The characterization of Arabs in the U.S. Media

Even so, in galore(postnominal) of these films that romanticized characterizations of Arabs, Arabs were still portrayed as the "other," one whose men dominated their women, held extreme religious views, and were capable of violence at all given moment.

Arabs are an ethnic community. Islamics are a religious community. Nevertheless, portrayals of Arabs in the U.S. media since the 1940s have homogenized and fused Arab characterizations with Muslim ideology in a way that has led to stereotypes establish on race. Various crises in the Middle East among the 1940s and 1970s led to negative stereotypes of Arabs in the U.S. media. Arabs were a great deal demonized by media portrayals of barbaric, paternalistic males dominating females and wielding weapons for killing. Pro-Jewish sentiment in the U.S. as surface prompted such images of Arabs. In the 1960s, carefully crafted images of Arabs were presented in TV sitcoms the handle I Dream of Jeanie. Subservient women, violent Arab males, and Orientalist fantasy like gyrating dances and colorful costumes were the norm. Arab males often were portrayed as domineering and haughty of women, and most scenes where Jeanie "blinks" Tony back to Arabia are ones in which his bearing is at risk from Arab hostility toward Ameri squeeze outs. As Edward Said wrote approximately media disco

urses of Arabs during this era, "These discourses depict Muslim Arabs as culturally and psychologically primitive, prisoners of their emotions, trapped in a antiquated vise, and locked into jihad (interpreted as sanctifying bloodthirsty violence against all westerners)" (Wilkins and bolt down 2002, 420).

During the oil embargo and the 1970s, anti-Arab sentiment reached a peak in the U.S. prior to the hostilities against Arabs during the first Gulf War and the events of September 11, 2001. Media portrayals go along to undermine Arabs in comparison to Western or American ideals and values.

Continued hostilities in the Middle-East between Arabs and Jews led to reaction against Arabs in many quarters of American society. As foreign insurance insurance began to oppose Arab interests and increasingly support Jewish interests, media portrayals pictured Arabs in an unfavorable light in order to generate earth support for such policies. Xenophobia and ethnocentricity were also responsible for negative views of Arabs in the media in the 1970s. Susan Akram (2002) argues that a significant reason for negative depictions of Arabs in the U.S. media during this era and others stems from the desire of U.S. government officials to popularize foreign policy and American willingness to demonize the "other." As Akram (2002) maintains, "The demonizing of Arabs and Muslims in American began well before the tragedy of September 11. It can be traced to discuss mythmaking by film and media, stereotyping as part of conscious dodge of experts on the Middle East, the selling of a foreign policy agenda by U.S. government officials, and a public open to images identifying the unwelcome ?other' in their midst" (61).

In sum, one can readily see that even when portrayals in the U.S. media romanticize Orientalism and Arabs, rarely if ever are Arabs
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