Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People

Racism is a belief that a particular race is superior or inferior to another. Since the past 500-1000 years, racism on the part of Western powers towards the non-Westerners has had a very significant impact on history. There have been many efforts to eradicate it, however most of these efforts have failed. Consequently, racism continues to be a growing concern in the modern era and affects numerous people on a daily basis. I have examined the documentary “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People” on the basis of following types of racism: stereotypes, discrimination, dehumanization, prejudices, orientalism and ethnocentricism.

The documentary “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People” embodies one of the most persistent problem

It focuses on the preconceived notions that the Americans have about the Arab men, which are not based on any concrete evidence or personal experiences. In other words, the movie highlights the concept of orientalism, which explains how the Americans present the Middle East in a stereotyped way with heinous and harmful descriptions without any concrete evidences or personal experiences. One can notice a trend in this racial discrimination portrayed by the American society in other movies as well. For instance, in the Disney motion picture, Aladdin, the bad characters have darker skin colour and have grotesque features like larger noses in particular. On the other hand, the good characters – Aladdin and Jasmin – by contrast, have lighter Anglicised features and Americanised accents. In my opinion, this is a result of a very ethnocentric view of looking at the Middle East. The Americans judge them on the basis of their own culture and race, and thus, associate Anglicised features, Americanised accents and lighter skin colour with all the positive and good images, and rest all other qualities with negative and evil