FA: REEL BAD ARABS: HOLLYWOOD VILIFIES A PEOPLE

REEL BAD ARABS: HOLLYWOOD VILIFIES A PEOPLE
Shaheen, Jack G.: REEL BAD ARABS: HOW HOLLYWOOD VILIFIES A PEOPLE

New York: Olive Branch Press, 2001. First paperback edition.



>From Library Journal
Shaheen (mass communication, Southern Illinois Univ.; Arab and Muslim
Stereotypes in American Popular Culture) has written a meticulous,
passionate, and very articulate description of the persistent and prolonged
vilification of Arab peoples in mainstream Western movies. Offering
primarily reviews of the 900 films he has seen or researched over 20 years,
he documents a century of offensive stereotypes and shows how the image of
the "dirty Arab" has reemerged over the last 30 years, even as other groups
have more or less successfully fought to eliminate the use of racist
stereotypes. The appendixes include lists of the best and worst depictions
of Arabs in popular films, alternate titles, a list of epithets thrown at
Arabs in films, and a list of the fictional locations used in films.
Although the work is aimed at a college-level audience, the clear writing
and lack of jargon make it accessible to a much wider readership
- Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author
Jack G. Shaheen, a former CBS News consultant on Middle East affairs, is the
world's foremost authority on media images of Arabs and Muslims. He is the
author of Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, Nuclear
War Films, and the award-winning The TV Arab.

Book Description
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People is a groundbreaking book
that dissects a slanderous history dating from cinema's earliest days to
contemporary Hollywood blockbusters that feature machine-gun wielding and
bomb-blowing "evil" Arabs.



Award-winning film authority Jack G. Shaheen, noting that only Native
Americans have been more relentlessly smeared on the silver screen,
painstakingly makes his case that "Arab" has remained Hollywood's shameless
shorthand for "bad guy," long after the movie industry has shifted its
portrayal of other minority groups. In this comprehensive study of nearly
one thousand films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "Villains,"
"Sheikhs," "Cameos," and "Cliffhangers," Shaheen documents the tendency to
portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1-brutal, heartless, uncivilized
Others bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners.  Shaheen examines how and
why such a stereotype has grown and spread in the film industry and what may
be done to change Hollywood's defamation of Arabs.



Near Fine paperback edition. Very light wear.


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