Example Of How Hollywood Movies Portray Muslims And Arabs After 9/11 Research Proposal

Since the September 11 terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre, Hollywood film directors have been responding in a myriad of ways. There have been numerous post-September 11 Hollywood films that seeks to offer a more realistic reflective of Arabs and the Muslim community in general, for instance, the film Babel (2006) depicts Arabs as normal, simple human beings with commonplace problems and similar identifiable worries. On the other hand, Hollywood action movies such as The Kingdom (2007), largely focuses on FBI agents hunting for terrorist in Saudi Arabia in connection with bombing of some of the American diplomats. In this film, the supposedly suicide bombers can be heard reciting Quran verses; Muslims Holy book, additionally, the film goes further to portray the Arab children as also terrorist . The Kingdom (2007) has in numerous occasions been described by Muslim critics as one of the most damaging portrayal of Muslims. In light of these situations, this research proposal will seek to expound on the question as to whether the Muslim portrayal in Hollywood movies have changed since the 9/11 attack.
In my intended research, I will look into numerous peer reviewed articles that aims at explaining the situation on how Hollywood films depicted the Muslim community before and after the September 11th attack. I consider this as an imperative approach to explaining how the film industry may have shifted its notion towards Muslims with regard to the terrorist attack which is believed to have been planned and executed by Islamic Jihadists. Particularly, I will also watch various movies such as the Traitor (2008), Standard Operating Procedure (2007) and other pre-9/11 films such as Gladiator (2000) among other films that appears to hint towards varied portrayal of Muslims. In addition, I will examine the aesthetics of these Hollywood films which may include the framing, action, and camera angles that I believe have been used to highlight various common human characteristics of the Islamic believers. These cinematic aesthetics are very important since they create the notions of identification and subjectivity while at the same time creating the emotional bond between the viewers and the intended message of the film.
Prejudice and stereotyping is not a new phenomenon in the American media industry. However, the September 11 terrorist attack significantly altered how they portray the Muslims community. It is evident that the current misgivings about Islam believers are due to the negative connotations that in many occasions attributed to the Islam religion. These connotation largely presents Islam as a religion that is inherently anti-reason, traditional and that which also kills non-believers in the name of religion. Through these notions, many American-Muslims and other individuals who profess to the Islam religion have been stereotype both in real life and also in movies. Another methodological approach that I will adopt in my intended research will be to critically analyse American Biasness and how it plays a major role in creating a drift between the western and eastern civilizations.
According to most of the research articles that I have come across with regard to this topic of study, the Islam religion has been portrayed in the Hollywood movies as an extremist religion, and its followers, the Muslims, have been depicted as terrorist in almost all the movies that involves terrorism. This approach has led to the world to adopting unhealthy insights about Muslim individuals. Through the help of both academic and non-academic resources, I believe that my intended research, will manage to clearly describe the state of American media industry especially in Hollywood, in regard to how it portrays Muslims after the 9/11 attack.