Externally vs. Internally

In today’s blog post, I will be discussing how the portrayal of reel Arabs in movies affects the image of Arabs and Muslims in Westerner’s minds. Also I will discuss how these portrayals create fear and false expectations in Westerners who visit the Middle East.

Reel Arabs in movies are portrayed in four ways:

1. 1.     Villains and terrorists
2. 2.     Maidens
3. 3.     Sheikhs
4. 4.     Cameos

For example, in Sex and the City we saw Maidens and Sheikhs. In most post 9/11 movies we usually witness the  “villains and terrorists” of reel Arabs. For people who have never been to the Middle East or have no constant interactions with Arabs or Muslims will get the wrong picture painted in their heads of Middle Easterners.

In the final game of the football league, Carnegie Mellon Qatar was playing against the Community College of Qatar. After the game, the players and the fans socialized over a small reception following the awards ceremony. As I was socializing with the fans, I happened to meet 1196 Carnegie Mellon University graduate who was visiting Qatar on business. He graduated from the main campus in Pittsburgh, and this was his first trip to the Middle East. I decided to engage in the conversation he was having with some of the other students. They asked him what he thought of Doha and if it met his expectations. He responded by saying that he was quite astonished with how developed Qatar was and how back home in the states, people planning on visiting the Middle East had completely different expectations, in the negative sense. He said that back home, people expect the Middle East to be dangerous, filed with bombers. Also, they expect that women do not, under any circumstances socialize with a male Westerner. We all laughed as he said, “man was I surprised.” I looked around to see if people were genuinely laughing, and to my surprise they were –because I wasn’t. I was in fact slightly offended.  However, it was nice to see that no one takes such matters too personally because if they did then there would be so much resentment towards Westerners.

After my encounter with this man, I couldn’t help but wonder, are the Arabs and Westerners that different? We speak different languages, we dress differently, our traditions are different, our cultures are different, and our appearances are different. On a different note, we are also the same. We want to be happy, we want to be safe, we want to obtain a good education, and we want good health for our loved ones and ourselves. Just because externally we are different, it doesn’t mean on the inside we can’t be the same ordinary people, living our day-to-day ordinary lives.