From PolicyMic
by Nick Recktenwald
Hollywood is nothing if not reactionary. Of course, all storytelling, no matter the medium, tends to be a reaction to experiences, a way of transforming the personal into the broadly intelligible.Yet Hollywood stands out from literature, music, and most television for its insistence on reacting to the same political and social stimuli for years, even decades. For all George Clooney’s myopic self-assurance that he works in a progressive business, women, African Americans, homosexuals, and other marginalized groups are often portrayed in major studio films as though the scripts were focus-grouped at the Republican National Convention. However, no group provides more fodder for Hollywood’s regressive stereotyping machine than Muslims, and this past year in cinema has shown that this is unlikely to change any time soon.
To wit: it has been nearly twelve years since 9/11 and more than thirty years since the Iranian hostage crisis, but two of the most lauded films from last year, Zero Dark Thirty and Argo — Best Picture finalist and Best Picture winner, respectively — displayed little, if any, new perspective on either event. Rather, both films explain the antagonism between the Western and Muslim world with the same unsophisticated finger-pointing popularized by George W. Bush: they hate our freedoms.
While it may make for an easy catchphrase, it obviates the West’s history of imperialism, political subversion, and exploitation throughout the Middle East. In Zero Dark Thirty, for example, Muslim characters are presented as an undifferentiated mass of enemies, bearded or burqa’d objects to be mined — through torture — for information about Osama Bin Laden.
Their reasons for fighting are unimportant; they have no agency. On the other hand, Argo delivers an initial, brief justification for the Iranian storming of the U.S. Embassy: revenge for America’s support of the tyrannical Shah. Then the film devolves into a deluge of images of Muslim men and women frothing for violence and hoisting AK-47s. Indeed, nearly every Muslim character either film lingers on for more than a frame not only hates America, but also hates it indiscriminately. This creates the impression that the entire Muslim world is barbaric, and is barbaric because of Islam.
Now, my purpose here is not to absolve Osama Bin Laden or the Ayatollah of their sins; certainly, unforgivable atrocities have been committed in the name of Allah, just as American forces have carried out unforgivable atrocities for “God and Country.” The difference that Hollywood often perpetuates is that the latter forces are working for a greater good, while the motivation of the entire Muslim world is both singular and totalitarian. Certain films, like the excellent Syriana, complicate this dichotomy and suggest that not only do progressive Muslims exist, but also that America’s justification for military intervention in the Middle East — “spreading democracy” — rings just as hollow as that “they hate our freedom” sound bite. Yet Syriana is the exception and not the rule (see also: the underrated Kingdom of Heaven delivers a fairly nuanced depiction of the Crusades, one of the least nuanced conflicts in human history.).
In general, Muslims in Hollywood cinema exist as one-dimensional characters: ignorant menaces hell-bent on kidnapping or killing as many Westerners in service of their exotic, violent god.Edward Said famously coined the term “Orientalism” to describe the cultural practice of transforming those from eastern cultures — both Asian and Middle Eastern — into the Other. Orientalism in film presents exotic characters created from a Western political and social bias to simultaneously elicit a strong reaction against Eastern culture while reaffirming American and European values. Simply put: white hero defeats a nameless horde of copper-skinned bad guys, and white audience feels better about itself.
