link to listen/watch/or read transcript:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/19/reel_bad_arabs_how_hollywood_vilifiessnip:
snip;"JACK SHAHEEN: Disney's Aladdin was seen by millions of children worldwide. It was hailed as one of Disney's finest accomplishments, but the film recycled every old degrading stereotype from Hollywood’s silent black-and-white past.
ALADDIN OPENING MUSIC: Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels grow, where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home.
JACK SHAHEEN: “Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face. It’s barbaric, but, hey, it’s home.” Now, how could a producer with a modicum of intelligence, just a modicum of sensitivity, let a song such as that open the film? 300 movies, nearly 25% of all Hollywood movies that, in one way or another, demean Arabs, contain gratuitous slurs, or they portray Arabs as being the butt of a cheap joke.
UNIDENTIFIED: We were going into Mecca, see? And the plane is full of Arabs with these animals -- goats, sheep, chickens. I mean, they don’t go anywhere without their goddamn animals. We had to put plastic in the cabins. You know, they urinate, they defecate.
JACK SHAHEEN: You have films by Neil Simon like Chapter Two." The beginning of the film, the protagonist arrives back from London, and his brother says, “How was London?” And he says, “Full of Arabs.”
LEO SCHNEIDER: How was London?
GEORGE SCHNEIDER: Full of Arabs.
JACK SHAHEEN: Wow! Imagine if he had said, “Full of blacks,” “Full of Jews,” “Full of Hispanics.” I mean, that’s ridiculous. Why do we do these things?
One of the most offensive films, with the gratuitous images, Father of the Bride 2. It features Steve Martin selling his house to a Mr. Habib.
MR. HABIB: We like house very much. When you can move out?
GEORGE BANKS: Excuse me?
REALTOR: The Habibs would like to buy the house, George. It’s exactly what they’ve been looking for.
MR. HABIB: Yes. When you can move? We need house a week from Wednesday. And my wife wants flower dishes in kitchen. You sell? We pay top dollar.
JACK SHAHEEN: When Habib’s submissive wife tries to speak, he shouts gibberish at her. And then he offers Martin a $15,000 cash bonus to move out in ten days. When Martin tells Mr. Habib that he doesn’t want to sell the house after all, he finds Habib's wrecking crew there, ready to demolish his beautiful home. And in a scene that calls to mind one of the most degrading stereotypes of the Jewish people, Mr. Habib demands an extra $100,000 to sell the house that he has owned for just a day back to Martin.
GEORGE BANKS: You want me to take out a loan on something I owned free and clear just twenty-four hours ago?
MR. HABIB: Well, that is up to you, George. Your park, your fence, your memories.
JACK SHAHEEN: Now, if you looked at the other Father of the Bride films -- Elizabeth Taylor, Spencer Tracy -- there were no Arabs or Arab Americans. So why does Disney inject these horrific sort of offensive characters in Father of the Bride, Part 2? It’s the same reason that in Gladiator the slave traders who kidnap Russell Crowe and bring him back to Rome are Arabs. I mean, this is ridiculous. I mean, why does Hollywood inject Arabs, scenes of Arabs and/or slurs demeaning Arabs in movies having nothing to do with the Middle East?
So, you're sitting like I am, for example, watching Back to the Future, about a mad scientist. And yet, early on in the film, we see these ugly inept Libyans with machine guns in a parking lot trying to gun down the protagonist. I mean, why? This movie wasn’t about the future. It was the same old stereotyping from the past. "
snip:"JACK SHAHEEN: You see the oily sheikh in Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. You see the money-grubbing sheikh who’s out to commit all kinds of terrorism and launch a missile in Ernest in the Army.
SHEIKH: Gentlemen, behold my special club, the pluton missile. With it, I will bring the infidels to their knees and be leader in the Arab world.
JACK SHAHEEN: One of the myths in the ’70s was that the Arabs are coming over, buying up chunks of America. And, of course, this was reflected in the cinema
HOWARD BEALE: That is not the case. The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back!
JACK SHAHEEN: One of my favorite movies of all time, racist though it may be, is Network, about commercial television.
TV ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, let’s hear it! How do you feel?
AUDIENCE: We’re mad as hell, and we’re not going to take it anymore!
JACK SHAHEEN: Network features a TV anchor rising to super stardom. How? He unleashes wild rants against the system on the air. But he directs at Arabs who he says are buying up America.
HOWARD BEALE: They’re buying it for the Saudi Arabian investment corporation! They’re buying it for the Arabs!
JACK SHAHEEN: The anchor, Howard Beale, calls on the American people to rise up and stop the Arab buyout of his TV network.
HOWARD BEALE: Listen to me, God damn it! The Arabs are simply buying us! There’s
snip:"JACK SHAHEEN: This kind of anger, the anger born of fear, all of it in response to a perceived conspiracy and threat by a specific group of people, well, we’ve seen and heard this before. If we look at the anti-Semitic propaganda of the Nazis, at its core is an identical type of economic threat. This economic myth even made its way into children's books. Sadly, the popular image of Jews in Nazi propaganda resembles the popular image of Arabs in some of our most beloved Hollywood movies, the only difference being that the Arab usually wears a robe and headdress.
To solidify Washington's connection with Hollywood, simply look at the films produced in cooperation with the Department of Defense, showing our men and women in the Armed Forces killing Arabs at random. Like Iron Eagle, where a teenager goes over and bombs up an Arab country, you know, just learns how to fly a jet overnight. And then, of course, Navy Seals, where Charlie Sheen goes over to Lebanon and obliterates scores of Arabs. "
link to listen/watch/or read transcript:
http://www.democracynow.org/2007/10/19/reel_bad_arabs_how_hollywood_vilifies.
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