Loading ...Over the last 100 years, the influence of Western culture has penetrated nearly every society around the globe – and it’s brought some pretty gruesome stereotypes and portrayals of non-Western ideas along with it.
From movies and TV shows to advertising and news, Middle Easterners and Arab Muslims have continually fallen victim to stereotypical portrayals, gross inaccuracies and even dehumanization in Western media. We took a look at some of the worst representations:
1. Aladdin (1992)
The opening song of the popular classic says Aladdin comes from a “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,” which Disney was forced to change after the outrage of Arab-American groups.
Not only does the film tell children that Arab men are barbaric ignorant villains, Arab women are exotic belly-dancing objects and the Middle East is just a big patch of desert with a few camels, it portrays the heroes as lighter-skinned and better looking than the inhabitants of the “barbaric” land.
2. Coca-Cola 2013 Super Bowl Ad
The ad depicted a tired Arab walking in the desert with a camel toward a Coke bottle while some cowboys, Las Vegas showgirls in a bus and a motley crew race to reach the bottle while the Arab is left behind. The ad asked viewers to vote online on which character would win the race without even allowing a vote for the Arab character.
Arab-American groups heavily criticized it. Imam Ali, president of the Muslim Institute for Interfaith Studies, said the ad was “racist, portraying Arabs as backward and foolish Camel Jockeys, and they have no chance to win in the world.”
3. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
The film perpetrates the stereotype of the Arab as the extremely rich oil sheikh. The money-seeking sheikh in the film wants to destroy the lives of non-Muslims with his expensive missiles. Not only is the portrayal offensive to Muslims, it is offensive to the Middle East’s Christian community who is never mentioned in the media. Arabs are always portrayed as Muslims, never as Christians.
4. Homeland
The popular Emmy award-winning drama was called “the most bigoted show on television” by the Washington Post. It depicts high-profile Muslims living in the U.S. who are actually secretly helping terrorists. The show yet again portrays Arabs as violent religious fanatics with depictions The Guardian called “not only crude and childish but offensive.”
5. True Lies (1994)
Long before the 9/11 attacks, Arabs and Muslims were portrayed as terrorists in mainstream media as is evident in this film. The Hollywood blockbuster, that was called “perhaps the most anti-Palestinian film” by writer and media critic Jack Shaheen, not only portrays Arabs as dangerous heavy-accented criminals, but as incompetent terrorists ultimately defeated by the American hero.
6. The home of “The Axis of Evil”
When then-U.S. President George Bush used the term “axis of evil” in a speech in 2002 to refer to Iran, Iraq and North Korea, mainstream news channels soon fixated on the term. The media’s incessant use of the term continued to portray the Middle East as the home of terrorism and destruction for years, building up and reinforcing the stereotype that all Arabs are terrorists. It even inspired a group of Arab-American comedians to start a comedy tour making fun of Arab stereotypes.
7. Rules of Engagement (2000)
The film was described as “probably the most racist film ever made against Arabs by Hollywood” by Hussein Ibish, a spokesman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. It takes place in Yemen, where the American embassy is under siege from a Yemeni mob who fires at the US marines so they shoot back and kill 83 people.
