Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Culture in the Middle East.
How does Hollywood portray Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent in American film? Has our fear of terrorism effected the way in which Hollywood makes and markets movies? Has a drive for political correctness convinced American film makers to stay away from negative depictions of Middle Easterners? Often Hollywood portrays Muslims as good, for instance in the film Kite Runner the Muslim culture is presented in a positive light. Sometimes the Middle East is portrayed in an impartial light, such as in the move Babble. Other times Muslims are portrayed as villans like in the film Taken. Post a link to a scene from another movie that also portrays Muslims in a certain light, and explain whether it is a good or bad portrayal and why you believe that.
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Here's an interesting review of "2012", Apparently the directors showed scenes of various religious sites being destroyed, but any Muslim ones...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnU1Ep4kfTU
i definitely think that Muslim terrorism has colored American's views of those from the Middle East. people now foolishly make the assumption that if someone looks middle eastern, then they must be assosiated with terrorism. an example of incorrect portrayal is the show 24 (according to my friend...:]). all of the muslim/middle eastern people end up being terrorists or involved in terrorist activities.
ReplyDeleteAmerica has totally destroyed the Middle East, and depicted them all as terrorists. I think that when the enemy is a middle eastern terrorist, American's are more inclined to buy/ watch it since we "can relate" through 9-11, Desert Storm, etc. "The Kingdom" is a great example of this.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZltyidbP1F4
ReplyDeleteThe media has obliterated American's perspectives of the Middle East as well as other countries and cultures. The people of today only learn about what they see on tv and in movies because that's all they know. Books aren't used for researching nearly as much as the internet is now. With all the false aligations and stereotyping of people we don't understand its no wonder we're at war. Most of the people don't even realize what we are fighting for and who spefically we are fighting against.
ReplyDeleteterrorism scares a lot of people in the states and movie producers are displaying that fear through their films, this is not to say thats the only message coming out of hollywood. There are many different prospectives such in the kite runner, the middle east is made up of more then just terrorists, many opf the people living there are suffering too, some directors take that point of view. I believe political correctness has something to do with it too, people get a lot of negative feedback for bashing on a certain religous group.
ReplyDeleteThe movie "The Kingdom" is shows two radically different sides to the Muslim issue. The Arab police officers for example are shown to be just as noble and driven as the American FBI agents. The Terrorists, on the other hand, are shown not to be inhuman (they have families, one is a grandfather) but are callous and cruel.
ReplyDeleteThe final message of the film however is that the American FBI agents were just as zealous to hurt the terrorists as the Muslim extremists were to hurt the infidels.
It was an interesting comparison.