Orientalism: Depiction Of Arabs In Hollywood

8 Pages 1956 Words

ly distorts our view of the world, especially the Arab world.
Hollywood produces images of Arab and Islamic people that fit well into this framework to create a paradigm. Twentieth Century Fox’s The Siege, is a perfect example of this paradigm to the Eastern world. This film is about America’s reaction to the violent acts committed by several cells of Arab terrorists. The terrorists wreak havoc in New York City in order to liberate their sheik from U.S. authorities (Hussain). America reacts by enforcing martial law in New York City and incarcerating young Arab males. The random incarceration of Arab males is much like the historical expulsion of Japanese Americans into camps during World War II. The release of this movie received much discontent among the Arab community in the United States.
After an outcry from the Muslim and Arab communities, the controversial trailer for The Siege was pulled from television. The trailer showed images of the Muslim ritual of washing the body with water and prayers to Allah in conjunction with visuals of exploding buildings and bombs detonating. The trailer creates an unrealistic image of all Muslims committing terrorist acts. This film was being marketed to American people in such a negative and prejudiced manner. Just from the trailer, it is easy to see Hollywood’s correlation between Muslim’s and terrorism. This unfair depiction of Arabs continues through the movie, reinforcing our paradigm.
During the opening scenes of the movie, real news clips from other Arab conflicts were used to help portray Arab’s as evil hateful terrorists. ...