I found this documentary to be very powerful in its representation of how the Arab people are portrayed in Hollywood films. It was very eye opening to witness the many stereotypes constructed or reinforced through the films. I agree with Dr. Jack Shaheen on his comment that if some of the lines were changed from Arabs to Jews, Blacks or Indians then it would of probably been perceived differently. I really enjoyed this documentary on shedding light on this issue to promote the diminishing of stereotypes and prejudices of different ethnic groups. I think it is really important to show more people so that these false views are not passed on to younger generations.
In this documentary I find it very interesting. Every nation and race has good things and bad things about them. So what I see is that the movies in Hollywood they describe Arabs as violent people who kill non -Muslims and think all Muslims are martyrs. In this documentary I noticed that all different scenes from different movies shows only one thing is that all Arabs were suicide bombers and killing people. The one thing I enjoyed about this documentary is how they show the culture of Arabs and it was talking about the culture several hundred years ago.
Natasha LaBalle ARAB 1001 While I found the documentary to be graphic given that I am somewhat squeamish, I found the subject of the documentary to be very important. I myself have seen a couple of the movies referenced in the documentary. I was raised on Disney movies, so I've seen Aladdin. While I had not ever evaluated the content of the movie seriously, given that it is a Disney cartoon, after seeing how the cartoon merely recycled stereotypical portrayals of Arab people it's apparent that it contains very offensive imagery and very offensive conceptions of the Arab world and its people. The documentary also did an excellent job of emphasizing how a country's media and a country's government are interconnected. It's very apparent that the governmental perception of Arabs and the Arab world affects the portrayal of these people and places in the media. It's unfortunate that many people don't use their own abilities to discern rationally that the Hollywood representation of Arabs is vilifying and prejudiced. If a people is dehumanized in film then its easier to justify dehumanizing them outside of the media in day-to-day interaction because of this foundation of discrimination. If the image of Arab people and the Arab world was altered to be more realistic and reflexive of the Arab people being humans who are just as capable of being good and bad as everyone else, then that would begin to get rid of the prejudice and stereotype that unfortunately exists in America.
Jackie Simmons, Arabic 1001 What I loved about this documentary was that it utilized an accessible vehicle, film, from which the audience could examine overarching stereotypes of Arabs. More than likely, a good number of us have seen some of those films and have probably not thought much of the implications brought forth by those portrayals. I took into consideration what Shaheen said about the stereotypes being so ingrained that they were not noticeable, or rather, in my case, I realized that I hadn't ever really considered the presence of those stereotypes in films unless they were made readily apparent (i.e." How was London" quotes and the like). I was in disbelief when the comedian, Ahmed Ahmed, said that directors were looking to caricatures as a representation of real Arabs, and considering the relatively recent time in which that occurred, I found it all the more sad that such profiling and gross caricature exist in our modern world, and I believe that Shaheen's documentary offers an indictment, an implicit call for the viewer to become more aware and question these occurrences. I appreciated Shaheen's pointing out the implicit prejudices alongside the explicit ones that viewers commonly laugh at, and I found interesting how he displayed how the negative portrayal of a people had bled into the real treatment of these people. The impact of film on real people is often overlooked and sometimes not extensively examined, but with documentaries like this one and movies that strive to portray, not only Arabs but multiple groups and demographics, with humanism and verisimilitude, hopefully, the interactions and perceptions will take on a much more positive light.
I thought this film made some very interesting points. It led me view some of the films I have seen in the past in a very different light. For example, most of us grew up watching Disney movies such as Aladdin. While watching Aladdin I never noticed all of the Arab stereotypes and racial slurs that engulf the film. With this being said, I think it is important to note that racism and racial stereotypes lie across the board. In fact, there is not a single movie that does not use some type of racial stereotype, whether it be against Arabs, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Indians, Native Americans, Asians, and the list goes on. In general, our society needs to learn that we are all people and we are all the same on the inside. One rotten apple doesn't necessarily ruin the bunch.
Film has a huge influence in society. We don't realize how much of an impact it makes on our perception of people until you really break it down like this documentary did. They did a great job incorporating movies from decades ago to recent films and how the perception has evolved. Unfortunately, that evolution hasn't been a good one, and Arabs are still shown in a bad light, if not worse. I really liked how they replaced saying Arabs with Jews or Blacks. It makes the double standard a lot clearer.
This documentary really opened my eyes. Just today I was watching an episode of Law and Order and they had the FBI looking for a terrorist and t turned out to be an Arab woman. I wouldn't have even recognized the stereotypes in this episode if it wasn't for this video. I didn't realize just how true these stereotypes are because we have grown up with them for so long that they are invisible. Seeing how Hollywood does play a big part in it, even today, shows how we can become more and more ignorant of what we are actually viewing. Seeing things like this everyday can definitely alter our mindset, but I hope that we soon learn that not everything we se on television is true.
This film was definitely an eye opener. Me being American, I would have never thought to pay close enough attention to how Arabs are portrayed in film. However, me being African American and my race also being portrayed in films in a bad way, I kind of understand how it may feel. The film made me realize how Hollywood writers really feel about Arabs and how they don't actually do their homework on Arabs. However, more recently I think there is a big turnaround in this depiction with movies like Sex and the City 2 and others. They are far from the truth but it has been progress.
Austin Branham I found this documentary very insightful on how the film and television industry sculpts our views of Arab people. With very few exceptions Arab people in film and television tend to be the bad guys. One of the “humorous” parts of the documentary was the part about the Arab comedians and how they mocked the directors when they were auditioning for a movie part and the only part they could get were terrorists. It was a sad and tragic reminder that although Americans think we are all racially equal after the 1960s civil rights era we still almost unconsciously stereotype a major group of people.
Tyler Reeves I was a bit taken back at the multitude of films that portray Arabs in this fashion. I grew up watching Aladdin and thought the film was relatively harmless. However, when you take the time to pay more attention to the dialogue it is somewhat disturbing. I am grateful for this documentary raising awareness about this issue and hope that the increased attention will increase our empathy.
Tony Hudson It was really interesting to take a step back and see some of the examples of how Hollywood has portrayed people of Arab background in such negative ways. The fact that producers and script writers think that it is okay to write such negative roles and almost racist scripts is appalling. An example of this being Disney's Aladdin. A movie in which children all over the world have seen and have grown to love is actually one of the worst cases of this. This documentary really helped me to realize that Hollywood feeds off of stereotypes and we as people must learn to see through this. It actually made me reflect on how little I know about Arab people and what false information has Hollywood fed me.
The more I think about it the more I realize how big of an impact film and news media has on society. I can only imagine how many people have a close minded view of Arabs and their culture simply because of a movie they saw.The film also showed how even what most would consider harmless disney film is in fact a very offensive depiction of Arab culture. IT certainly changes and challenges my perception of how Arabs are seen in american society.
I have seen many of the movies referenced and never once thought about what was being said about Arabs or what was being done to them. I found it very enlightening to have these events pointed out to me. This just goes to show how little we notice when something isn't directly related to us. Aladdin is considered a great childhood movie and any little girl that likes the Disney Princesses has seen, and I personally have watched it and enjoyed it many to times without even thinking twice about what was being said. I really enjoyed this documentary because it showed me the parts of some of my favorite movies that I had never noticed and I think that is are problem when it comes to being open minded to other cultures, we don't pay attention to how they actually live we just use a handful of their people as an example and assume that's how they all are. I would love to have the opportunity to watch more of these in class.
This documentary was very revealing, while being a bit hard to watch. I had never noticed the fact that Arabs are almost exclusively portrayed as villains in Hollywood films. I would be interested to see some studies that link Hollywood films to American's views. In the film, Jack Shaheen presents that link as a given but doesn't quantify how much influence they have or back up his findings with any real data. I think the observations in the documentary would be more meaningful if he had done so, because although Hollywood films do have an influence on how people view subjects, they are not the only influences present in our culture.
Chase Kerrins The movie revealed a big factor that influences not just how we view Arabs but also how media can influence our view of the world. I guess it was a good thing that while I grew up I never really labeled or thought of Arabs when I watched these kind of movies, but also I didn't really know what Arabic was or who Arabs were until sometime in Middle School. I have always believed that the counter to the acts and stereotypes that the media presents is being well educated as well as being social and willing to meet new people of different cultures. It did bring out a lot of speculation thought to the videos I did watch growing up and made me ask if we should be playing that for young kids.
Kacie Thorne-ARAB 1001
ReplyDeleteI found this documentary to be very powerful in its representation of how the Arab people are portrayed in Hollywood films. It was very eye opening to witness the many stereotypes constructed or reinforced through the films. I agree with Dr. Jack Shaheen on his comment that if some of the lines were changed from Arabs to Jews, Blacks or Indians then it would of probably been perceived differently. I really enjoyed this documentary on shedding light on this issue to promote the diminishing of stereotypes and prejudices of different ethnic groups. I think it is really important to show more people so that these false views are not passed on to younger generations.
Isa Saleem ARAB-1001
ReplyDeleteIn this documentary I find it very interesting. Every nation and race has good things and bad things about them. So what I see is that the movies in Hollywood they describe Arabs as violent people who kill non -Muslims and think all Muslims are martyrs. In this documentary I noticed that all different scenes from different movies shows only one thing is that all Arabs were suicide bombers and killing people. The one thing I enjoyed about this documentary is how they show the culture of Arabs and it was talking about the culture several hundred years ago.
Natasha LaBalle ARAB 1001
ReplyDeleteWhile I found the documentary to be graphic given that I am somewhat squeamish, I found the subject of the documentary to be very important. I myself have seen a couple of the movies referenced in the documentary. I was raised on Disney movies, so I've seen Aladdin. While I had not ever evaluated the content of the movie seriously, given that it is a Disney cartoon, after seeing how the cartoon merely recycled stereotypical portrayals of Arab people it's apparent that it contains very offensive imagery and very offensive conceptions of the Arab world and its people. The documentary also did an excellent job of emphasizing how a country's media and a country's government are interconnected. It's very apparent that the governmental perception of Arabs and the Arab world affects the portrayal of these people and places in the media. It's unfortunate that many people don't use their own abilities to discern rationally that the Hollywood representation of Arabs is vilifying and prejudiced. If a people is dehumanized in film then its easier to justify dehumanizing them outside of the media in day-to-day interaction because of this foundation of discrimination. If the image of Arab people and the Arab world was altered to be more realistic and reflexive of the Arab people being humans who are just as capable of being good and bad as everyone else, then that would begin to get rid of the prejudice and stereotype that unfortunately exists in America.
Jackie Simmons, Arabic 1001
ReplyDeleteWhat I loved about this documentary was that it utilized an accessible vehicle, film, from which the audience could examine overarching stereotypes of Arabs. More than likely, a good number of us have seen some of those films and have probably not thought much of the implications brought forth by those portrayals. I took into consideration what Shaheen said about the stereotypes being so ingrained that they were not noticeable, or rather, in my case, I realized that I hadn't ever really considered the presence of those stereotypes in films unless they were made readily apparent (i.e." How was London" quotes and the like). I was in disbelief when the comedian, Ahmed Ahmed, said that directors were looking to caricatures as a representation of real Arabs, and considering the relatively recent time in which that occurred, I found it all the more sad that such profiling and gross caricature exist in our modern world, and I believe that Shaheen's documentary offers an indictment, an implicit call for the viewer to become more aware and question these occurrences. I appreciated Shaheen's pointing out the implicit prejudices alongside the explicit ones that viewers commonly laugh at, and I found interesting how he displayed how the negative portrayal of a people had bled into the real treatment of these people. The impact of film on real people is often overlooked and sometimes not extensively examined, but with documentaries like this one and movies that strive to portray, not only Arabs but multiple groups and demographics, with humanism and verisimilitude, hopefully, the interactions and perceptions will take on a much more positive light.
Alexandra Breed
ReplyDeleteARAB-1001
I thought this film made some very interesting points. It led me view some of the films I have seen in the past in a very different light. For example, most of us grew up watching Disney movies such as Aladdin. While watching Aladdin I never noticed all of the Arab stereotypes and racial slurs that engulf the film. With this being said, I think it is important to note that racism and racial stereotypes lie across the board. In fact, there is not a single movie that does not use some type of racial stereotype, whether it be against Arabs, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Indians, Native Americans, Asians, and the list goes on. In general, our society needs to learn that we are all people and we are all the same on the inside. One rotten apple doesn't necessarily ruin the bunch.
Film has a huge influence in society. We don't realize how much of an impact it makes on our perception of people until you really break it down like this documentary did. They did a great job incorporating movies from decades ago to recent films and how the perception has evolved. Unfortunately, that evolution hasn't been a good one, and Arabs are still shown in a bad light, if not worse. I really liked how they replaced saying Arabs with Jews or Blacks. It makes the double standard a lot clearer.
ReplyDeleteThis documentary really opened my eyes. Just today I was watching an episode of Law and Order and they had the FBI looking for a terrorist and t turned out to be an Arab woman. I wouldn't have even recognized the stereotypes in this episode if it wasn't for this video. I didn't realize just how true these stereotypes are because we have grown up with them for so long that they are invisible. Seeing how Hollywood does play a big part in it, even today, shows how we can become more and more ignorant of what we are actually viewing. Seeing things like this everyday can definitely alter our mindset, but I hope that we soon learn that not everything we se on television is true.
ReplyDeleteThis film was definitely an eye opener. Me being American, I would have never thought to pay close enough attention to how Arabs are portrayed in film. However, me being African American and my race also being portrayed in films in a bad way, I kind of understand how it may feel. The film made me realize how Hollywood writers really feel about Arabs and how they don't actually do their homework on Arabs. However, more recently I think there is a big turnaround in this depiction with movies like Sex and the City 2 and others. They are far from the truth but it has been progress.
ReplyDeleteJoselyn Wilson
ARAB 1101
Austin Branham
ReplyDeleteI found this documentary very insightful on how the film and television industry sculpts our views of Arab people. With very few exceptions Arab people in film and television tend to be the bad guys. One of the “humorous” parts of the documentary was the part about the Arab comedians and how they mocked the directors when they were auditioning for a movie part and the only part they could get were terrorists. It was a sad and tragic reminder that although Americans think we are all racially equal after the 1960s civil rights era we still almost unconsciously stereotype a major group of people.
Tyler Reeves
ReplyDeleteI was a bit taken back at the multitude of films that portray Arabs in this fashion. I grew up watching Aladdin and thought the film was relatively harmless. However, when you take the time to pay more attention to the dialogue it is somewhat disturbing. I am grateful for this documentary raising awareness about this issue and hope that the increased attention will increase our empathy.
Tony Hudson
ReplyDeleteIt was really interesting to take a step back and see some of the examples of how Hollywood has portrayed people of Arab background in such negative ways. The fact that producers and script writers think that it is okay to write such negative roles and almost racist scripts is appalling. An example of this being Disney's Aladdin. A movie in which children all over the world have seen and have grown to love is actually one of the worst cases of this. This documentary really helped me to realize that Hollywood feeds off of stereotypes and we as people must learn to see through this. It actually made me reflect on how little I know about Arab people and what false information has Hollywood fed me.
The more I think about it the more I realize how big of an impact film and news media has on society. I can only imagine how many people have a close minded view of Arabs and their culture simply because of a movie they saw.The film also showed how even what most would consider harmless disney film is in fact a very offensive depiction of Arab culture. IT certainly changes and challenges my perception of how Arabs are seen in american society.
ReplyDeleteBrandon Alexander
ARAB 1001
I have seen many of the movies referenced and never once thought about what was being said about Arabs or what was being done to them. I found it very enlightening to have these events pointed out to me. This just goes to show how little we notice when something isn't directly related to us. Aladdin is considered a great childhood movie and any little girl that likes the Disney Princesses has seen, and I personally have watched it and enjoyed it many to times without even thinking twice about what was being said. I really enjoyed this documentary because it showed me the parts of some of my favorite movies that I had never noticed and I think that is are problem when it comes to being open minded to other cultures, we don't pay attention to how they actually live we just use a handful of their people as an example and assume that's how they all are. I would love to have the opportunity to watch more of these in class.
ReplyDeleteThis documentary was very revealing, while being a bit hard to watch. I had never noticed the fact that Arabs are almost exclusively portrayed as villains in Hollywood films. I would be interested to see some studies that link Hollywood films to American's views. In the film, Jack Shaheen presents that link as a given but doesn't quantify how much influence they have or back up his findings with any real data. I think the observations in the documentary would be more meaningful if he had done so, because although Hollywood films do have an influence on how people view subjects, they are not the only influences present in our culture.
ReplyDeleteChase Kerrins
ReplyDeleteThe movie revealed a big factor that influences not just how we view Arabs but also how media can influence our view of the world. I guess it was a good thing that while I grew up I never really labeled or thought of Arabs when I watched these kind of movies, but also I didn't really know what Arabic was or who Arabs were until sometime in Middle School. I have always believed that the counter to the acts and stereotypes that the media presents is being well educated as well as being social and willing to meet new people of different cultures. It did bring out a lot of speculation thought to the videos I did watch growing up and made me ask if we should be playing that for young kids.