Washington to the University of
California's research center, Shaheen's search was relentless: It was like
being in a desert, and you're standing on a sand dune and you think you
see an oasis. So you walk towards it, but there's no oasis.

His conclusions are discouraging and the statistics speak for themselves:
Over 900 films project Arabs as villains, with only a handful of heroic
Arabs debuting in the 1980s and 90s. In hundreds of movies, Arabs are
slandered as rag-heads, towel heads, sons-of-she-camels,
son-of-an-unnamed- goat, camel dicks, to name just a few.

Arabs trying to rape or abduct Western heroines appear in more than 20
films; Arabs enslaving Africans feature in about 10; at least 11
Israeli-made films portray Americans and/or Israelis killing evil Arabs.

Anti-Christian Arabs star in more than 20, and noticeably, no Christian
Arabs ever grace the scene rather, and most often, Arabs are equated with
Islam indiscriminately, despite the fact that only 12 percent of the
world's 1.1 billion Muslims are Arab, Shaheen points out.

Back to his roots

Shaheen credits a Fulbright tenureship at the American University of
Beirut in 1974 as the spark of his interest in the subject.Recalling the
Israeli devastation of the South and the constant overhead air war, he
says his time here had an indelible impact.

Being here, experiencing the reality of the region, prompted me to look at
this issue, said Shaheen who, at the time was working as a film reviewer
for The Daily Star in addition to teaching a communications class at the
university. That year, Shaheen, who has since delivered over 1,000
lectures worldwide, gave his first speech on Arab stereotypes at the AUB
Alumni Center on Bliss Street.

Now, in light of the ongoing conflict in the region, the book gives an
urgent message about the power of Hollywood. Film is not just a form of
propaganda, it is the most effective form, Shaheen says. These movies
reach countries all over the world, they shape world views. A dirty Ay-rab
in America is a dirty Ay-rab in Russia and China. These are not just
frivolous messages we're sending.

In the past 30 years, films denigrating Arabs have only worsened, a
phenomenon Shaheen sees as being linked to politics. Certainly the Israeli
connection plays a large role, and in many cases, the author believes,
there is malicious intent. This can't be taken in a vacuum.

Shaheen's research concurs. Of the 43 fiction films examined by Shaheen
that involved Palestinians, more than half were filmed in Israel between
1983 and 1998, including the blockbusters True Lies, The Siege, and Delta
Force, which all pit Palestinian terrorists against American heroes.

Cannon, an American Film company run by two Israeli producers, has
produced over 26 hate-and- terminate-the-Arabs movies, including Hell
Squad, The Delta Force (again) and Killing Streets.

Not one of the films portrays Palestinians as human beings. Also
noticeably absent, Shaheen notes, is any attempt to depict Palestinians
under occupation, as refugees or as victims of terrorism and colonialism.

Shaheen sees the perpetuation of such stereotypes as having highly severe
consequences: When you vilify a people, innocent people get hurt, he
repeats. Israel's continued expropriation of the Occupied Territories, for
example, is somehow perceived as acceptable because of the relentless
dehumanization of the Palestinians, he suggests.

Irresistible stereotypes?

What makes these stereotypes so irresistible? Shaheen ventures to say it
is a mix of image-making and political agenda: The Arab stereotype is
easy. It makes money, he says.  Film-makers grow up with the stereotypes
and so revert to them easily.

Many of the filmmakers Shaheen interviews for the book say they don't want
to be targeted as Arab lovers. Another producer put it bluntly: You can
hit an Arab free; they're free enemies, free villains where you couldn't
do it to a Jew or you can't do it to a black anymore.

The flippancy with which such confessions are made are frightening, but
the question raised is why nothing is being done to stop it. Is Hollywood
impenetrable, run by Jews, as so many Arabs like to conclude?

Shaheen doesn't think so.

That's poppy-cock, he spits.  Balderdash. That's an excuse not to do
anything and it needs to be dispelled. Hollywood is open, after all.
Anyone can make a film.

In the US, there are groups like the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination
Committee working for the cause, but it's not enough. It's the basic law
of physics, he quips.  Nothing boils unless you apply heat. This hasn't
happened yet.

Shaheen hopes the book will get the fire going, and that it will make its
way into university libraries. From there, it is up to the community to
act.  My goal has been to make the injustice visible. Now we have the
evidence, don't we? My job is done.

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