ARABS AND ARAB AMERICANS

ARABS AND ARAB AMERICANS

A much smaller American minority offers a look at a seldom-discussed stereotype, but one that is currently among the most unsympathetic and derogatory portrayals on U.S. media; that is, Arabs and Arab Americans. This stereotype is seen in both news coverage (Suleiman, 1988) and entertainment (Shaheen, 1984, 1992, 1997, 2001).

According to Shaheen, there are several stereotypic ways that Arab men are portrayed, all very negative. One is as the terrorist. Although only a minuscule fraction of real Arabs are terrorists, there are many of these on television, especially since September 2001, or among Arabs identified as Palestinians. A second stereotype of Arab men is the wealthy oil sheik, who is often greedy and morally dissolute. His wealth, often suggested to be undeserved, is spent on frivolities like marble palaces and fleets of RollsRoyce cars. Sometimes he is portrayed as madly buying up land in America and erecting garishly kitschy homes in Beverly Hills. A third stereotype is that of sexual pervert, often dealing in selling Europeans or Americans into slavery. This is an older stereotype, perhaps originally arising from medieval Christian Europe’s enmity against the Muslim infidels, who were, incidentally, primarily non-Arab Turks. Although probably less prevalent than the terrorist or oil sheik portrayal today, this image does appear occasionally. A fourth stereotype is the Bedouin desert rat, the unkempt ascetic wanderer far over-represented on TV, and in advertising in relation to the approximately 5% of Arabs who are Bedouins. Visual images and jokes about camels, sand, and tents are frequent in connection with U.S.-media Arabs.

Arab men are generally seen as villains, a stereotype especially rampant in children’s cartoons (e.g., Daffy Duck being chased by a crazed, sword- wielding Arab sheik or Heckle and Jeckle pulling the rug from under “Ali Boo-Boo, the Desert Rat”). More significantly, portrayals of these barbaric and uncultured villains are not usually balanced by those of Arab heroes or good guys. One of the very few positive media models was probably Lebanese American Corporal Max Klinger on M*A*S*H. He was a sympathetic and rounded character, yet (especially in early episodes) he

79 A Cognitive Psychology of Mass Communication

dressed in drag and commented about his relatives having unnatural relations with camels.

How about Arab women? They are seen far less than Arab men on U.S. TV and movies, but, when they are seen at all, it is usually as oppressed victims or in highly stereotyped roles such as that of a belly dancer or a member of a harem. The reality about harems, as Shaheen points out, is that they were never common and today are nonexistent in Arab countries. The public veiling of women is presented as the Arab norm, rather than as a characteristic of some, but not all, Islamic traditions. Arab children are practically nonexistent on U.S. television, even though the negative adult Arab stereotypes are perhaps more prevalent in children’s cartoons than on any other type of programming. Even as we routinely see African American, Latino, and Asian faces on programs like Sesame Street, few if any Arabs appear.

There is also an implicit identification of Arabs with the Islamic religion, although the Muslims among the 65 million Arabs worldwide represent only 12% of the world’s Muslims (Shaheen, 2001). As for ArabAmericans, a majority of them are Christian. Islam as a religion is often portrayed as cruel and vicious, in total contrast to the Judeo-Christian faith and civilization. Because most North Americans know very little about Islam except media reports of its extremist fringe, this may easily become their perceived reality about one of the world’s major religions. Although many Americans have sufficient knowledge to recognize a Christian cult extremist on TV as very atypical of Christians, they may not have the necessary knowledge to so critically evaluate a media presentation of an Islamic suicide bomber, who is thus taken to be typical of Muslims.

Historically, Arabs may be the latest villains in a long list of many groups who have been maligned by the U.S. media. The vicious Arabs of contemporary entertainment were preceded by the wealthy but cruel Jews of the 1920s, the sinister Asian villains of the 1930s, and the Italian gangsters of the 1950s. Each of these stereotypes has been tempered and balanced as a result of protests from the offended groups and other concerned citizens. Such media portrayals can provide unwitting social support for racist and discriminatory policies and legislation, such as the network of Jim Crow laws and racist practices against African Americans in the century following the American Civil War of 1861 to 1865.

Recent historical events have, at times, encouraged unflattering media portrayals of Arabs: the OPEC oil embargoes of the 1970s, various hostage- taking incidents, the Lebanese civil war, the Iran-Iraq War of 1980 to 1988, the Persian Gulf War of 1991, the Iraq War of 2003, continuing Israeli- Palestinian conflicts, and perhaps most dramatically, the Al-Qaeda terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The actual and potential backlash against Arabs

Media Portrayals of Groups 80

and Arab-Americans since the World Trade Center attack stresses the urgency to better understand this group.

The concern is not that there are some negative portrayals of Arabs and Arab Americans. Rather, it is that such portrayals are not balanced by positive portrayals to feed into the perceived mental reality constructed by TV viewers. There is very little programming on Arab culture or society. The Arab world was more intellectually and technically advanced than Europe in the Middle Ages and gave us many of the basics of modern science, mathematics, and music, but how many Americans know that? Nor do the close family values and other positive features of the Islamic faith and Arab culture receive much press in the United States.

After the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995, investigating authorities and the general public immediately suspected Arab terrorists, although there was no evidence of such a link. When a pair of European Americans was arrested and later convicted of the crime, there were a lot of embarrassed faces. However, the stereotypes persist on entertainment TV and movies, and still there are almost no positive models. This is not without its consequences. For example, Arab Americans and others charge that Western coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute over the West Bank is severely biased toward Israel due to anti-Arab prejudice.

The concern about stereotypical portrayals of groups is not limited to gender, race, and ethnic groups. Let us look at the media portrayal of a formerly invisible minority.