Stereotypes Of Reel Bad Arabs In The Movie Aladdin

Sorry for the lengthy and analytic-ness of that, but I want you to understand why and how our culture is being turned into something hateful. I know right now I’m all talk, but let me tell you what I’ve noticed in the media. One of my more shocking realizations was the movie Aladdin. Disney starts out the movie, watched by millions of children, with a song about how barbaric Arabs are and throughout the film they are depicted as irrational and violent. I watched a film called Reel Bad Arabs and it elaborates on how Hollywood has been presenting this hateful stereotype for years. Around 25% of Hollywood movies demean Arabs (Reel Bad Arabs). I’m sure if you look into your childhood you can see how many movies depicted Arabs either as villains or comic relief. I know you grew up watching Indiana Jones and Back to the Future, my Dad told me about you guys watching that when you were young, my dad

Rules of Engagement can be seen as one of the most racist movies ever, I mean was it really necessary for the main antagonist to be Arab? It could’ve been anyone. Also, it plays up the narrow, homogenous, and angry stereotype to an extreme. Today, Islamophobia is so common it’s hard to notice, especially if you’re agreeing with these demonized generalizations and theories that are repeated over and over. An article by Zara Maria Zimbardo explains this well. She says, “The ubiquity of anti-Muslim representation in the media landscape has become so normalized as to be unremarkable, invisible, or unconscious among people not targeted by Islamophobia” (Zimardo 222). We almost never see suffering or innocent Palestinians in movies. They are demonized and stripped of their humanity. I’m sure it wouldn’t be so easy for you to say these hateful things to another person’s face, especially after you got to know them. Failing to recognize our country’s fault in streaming Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism in the media only gives it a greater grip on the country’s culture and