Good vs. Bad

We’ve been talking about Arab stereotypes quite a bit recently and how Hollywood portrays us in several different negative ways: the most prominent being as terrorists. When we see these images, we usually (as expected) criticize the film and the filmmaker for having such prejudiced views against us.

But, when we were watching the film, Amreeka, which was directed by an Arab woman, I realized there were a lot of stereotypes about Arabs in there as well. These stereotypes, however, had a much different effect on me.

For me, a lot of the comedy in this film came from recognizing these stereotypes. My favourite one being the cute, sarcastic grandmother that tends to worry a bit too much.

I started to wonder why these were stereotypes different. Was it because they had nothing to do with portraying Arabs as backwards and violent people? Or did it have more to do with the fact that these were stereotypes I faced on a daily basis and were written by an Arab herself?

I think who the filmmaker or the screenwriter is makes a huge difference. Usually, when Hollywood uses Arab stereotypes, they use it to create an outgroup – they make the Arab the “other.” They use this to socialize the viewers and fill them with fear, hatred, and discrimination, When an Arab filmmaker uses an Arab stereotype, however, they create an ingroup, allowing other Arab viewers to identify with what’s going in the film and better connect with it.

I even caught myself writing a very stereotypical portrayal of a Palestinian mother who only cares about her daughter getting married in one of my scripts. When my friends read it, they found it absolutely hilarious because they could all almost relate the character to their own mothers. When I took a second look at it myself, I criticized myself because I know that there is a lot more to Arab mothers than just being an obsessive and psychotic matchmaker. But for some reason, I was reinforcing that stereotype.

I guess the important thing with all stereotypes, whether they’re “good” (I’m not sure they can be) or bad ones, is to recognize the fact that they are stereotypes and to interrupt the process of socialization. 

The Reel Bad America

I’m not sure if it’s the fact that I’m a journalist, or just that I grew up around so many Hollywood movies, that I never really thought of the details portrayed in movies. To the smallest of details, like the race of the extras used for background shots that we don’t think we even notice, directors shoot a scene placing everything into place, as if they’re drawing an image.
Ingroups and outgroups really affect the characters in movies, and basically decide on who is portrayed as the good/bad guy in movies. This happens for many reasons, but one of the main reasons is that the presence of an outgroup, or an enemy, creates solidarity and unity for ingroups. When I say outgroup, I mean a group which is founded on hatred or opposition from an ingroup, which is a group with which people strongly identify particularly when that attachment is made. Basically, an outgroup is what sociologists call “The Other” in movies. Those are the people who don’t belong and shouldn’t necessarily belong, like the alienated, unwanted, enemies.



Usually, Arabs are portrayed as “The Other” in Hollywood movies. This is could be done by placing no subtitles on the Arabic “terrorists,” like they’re aliens who we shouldn’t even get and are deserted in a desert somewhere with all their money and belly dancer women.
Watching the movie Amreeka really left me thinking of all these things. When I see movies like that, the first thing I think of is how much I could relate to the theme of the movie.


When I stepped back and looked at it from a sociological perspective, I realized how much it tried to implement all this messages through the way it was shot. It was obvious that the outgroup portrayed in this movie was Israel, who was automatically every viewers disliked character in the movie. This happened because of the scenes placed in the movie, which were basically scenes of them at the borders, acting like ignorant authority, who were just restricting a nice mother and her little boy from entering a city that they belong to.
In this movie, America was portrayed differently that it would be in a Hollywood movie. It was not the most powerful, free country in the world. However, here we also see some Americans as ignorant beings who judge everyone on unrelated matters. Some of the boy’s classmates would call him Osama, or a member of “Qaeda,” based on his race, regardless of the fact that he is not Iraqi or even Muslim.
I found this as a very interesting way of socializing a culture, based on the movies people see even as kids. Even for me, an Arab Muslim, I am a lot more aware of what terrorism is and differentiating that from Islam and Jihad. The biggest reason for this is the media and movies I was exposed to in the past 21 years.

From the big screen to your life!

Have you ever thought about the huge role of culture in our life? or at the great hole it creates when two cultures fail to communicate? if you haven't realized or experienced that, movies make a great way to portray this image and present culture's impact on the life of ordinary people, just like us.

When I first saw the trailer of “Cairo Time” I was attracted by the story which mainly revolved around the meaning of love and traditions in both the middle east and the West. When I found out that Ruba Nadda (the writer/director of the movie) is a syrian - Canadian I didn't find it hard to believe what the character was going through in the movie. The director explained how that she personally experienced this cultural differences when she was young and was visiting Egypt with her mother as she mentioned in the making of the movie.

The movie made it obvious that the culture within us is never noticed until we observe other's cultures and traditions. Through the experience of the main character Juliette (played by: Patricia Clarkson) we get to see the adventure of getting into a new society filled with different customs, values and norms.

However, there must be thousands of movies which revolve around the differences in cultures. Some might talk about love, friendship, family relations or it might turn to social conflicts and cultural misunderstanding  like what is shown in the movie "Amreeka" which is mainly a political movie talking about a Palestinian woman and her son trying to fit-in and get used to the American society.

What made me interested in this movie is what it's writer/director Cherien Dabis said in her interview with Marian Lacombe,  when she simply commented on her self by saying that she was: " not American enough for the Americans and not Arab enough for the Arabs." What Cherien Dabis portrayed in the movie was a reflection of her own experience when she personally had to face that "Cultural Shock" back when she was young.

Also, one of the recent movies I’ve seen and had this huge cultural sense was “Eat Pray Love” which highly focused on the huge differences between the American culture and three other rich cultures (Italy, India and Bali) and the process of exchanging some of our own culture with others which is known as "cultural diffusion."