The Dangers of Stereotyping

The issue of stereotyping continues to exponentially expand daily, creating images of parts of societies and degrading the members that fall under that category. There have been various efforts to combat the spread of stereotypes, which hit the religion of Islam and the Arab World the hardest. Queen Rania of Jordan realized that the matter was only creating more tensions in the Middle East, and took the initiative to tackle the subject in a humorous method to dismiss all the false stereotypes. Arabs and Muslims from different corners of the earth stepped in to help with the cause and highlight daily routines of Muslim life, creating a debate with individuals from other nationalities to discuss and answer questions appropriately. The link to Queen Rania’s channel is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFf897bUW2Y&feature=video_response.

Our world is getting smaller by the minute, with globalization acting as the catalyst fueling the fire behind modernization. As such, every individual has the power to spread his/her story with the touch of a few buttons. One such individual is Betty Mahmoudy, an American who was married to an Iranian doctor. She wrote a book, entitled “Not Without My Daughter”, in which she describes her husband as a brutal wife beater and evil man whose actions forced her to flee Iran and return to the USA. Her book gained worldwide recognition and was also made into a movie. Years later, a documentary entitled “Without My Daughter”, shows Dr. Mahmoudy and several other characters mentioned in Betty’s book denying some of the allegations presented in it. It is stories like this that then gain worldwide media attention, and create an image of Muslim men who do not believe in gender equality and a society in which deceit is typical.

It is such stories that are focused upon in cinema, cementing stereotypes of the Muslim and Arab World in the minds of global audiences. Gonul Donmez-Colin states in his book, “Women, Islam, and Cinema”, “The repeated portrayal of women as the sources and recipients of male anger and frustration, and the linking of violence and sex in people’s minds, have been food for cinema since its inception.” When one Arab or Muslim is portrayed as being a wife beater, audiences form an image of the majority of Muslim men, when it is actually the minority of Muslim and Arab men who act in such a way. Donmez-Colin provides evidence from the Qur’anic Sura An-Nisa (meaning the women), which he claims gives men justification for dominance over women. However, if he were to look at the Sura as a whole, he would realize that all of its verses are dedicated to showing the essentiality of respecting women and cherishing them. In no way do any of the verses actually justify the usage of violence. Unless writers begin to notice such trends, no changes will be made to the violent representation of Islam that has been engraved in the minds of so many individuals.

In her book “Filming the Modern Middle East”, Lina Khatib addresses this very problem. Unless drastic measures are made to change the way Hollywood movies typically portray Middle Eastern characters (as terrorists) living in a backward society where open-mindedness is absent, the stereotypes we face will never fade. A movement, such as the one initiated by Queen Rania must be focused on to appropriately falsify stereotypes in the Middle East.

The Ongoing Battle of West Vs. East

“Gender has been as essential part of the Orientalist Discourse. Orientalist notions of the Arab World are invested sensual and submissive females (The Harem), and violent, yet succumbing, males (the colonized). Lina Khatib’s introduction to her chapter on Gendered tools of nationalism paints the perfect picture of portrayal of Arab societies in Hollywood as those which lack freedom and equality of rights through the adoption of a backward perspective on everyday life. Still, she highlights the importance of understanding the different lives of women in various Arab nations. I was specifically interested in Khatib’s focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which has been going on for various decades now. Hollywood movies are constantly depicting the US as “the rational negotiator”, dealing with Palestinian extremist groups rejecting any ideas of peace, and Arabs objectified “as essentially uncivilized and uncontrollable.” Khatib clearly establishes that the Arab is most commonly America’s enemy in most movies, an image quite quickly carving itself into the mindsets of western society.

The short documentary, Hollywood Harems, cleverly shows the progression in depiction of women of different races and their influence in creating the stereotypes we all knowingly live by, yet try to remain oblivious to. Movie directors and producers must face this issue and realize the power of their productions in the modern era the world has entered. Viewpoints expressed in movies such as the one Khatib mentions become representations of whole societies. Through the decades, Hollywood’s films developed the Orientalist themes that have spread, and have created a derogatory and destructive image of women based primarily on their country of origin.

Still, I believe that to get the most personal approach to the issue of women representation in the Arab Word, one must refer to Rhoda Kanaaneh’s essay, We’ll Talk Later. She uses exceptional style and diction with the aid of real-life characters to establish a true image of the Palestinian woman living in the occupied territories. In a way, she uses her essay to express her views of her womanhood powerfully, and convey it as anything but a possession to be owned by anyone. No obstacle can stand in the way of her freedom, and others echo her voice as we saw in the Palestinian uprising (Intifada). Towards the end of her essay, she addresses her aunt, who she establishes a clear connection to. She states, “ Aunty, you tell me there is danger. I say you are so right. You tell me there are ways of escaping. I say yes, I could escape. You tell me it is hopeless because they will always find me and take me back. I say no! I refuse.”

The focus on Muslim extremists around the world climbed dramatically after the September 11^th attacks. Such groups tore apart the benevolent and peaceful representation of the religion, and created an image of Arab societies that lacked tolerance, equality, and respect for different religions and origins. I greatly believe that this distortion is due to nations holding on to the imperialist policies that are unfitting with the political and economic situations of global society today. With no alterations in generalizations illustrated through the various forms of media, false representations will continue to be taken to be factual, and no long-term improvement on global understanding will be attained.