Reel Bad Arabs - How Hollywood Vilifies a People (review)

Based on his book of the same name, author Dr. Jack G. Shaheen's documentary, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, lays claim to an examination of "virtually every feature that Hollywood has ever made" containing an appearance by an Arab or a depiction of what he calls "Arabland": the non-specified Middle Eastern setting filled with all the tools from the "Ali Baba" Kit (veiled women, sheiks, desert, belly dancers, terrorists, etc. – all stereotypes associated with "the Arab").

Shaheen, professor of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University, is no newcomer to the politics of representation. A former consultant on Middle Eastern affairs for CBS news, he won the Janet Lee Stevens Award from the University of Pennsylvania for his "outstanding contribution towards a better understanding of our global community" as well as being presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Shaheen draws on this extensive background for the film, situating himself as an authority by intercutting his own commentary with Hollywood's most offensive scenes aimed to vilify Arabs.

Beginning in the silent era, with films such as Arabia, then moving on to successive key periods in film history – the classical Hollywood period (Samson against the Sheik, 1962; Invitation to the Dance, 1956); action flicks of the 1980s (Cannonball Run 2, 1984; Back to the Future, 1985; Network, 1984); films of the 1990s, (True Lies, 1994; Aladdin, 1992) and finally, 2000 and the post-9/11 era (Rules of Engagement, 2000; Syriana, 2005) – he sets up an impressive framework to clarify the hostility towards Arab characters, not only throughout film history but also in prevailing times. Shaheen's film argues that the visual vilification of the Arab people has been going on for more than a century, starting with early European depictions of the Orient in art and increasing in visual media after World War II with the founding of the state of Israel, the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, and the Iranian Revolution.

The documentary successfully illustrates the racism inherent in blockbuster cinema, by using popular filmic examples to ensure the film's premise resonates with its audience. According to Shaheen, Hollywood "injects evil Arabs and slurs demeaning them" in films that have nothing to do with the Middle East. As an extensive example he discusses Father of the Bride II (1995), in which "Mr. Habib" is the manifestation of the money-greedy, sleazy Arab caricature who yells at his wife in gibberish whenever she attempts to speak up. Another fixed stereotype Shaheen criticizes is the oversexed Arab buffoon who is obsessed with American women that we find in films such as Happy Hooker goes to Washington or Jamie Farr's character in Cannonball Run II ("I have a weakness for blondes and women without mustaches.") Interestingly, toward the end of the documentary Shaheen suggests that Arab comedians, such as Arab-American Ahmed Ahmed, may be one solution to the problem, through their use of humor to reveal and therefore end prejudices. Such self-deprecating humor, for Shaheen, can serve to both counteract stereotypes and neutralize the social power inherent in the prejudicial humor of others.

The film is subdivided into several chapters such as: Myths of Arabland; The Arab Threat: Mideast Politics & Hollywood; Terror Inc. Demonizing Palestinians & Muslims; Islamophobia; and Getting Real. In this way, audiences unfamiliar with visual media studies, or the history of U.S. international relations, receive an introduction into the highly controversial historical relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East. According to Shaheen, cinema, as a vehicle which fosters the stereotype of the evil Arab, is fueled by the exhausting repetition of the same images on screen. He makes explicit the tie between film and politics, quoting Jack Valenti, former president and CEO of the Motion Picture Assn. of America, when he said that, "Washington and Hollywood spring from the same DNA."

Once his historical timeline reaches the mid-twentieth...