The media in the United States has a unique way of portraying Arabs, Middle Easterners, and Muslims, but lets not confuse these terms or assume they all mean the same thing. One might be an Arab without being Muslim, or vice versa (not to mention people were Arabs long before Islam was around). And not all Middle Easterners are Arabs. For example, most Iranians consider themselves Persians and not Arabs, but are still part of the Middle East – there are many other cases, Israel, Turkey, etc (link).
After all, the term Middle East was most likely contrived outside of its geographic location, hence the confusion involved in obtaining a clear definition for it.
Unfortunately, just focusing on the US does not clear anything up. Nearly 1.5 Million Arabs in the US are Christian, a statistic that cannot be ignored , and the media plays a big part in defining these terms (link). There are about 7 million Muslims in America, but only 22 percent of them are Arab. There are about 3 million Arabs in America and the majority, more than half, are Christian, not Muslim (link).
Most television networks have steered clear of including Arabs, Muslims, or Middle Easterners in their programming unless they are involved in some form of terrorism. For example, a new ten-hour series on Showtime called Sleeper Cell takes the viewer into home-grown terrorist cell in Los Angeles. The story revolves around an undercover FBI agent, Darywn al-Sayeed, who infiltrates a sleeper cell of Islamic extremists.
On the oustide, the shows appears to type-cast Muslims in the same light as other networks, but there is more here than meets the eye. Darywn, a practicing Muslim, often questions the extremist interpretation of the Koran, without blowing his cover of course (link). This does well to separate the extremists from a Muslim voice of reason, but the advertising and commercials for the show does little to spread this message.
Fox's more popular 24 also deals with terrorism in the US and has earned a reputation for portraying Muslims in a bad light.
In season 4, terrorist master mind Habib Marwan gives the main character and resident good guy, Jack Bauer, his money's worth when it comes to catching the bad guy. The show also had numerous Muslim terrorists in season 2 as well. Not surprisingly there was an outcry from the Muslim community about the show's portrayal of Muslim characters and their connection to terrorism.
Now, this is only the modern representation, but is it all that than different before the 9/11 era? Both Sleeper Cell and 24 target an adult audience, so what are adolescents getting in terms of representation of Arabs, Muslims, and Middle Easterners?
The answer is in cartoons. Disney's Aladdin received lots of negative feedback from the Arab community. The opening song has some interesting lyrics:
Oh, I come from a land, From a faraway place, Where the caravan camels roam, Where they cut off your ear If they don’t like your face, It’s Barbaric, but hey, it’s home.
While is it comedy, one can certainly see how it paints a picture of a culture that the viewers (children) might have no knowledge of. Another questionable part of the cartoon is that the lead-characters, Aladdin and Jasmine, have Anglicized features and Anglo-American accents, while the villainous guards or merchants all have dark-skin and grotesque facial features (link).
And long before Aladdin there was Arab representation in cartoons. Here we have Bugs Bunny and the infamous Hassan with his turban and handy scimitar. But it is surprising that Hassan, while is represented as a blithering, hulking idiot, is no different from any other Bugs bunny villain, if you want to call him that. Hassan wanting to “chop” Bugs or Daffy with his sword is really no different than Elmer wanting to shoot them with his shotgun. The biggest idiot in the cartoon turns out to be Daffy Duck, who as always is a few dollar signs too greedy and ends up being the butt of most of the jokes.
This cartoon was directed by Chuck Jones, who is known for his exaggerated character traits and goofy comedy. If anything in particular about Hassan or the evil genie's appearance seems out of the ordinary it can be attributed to that. Surprisingly this cartoon appears to be much less offensive that others, like Aladdin, who attempts to Americanize the “good guys” and make the villains appear to be heartless sub-human creatures. It is worthwhile to keep in mind that Disney is not exactly known for being politically correct or racially sensitive when it comes telling the truth (Pocahontis, The Lion King).
Now, while it may not seem that there are many television shows willing to promote Arabs or Muslims in a positive light, Fox's show Lost is one that attempts to do so.
The show is about a diverse group of people who are survivors of a plane crash and are stranded on mysterious island. The character Sayid Jarrah, a former Iraqi Republican Guard member played by Naveen Andrews (who is actually a South Asian Indian) is among the group. Although his character is a practicing Muslin and connected to terrorism on the show, he is not portrayed in a way that is any more negative than the next character (link).
This is not to say that there is a new movement to rectify the portrayal of Arabs and Muslims on television. There is still much to be done when it comes to the skewed representation of these groups and it is mainly in the hands of the ones with the power, the television networks . Perhaps in the future more will be done to build a healthier bridge between Arabs and Muslims in television. And hopefully something will be done to tear down the bridge connecting them just with terrorism.
No comments:
Post a Comment