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Thursday, October 04, 2007

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People

Playing this weekend at The Brunswick Theatre in Toronto, Reel Bad Arabs shows the persistence of negative stereotypes of Arabs in film and the effect it has had in dehumanizing Arabs and Arab culture.



Also a shorter trailer here. Also check out the trailer for Class Dismissed: How TV Frames the Working Class

2 comments:

princesspatrice said...

It's strange because there are many other movies that make jokes about all the negative stereotypes of other cultures and so many people go and see them and everyone laughs. But after the movie ends, do the people that laughed really feel that way? Are movies like this good or bad? Do movies like this just continue some people's racist thoughts or stereotypes of people?

Red Jenny said...

I think they can have a huge impact, especially when those images are some of the only points of contact the viewer has with a particular culture or people.

A lot of Westerners, especially in rural and suburban areas haven't got a lot of contact with real live human Arabs, and the misrepresentations in the media are therefore ALL they see. Reminds one of the images of Jewish people in the Nazi media.