the Ali Baba Kit !!

"We have this fictional setting called Arab Land, a mythical theme park, and in Arab Land, you know, you have the ominous music, you have the desert.

We start with the desert, always the desert as a threatening place. We add an oasis, palm trees, a palace that has a torture chamber in the basement.

The Pasha sits there on his posh cushions, with harem maidens surrounding him. None of the harem maidens please him so they abduct the blonde heroin from the West who doesn’t want to be seduced. When we visit Arab Land we must be aware of the instant Ali Baba kit.

What we have, we have the property masters of Hollywood going around and they’re cladding the
women in see-through pantaloons, belly-dancing outfits, they’re giving the Arab villains scimitars –
you know, these long, long scimitars. We see people riding around on magic carpets, turban charmers programming snakes in and out of baskets. Yesteryear’s Arab Land is today’s Arab Land. "

Reel Bad Arabs, Jack Shaheen.  

Arabland !!

" We inherited the Arab image primarily from Europeans in the early days, maybe
150 years, 200 years ago.  The British and the French who traveled to the Middle East and those who
didn’t travel to the Middle East conjured up these images of the Arab as the oriental other - the
travel writers, the artists who fabricated these images and who were very successful as a matter of
fact. And these images were transmitted and inherited by us. We took them, we embellished them
and here they are."

Reel Bad Arabs, Jack Shaheen.

Real Arabs

"And the same goes for Hollywood’s view of Arab women. The Arab woman today is bright, intelligent. She’s someone who is exceeding in all professions.

And yet this reality, still, is being denied us on silver screens. The highly sexualized belly dancer has been with us from the beginning of Hollywood’s history. Inspired by early images of the orient, as the place of exoticism, intrigue and passion.

But in recent years, this image has dramatically changed. The Arab woman is now projected as a bomber, a terrorist. Added to this image is what I call “bundles in black” – veiled women, in the background, in the shadows - submissive. It seems the more Arab women advance, the more Hollywood keeps them locked in the past."
Reel Bad Arabs, Jack Shaheen.