Reel Bad Arabs

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 "e;evil"e; 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 "e;Arab"e; has remained Hollywood's shameless shorthand for "e;bad guy,"e; long after the movie industry has shifted its portrayal of other minority groups. In this comprehensive study of over one thousand films, arranged alphabetically in such chapters as "e;Villains,"e; "e;Sheikhs,"e; "e;Cameos,"e; and "e;Cliffhangers,"e; Shaheen documents the tendency to portray Muslim Arabs as Public Enemy #1brutal, 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.