Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2006)

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People is a documentary film directed by Sut Jhally and produced by Media Education Foundation in 2006. This film is an extension of the book of that name by Jack Shaheen which also analyzes how Hollywood corrupts or manipulates the image of Arabs. This documentary argues that the slander of Arabs in American filmmaking has existed since the early days of the silent cinema and is present in the biggest Hollywood blockbusters today. Jack Shaheen analyzes a long series of "demeaning" images of Arabs through his presentation of various scenes from different American movies which he has studied. He argues that this image is characterized by showing Arabs either as bandits or as a savage, nomadic race, or shows Arab women as shallow belly dancers serving evil, naïve, and greedy Arab sheiks. Most important is the image of the rifle in the hands of Arab "terrorists". The film then attempt to explain the motivations behind these stereotypes about Arabs, and their development at key points in American history, as well as why it is so important today.

The film showed for the first time in Washington in 8 June 2007 and then in Los Angeles in the 20 June 2007. The run time of the film is 50 minutes, with Arabic and English subtitles. Soon after, the film was shown successively in more than a dozen of international film festivals between the years 2006 – 2009 The film's estimated budget is $100,000.

Synopsis

Jack Shaheen speaks at the beginning of the documentary about the extent to which Arabs face slander and manipulation in Hollywood, commenting that he has formulated this view of his after having seen hundreds of films produced, in the past and at the present. He also talks about how bleak the views are, those of which are borne by the Western civilization (and he refers to it as – our civilization -) admittedly confessing how these views directly attack the Arabs' humanity. Furthermore, he mentions how this same image took shape in several patterns to feed the same substance that is continuously demonizing the Arabs, thus; the image had to repeat over and over and it was depicted in scenes in several films that heavily abuse the Arabs' behaviors and morals.