Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Villifies a People - Softcover

Shaheen, Jack G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1566563887 ISBN 13: 9781566563888

Publisher: Olive Branch Pr, 2001

Synopsis

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People is a groundbreaking book that dissects a slanderous history dating from cinema's earliest days to contemporary Hollywood blockbusters that feature machine-gun wielding and bomb-blowing "evil" Arabs.

Award-winning film authority Jack G. Shaheen, noting that only Native Americans have been more relentlessly smeared on the silver screen, painstakingly makes his case that "Arab" has remained Hollywood's shameless shorthand for "bad guy," long after the movie industry has shifted its portrayal of other minority groups. In this comprehensive study of nearly one thousand films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "Villains," "Sheikhs," "Cameos," and "Cliffhangers," Shaheen documents the tendency to portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1-brutal, heartless, uncivilized Others bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners.

Shaheen examines how and why such a stereotype has grown and spread in the film industry and what may be done to change Hollywood's defamation of Arabs.

About this title

About the Author:

Jack G. Shaheen, a former CBS News consultant on Middle East affairs, is the world's foremost authority on media images of Arabs and Muslims. He is the author of Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, Nuclear War Films, and the award-winning The TV Arab.

From Library Journal:

Shaheen (mass communication, Southern Illinois Univ.; Arab and Muslim Stereotypes in American Popular Culture) has written a meticulous, passionate, and very articulate description of the persistent and prolonged vilification of Arab peoples in mainstream Western movies. Offering primarily reviews of the 900 films he has seen or researched over 20 years, he documents a century of offensive stereotypes and shows how the image of the "dirty Arab" has reemerged over the last 30 years, even as other groups have more or less successfully fought to eliminate the use of racist stereotypes. The appendixes include lists of the best and worst depictions of Arabs in popular films, alternate titles, a list of epithets thrown at Arabs in films, and a list of the fictional locations used in films. Although the work is aimed at a college-level audience, the clear writing and lack of jargon make it accessible to a much wider readership. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries, as well as for other libraries with collections dealing with racism or Arab culture. [For more on Islamic culture, see "A Misundersood Faith," p. 82-83. Ed.] Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, N.
- Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Olive Branch Pr
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1566563887
• ISBN 13: 9781566563888
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 574