Thursday, November 15, 2012

Media Moment: Islam people in films.

Hi, everyone in my class. This is Se. I'm major in media analysis and criticism.
I'd say, I'm a longtime movie-lover. I watch every movies on the world.

I want introduce two films that I watched which relate to with our last class.

First, I want to introduce a film The Sheik. This film is one of the most racist film against Arabs. Of course, this film came out almost a century ago, before we have sound-sync technology.

The Sheik is one of the hegemonic Hollywood film represents Arab as a savagery.
This film's plot line is very problematic because the main character Diana is simply submissive and being depicted as an sexual object. An antagonist character Sheik (or Ahmed Ben Hassan) kidnaps Diana and puts her in his camp in middle of dessert. Diana has no choice unless become a wife of Sheik.
Sheik is very decent to Diana (Sheik and his men wear white clothes). This Arabic character is not depicted with lechery, rather, he is gentle and heroic figure.
In the climax of film, Diana attempts to escape from Sheik and his companies - Diana, however, lost in the dessert kidnapped by a lewd bandits whom wear black clothes.
Sheik saves Diana from the villains. And Diana realizes that she loves Sheik. (stockholm syndrome).
In the last part of film, Sheik compasses that he is not Arab decent, he is a white man.
This wired twist meant to be relief anxiety from seeing interracial marriage between White woman and Arab man.

Thhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sheik_(film)

Check more details about this film.
This film is one of thousands film depicts Arab as a savagery and inferior to whites.

And compare this film with films are made by people in middle east.

One example, I saw a good film, Bab El-Oued City (1994).
(I'm sorry I can't find clip with caption)

This film shows Islam in Algeria experience cultural and sociological changes.
As every one knows, the Islamicphobia and Orientalism in media is not only a one-day-built ideology.
Christianity Vs. Islam has almost couple thousands year history.
I would like to suggest everyone in this class try to watch films that made by Islam people which gives you better understand of their culture and thoughts about social issues they have.

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