Evil Arabs in American Popular Film: Orientalist Fear

Introduction: Orientalist Fear

Introduction orientalist fear he ‘‘evil’’ Arabs of American film are illusions. Much like those perplexing and ambiguous paintings of the celebrated Renaissance artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593), or those more simplistic drawings that are developed for entertainment and perception analysis in books featuring optical puzzles, the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs are also constructions for entertainment and have implications for the perceptions of the American cinematic audience. Samuel Tolansky has provided us with a useful term when discussing the type of illusions similar to that of the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs: illusions of ‘‘oscillating attention.’’ Tolansky notes, These are cases where the diagram is designed such that attention can alternately be concentrated on one of two possibilities. In some instances the mind seems actually to oscillate between the two possible interpretations in rapid succession, and it is difficult to decide just what is being seen.1 While Tolansky cites concentration, attention, and distinguishing between light and dark as the causes of oscillating attention, writers like Patricia Ann Rainey, J. R. Block, and Harold E.Yuker believe that the driving force of what the viewers see first in an illusion of oscillating attention is ‘‘perception.’’ Rainey tells her viewers/readers that perception is simply how people see things, or how people look at the world. She adds, Differences in religion, ideology, political beliefs, and even prejudice can be explained in terms of how people perceive. Thus knowledge of perception will give an understanding of human beings.2 Many of the portrayals of Arabs, at first glance, give the impression of cultural and ethnic traits that are inherently inimical to Western civilization. Even so, are not ‘‘evil’’ Arabs actually fictional characters that we have 2 ‘‘evil’’ arabs in american popular film devised and, as such, not at all about the real Arabs and their multidimensional and deeply contoured cultures or ethnicity? Our filmic villains are narrative tools used for self-presentation and self-identity to enhance our own stature, our own meaning, and our own self-esteem in times of our own diffidence. Therefore, are the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs in American film actually oblique depictions of ourselves: the insecure Americans? And while we depict ourselves through them, do we not do so at the expense of the Arab Others? ‘‘Evil’’ Arabs in American Popular Film is a film study written to encourage the American cinematic audience to look with a more critical eye at the depictions of the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs. It is written to promote a new way of thinking about the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs and to call forth a differentiation between the Arabs as-they-are-portrayed and the Arabs as-they-are. This book encourages its readers, when seeing or hearing of the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs, to scrutinize the characters and to discover our self-interested construction of the visual or the narrative: to see visual tropes that are often made through intertextuality and polarities of good and bad, and to identify narrative structures that adhere interstructurally to meaningful morphological formulae. Block and Yuker state of their illusions of oscillating attention , ‘‘Once one sees both pictures, it is impossible to focus on onlyone without the other ‘popping’ into your vision from time to time!’’3 Here, I seek to achieve an analogous effect with, however, the more serious implications of cultural prejudice and racism in mind. I ask the reader to reconsider the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs and to think about the way in which the Arabs are devised to produce fear, and at times solace, in an American cinematic audience. With this reconsideration, the illusion will manifest itself, thus making prejudices inculcated through our popular culture more clearly perceptible, more easily isolated, and more likely to be dismantled. Jack Shaheen is well known for his lectures, written work, and media appearances that challenge the stereotypes of Arabs used in Hollywood film and in Western television. Shaheen’s emphasis on stereotypes is essential as a beginning foray into understanding the construction of the ‘‘evil’’ Arabs in film. Fundamentally, he calls our attention to the first image of the illusion. For example, he has identified the ‘‘Arab kit,’’ or ‘‘instant Ali Baba kit,’’ as a quick and easy assembly of the stereotypical Arab character in Hollywood: Property masters stock the kits with curved daggers, scimitars, magic lamps, giant feather fans, and nargelihs [sic]. Costumers pro- introduction: orientalist fear 3 vide actresses with chadors, hijabs, bellydancers’ see-through pantaloons , veils, and jewels for their...