The Arabs Portrayal in American Cinema
Introduction
The problem in the development of misconceptions about the Arabs can be traced largely on how they were portrayed in western movies. As people do not generally meet Arabs in their everyday lives, the films play an important role in providing conceptions about them. Unfortunately, stereotypes and other factors proved to have shaped the way that the Arab images are depicted in cinemas. According to Michalack, it is the American popular culture that offered the lushest and most comprehensive perception of American stereotype about the Arabs, and this started as early as the 20th century until today (Michalak, 2002). The fascination in cinemas in portraying the American idea about the Arabs can be traced during the initial making of the film in the United States.
It was argued that the first two decades of film production paved the way for the eventual development of film tradition of eastern film genre that persisted until the current times. However, despite having a lengthy history of the depiction in films, the eastern remained to be literary unnoticed in the literature of cinema categories. Moreover, much of the representation of the eastern people is focused on the recent period where Arab personalities were generally depicted negatively. For example, in most movies, the Arabs were shown as “raving, maniacal terrorists, devoid of human decency and morality” (Eisele, 2002). The majority of western movies portrayed the Arabs in a bad light, for example, the movie entitled Black Sunday, which was first shown in 1977 showed an Arab character who planned to stage a terrorist attack against a large number of Superbowl audience (Michalak, 2002).
In another article by Michalak, he pointed out how the Average American may not likely recall an event of meeting an Arab man personally. Consequently, the American’s perceptions of Arab men were usually shaped by how they were depicted in televisions. For example, television news often portrays the negative image of the Arabs, especially with the prevalence of terrorist news recently. In addition to that, many television programs depicted Arabs as fictional characters that were prominently played by different nationalities. Their characters often portrayed “terrorists, Oriental despots, backward sheiks, wealthy playboys, assassins, white slaves” (Michalak, 1988). In a study conducted to analyze the anti-Arab image based on prime time programs that was aired between 1975 to 1980, it was found that there were many programs that portrayed Arab men negatively. A more unpleasant manner of depicting the image of the Arab in TV shows was in indiscriminately including such stereotype in children’s show. Children were just starting to shape their views of the world, and introducing a false perception can have a negative impact on how they will eventually view others.
The Arab-Muslim as a Popular American Culture
The prominent role of the Arab-Muslims in American popular culture can be attributed to the past major wars where the Americans found a way to associate with the Arabs in a more extensive manner. The Arabs were faintly stereotyped as camel-riding groups before, and recently they were also shown as people who were just incompetent and threatening. For example, cartoons depicted Arabs in the character of a Sheik, his physical features include a sharply hooked nose, and evil mustached that showed prominently in their facial features. The image alone displayed a person who belonged to the ‘Semitic’ group, in a country that is rich in oil. However, the stereotype did not stop in there, because the people of these features were also associated with violence, terrorism and the inability to properly associate with other people.
In another earlier film entitled The Terrible Turkish Executioner that depicted the Middle East, one finds that it contains a large number of narratives that was subsequently replicated in succeeding movies in Holywood. People in the Middle East were grouped as one, such that the Arab connotation refers to all the inhabitants of the Middle East such as the Turks, and Arabs. The majority of them, especially the men, was thought to be capable of engaging with “imprisonment, or slavery, mutilation or the threat of amputation with scimitars, and rescue” (Eisele, 2002). This means that the image of the Arabians as portrayed initially in films served to inspire further negative perception as it was found that literary Orientalism, plays and other literary compositions revealed that Arabs were engaged in acts such as abduction, harem or imprisonment and other activities that formed their identity according to how people’s perception.
There are at least two different ways of thinking about ‘cultural identity’. The
First position defines ‘cultural identity’ in terms of the idea one one, shared
Culture, a sort of collective ‘one true self’, hiding inside the many other, more
Superficially or artificially imposed ‘selves’, which people with a shared
History and ancestry hold in common (Hall, n.d)
There is the realization that in instances where the Arabs were able to gain attention, it more or less have a negative connotation. From being a pioneer in disrupting of peace in Israel and bringing chaos to others. They were also remembered as the group that cause havoc with the want of Israel to be recognized as an independent state sometime in 1948. The United States initially supported the Arabs in their fight against what they claimed as the unwarranted eviction of their people by the Zionist. The association with them somehow resulted in the perception that they are people that are feared for their different principles and way of life. All these negative perceptions were unfortunately used as a foundation that shaped the image of the Arabs in the present day. Obviously, for the Arabs, the antagonistic attitude against them motivated the negative stereotypes associated with them. The historical events that linked the Americans to the Arabs played a role in the development of a certain image for the Arab people. The undesirable impact of the negative identity based on films is that people tend to accept them as realities, fully disregarding the truth.
The Cultural Identity In Question
The cinematic representation of cultural identity has been a continuous process. According to how Hall pointed out, people should come up with the realization that identity does not only have a past connotation, rather it should be perceived “as a production, which is never complete, always in process, and always constituted within” (Hall, n.d). In understanding the impact of cinema to the formation of identity, one can refer to the what Hall as ways of thinking about cultural identity, in its being a shared history and ancestry. The shared history and ancestry means that a person shares a common identity with others, and this can be traced back on the “common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which provide us” (Hall).
The common historical experience discussed by Hall can both have a positive and negative connotation. For example, having a common historical tie with others would allow one to feel the idea of belongings. It motivates a person to strive for the better to uplift the group from which he belongs. However, it can also have a negative impact, especially so to groups where their historical roots were not positively depicted in the past. For example, the Arabs who fought against the Zionist were regarded as people who were barbaric. The negative perception against the Arabs can be regarded as a common tie that binds them under one category, despite the fact that those perceived identities were far from reality. In Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Shaheen shared the same concept when she pointed out that in countless films, Arabs were depicted as “brute murderers, sleazy rapist, religious fanatics, oil-rich dimwits, and abusers of women” (Shaheen, 2003).
Gender Identity and Pop Culture
Representation and identity is not only problematic in cultural identity, but can also have a considerable impact on gender identity. Pop culture has a considerable impact on the social construction of gender. While the idea of gender tends to have a natural connotation to some people, a closer examination reveals that it is a complex element that required a thorough understanding beyond word definitions. Gender is further made complex by the many attributions from our society such as films, music and literary films among others. People initially learn gender by socialization with the immediate members of the family, however, other elements, such as pop culture of socialization further have an impact on the development of gender identity.
The dominance of pop culture has a substantial impact on gender identity. People develop their sense of gender identity by the constructed ideas presented in pop culture, that is, sets of beliefs and values about gender are shaped by the “images and narratives that take on the appearance of normality” (Trier-Bieniek and Leavy, 2014). Despite the dominance of popular culture in our society, people tend to neglect their impact on their everyday lives. However, a closer examination revealed that popular culture, such as music provided the element by which we define gender identity. For example, Barbie which is a popular toy for young girls exemplified the image of how a woman should be, and studies have shown how Barbie has a profound influence on the development of gender perception. As a toy, Barbie plays an important role in young girls’ lives and are even considered to play a vital role in the formation of their identity. This toy is one among the medium of socialization where young girls were exposed to images, behaviors and perceptions of gender.
Gender Identity and Consumption of Popular Culture
Our society is full of media images that are so omnipresent, so that we are exposed to to a lot text and images. For example, by a short trip to the market, we are not only exposed to diverse images and products, but we also take part in the process of selection. Accordingly, our gender identity plays a major role in what type of pop culture texts we decide to consume. Based on this premise, while popular culture has an impact in the development of gender identity, an individual’s gender identity can also have an influence on what kind of popular culture one chooses to consume. For example, a teenager may choose to buy CDs by singer such as Lady Gaga, while the older generation may have an averse attitude towards her songs.
Accordingly, the manner of selecting pop culture for consumption is also influenced by factors such as internalization and media representations. There is the positive impact of pop culture internalization such as the feeling of belongingness. However, it can also have a negative impact because not all people will have the ability to internalize every pop culture’s meanings or messages. In some instances, pop culture may come across negative, such as when young girls who were intently involved with the image of the Barbie and would grow up wanting to have the same body features as the toy. Failure on her part to come to the ‘Barbie’ standard may have a negative impact on her self image. Fashion magazines may help women to uplift their self image, but they can also impose restrictive standards that can be detrimental to their self image. There are those who compare themselves to fashion models, and their failure to adhere to a certain image may result to low self-esteem, which may lead to further problems such as anxiety and depression. Still, some women resort to drastic solutions such as spending a considerable amount of money not only for minimal facial enhancement but also for cosmetic surgeries. While there are other women who were less impact of pop culture, and would tend to accept the image that they have, they remain to live by the societal standard where body and beauty are shaped by certain ideals. Some of the examples of popular culture and its representation includes:
An observed decrease in girls’ self-confidence during adolescence as matched with their male counterparts. This can eventually lead to underacheivement;
According to the American Psychological Association (APA), the routine objectification of female figures has resulted to what was deemed as a national epidemic of self-objectification;
Studies by the APA, CDC, and National Institutes of Health (NIH) demonstrated a strong link between media violence and real-world violence;
Some women experience “role strain” or “role conflict” as they struggle to “do it all” as media has prescribed;
n the United States, 20 million women and 10 million men suffer from a clinically significant eating disorder at some time in their life (Trier-Bieniek and Levy, 2014)
Conclusion
Popular culture, such as music, films, television and fashion magazine play a normative role in our society. That is, we tend to overlook their impact in our daily lives despite the fact that we always encounter them in our usual undertakings. Accordingly, pop culture can have a positive and negative impact in shaping people’s identity in terms of gender, and cultural identity. A large part of this paper demonstrated the negative impact of pop culture in shaping and representing cultural and gender identity. For example, films were among the factors that impacted the negative image of the Arabs, and this can be traced by how movie makers directors depicted the Arab image in the wrong light.
It is unfortunate that the typical stereotypes about Arabs do not really reflect their true nature, as much of the Arab images were based on wrong information provided by initial movies. The disastrous impact of the false depiction of Arabs and even other culture fore that matter in popular culture is that these misconceptions are usually repeated until such time that they become generally accepted beliefs. Further, the Arabs tend to be categorized collectively, so that people from other parts of the world were unmindful of the fact that Arab states consisted of different nationalities and do not necessarily share the same behavior and culture.
Gender identity is also highly affected by pop culture; while people developed their perception of gender from their early socialization in the family, it is the popular culture that further exposed them to other ideas of gender. Gender may tend to be a natural and inherent part of human development, however, studies showed how socialization and other environmental elements can also have an effect on it. Accordingly, pop culture can have a negative impact in the development of gender identity because it often served to create standards that are often difficult to achieve.
References
Eiele, J. 2002. The Wild East: Deconstructing the language of genre in the Hollywood Eastern. Cinema Journal 41(4) pp. 68-94
Hall, S. Cultural Identity and cinematic representation. Permutations of difference.
Michalack, L. 1988. Cruel and nusual: Negative images of Arabs in American popular culture. American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee
Michalak, L. 2002. The Arab in American Cinema: From bad to worse, or getting better? Social Studies Review 42 (1) pp. 11-17
Shaheen, J. 2003 Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. The Annals of the American Academy
Trier-Bienek, A., and Leavy, P. (2014). Gender and Pop Culture. Sense Publishers
Discuss the problematic nature of representation and identity in popular culture (literature or film), or of certain groups in the society today based on what you have studied (gender, different ethnic groups (Amman/Arab), Class, minority groups etc use references from within the course or external one
References
Eiele, J. 2002. The Wild East: Deconstructing the language of genre in the Hollywood Eastern. Cinema Journal 41(4) pp. 68-94
Hall, S. Cultural Identity and cinematic representation. Permutations of difference.
Michalack, L. 1988. Cruel and nusual: Negative images of Arabs in American popular culture. American-Arab Anti-discrimination Committee
Michalak, L. 2002. The Arab in American Cinema: From bad to worse, or getting better? Social Studies Review 42 (1) pp. 11-17
Shaheen, J. 2003 Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. The Annals of the American Academy
Trier-Bienek, A., and Leavy, P. (2014). Gender and Pop Culture. Sense Publishers
