the East (including the Middle East) as an exciting, primitive, and sensual landscape, the alleged opposite and repressed Other of white Western civilization. Thus, in the incredibly popular silent film The Sheik, “Latin Lover” Rudolph Valentino plays the titular Sheik Ahmed, who forcefully and lustfully kidnaps a chaste British heiress named Diana. She is simultaneously terrified and thrilled, but their romance cannot become acceptable until it is discovered that Ahmed is actually of European lineage. Decades later, the epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) dramatized how English soldier T. E. Lawrence (Peter O’Toole) was attracted to and eventually adopted into Arab tribes as they fought for independence from their colonizers. Similar to the sexual and racial overtones of The Sheik, there are subtle indications that Lawrence’s fascination with Arab culture is linked to both homosexual and sadomasochistic desires on his part.
Probably the most pervasive image of sexualized Arabs in Hollywood films is that of the belly dancer or harem girl. Again a function of Orientalism, the Hollywood harem is presented as an exotic Arabian Nights fantasy wherein anything (sexual) is possible. From the early silent film A Prisoner in the Harem (1913) to the Bob Hope–Bing Crosby musical comedy The Road to Morocco (1942) to Elvis Presley in Harum Scarum (1966), harems have been a constant source of fascination for white audiences, reducing Arab women to little more than dark‐skinned and sensual objects. Arab culture as a site of mysterious unbridled sexuality is even at the heart of the classical Hollywood horror film The Mummy (1932), as well as its countless sequels, remakes, and updates (even into the twenty‐first century). In the original The Mummy, Im‐Ho‐Tep (played by British actor Boris Karloff) is a monstrous living‐dead Egyptian prince who lusts after a Western woman who may or may not be the reincarnation of his lost love.
As noted above, rarely have Arabs been shown becoming part of the fabric of either European or American communities. There has been an attitude among many that people of Arab heritage cannot assimilate into Western society (as in the adage “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet”). Just as Irish and Italian Catholic Americans were once considered unable to assimilate because they supposedly held a stronger allegiance to the pope than to the president, so too do many today assume that Arab Americans pledge allegiance to the Muslim faith and not the United States. One of the few assimilated Middle Easterners to appear in Hollywood film is the Persian peddler Ali Hakim (played by white actor Eddie Albert) in Oklahoma! (1955). Yet Ali Hakim is more an all‐purpose exotic character used for comic effect than a genuine expression of emigration and/or assimilation. An inflammatory representation of an unassimilated Arab American character from the same era can be found in Herschell Gordon Lewis’s cult gore film Blood Feast (1963). In it, Egyptian caterer Fuad Ramses brutally murders a string of (white) women in order to prepare a cannibalistic feast in honor of an Egyptian deity. This linkage of sex, violence, and (non‐Christian) religion continues to mark more contemporary stereotypes of Arabs and Arab Americans.
By the late 1960s, as the United States became more involved in the Middle East due to both the need for oil and support of the new nation of Israel, the old image of the sultan was reconfigured into that of the modern‐day oil mogul. A small number of films included subplots about wealthy Arabs being sent to America for schooling. Although this younger generation were often pictured as enjoying American culture, their presence was more often played for comic “culture clash” shtick. For example, in John Goldfarb, Please Come Home (1965), the “Crown Prince of Fawzia” (Patrick Adiarte) tells his father King Fawz (British actor Peter Ustinov) that he has been expelled from Notre Dame because he is Arab and not Irish. Many Arab Americans have taken offense at the almost comic‐book stereotypes in this film. Yet it is also possible to read this little‐known comedy, written by Arab American screenwriter William Peter Blatty (who would later go on to write the novel and Oscar‐winning screenplay of The Exorcist [1973]), as a parody of Arab stereotypes – as well as American foreign policy. The king creates his own football team with his guards, coached by a bumbling American pilot named John Goldfarb (Richard Crenna), and uses his connections with the US State Department to force Notre Dame to play them. Although a few Arab Americans of the era protested the film, it was the University of Notre Dame that was most upset. They sued (unsuccessfully) its studio, 20th Century‐Fox, at least in part because the Arab team wins the football match!
The growing economic power of Arab nations (and resentment of them by some Americans) was exacerbated in the 1970s as OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) instituted a petroleum embargo, resulting in gas shortages and higher prices. Also, by the 1970s, a number of radical groups working for the liberation of Palestine or for other Arab or Muslim causes made headlines with bombings, kidnappings, and airplane hijackings, culminating in the 1979 kidnapping of 52 American hostages in Iran, who were held for more than a year. These various developments led to the rise of what has become today the most prevalent image of Arabs: the Muslim terrorist. Ever since the 1970s, Arab terrorists have become an easy cliché in action films like The Delta Force (1986), Executive Decision (1996), G.I. Jane (1997), and Rules of Engagement (2000). While often these films show white American heroes battling Arabs in foreign lands, Arab terrorists have also been shown “infiltrating” (as opposed to assimilating) into US society in order to bring it down. Black Sunday (1977), for example, shows a Palestinian terrorist plotting to hijack the Goodyear Blimp and hold the Super Bowl hostage. Other Arab terrorists in the US factor into films as diverse as Back to the Future (1985), True Lies (1994), and The Siege (1998). The Siege is a curious film. While it presents Arab Americans as terrorists, it also includes an Arab American FBI agent. Furthermore, the film eerily presages the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks by dramatizing both a growth of racism against Arab Americans as well as America’s willingness to rescind personal liberties guaranteed under the Constitution.
Another film that seemed almost designed to inflame prejudices against Middle Easterners and people of Middle Eastern descent was Not Without My Daughter (1991). Based on a true story, the film is about an all‐American (that is, white) woman played by Sally Field who marries an Iranian American man and begins a family. He convinces her to make a visit to his homeland, which turns into a permanent stay. In an extreme example of the supposed inability to assimilate, the husband “reverts” to Islamic fundamentalism, much to the shock and fear of his wife. He is willing to let her go, but not his daughter, whom he regards as Iranian and not American. The rest of the film entails the wife’s attempt to escape the country with her daughter. The film and its relevance to Middle Eastern cultures remain hotly debated on fan‐based websites: some maintain it is an accurate depiction of how women are treated in some Middle Eastern nations, while others see it as negative stereotyping at its worst.
During the 1990s, growing groups of American citizens such as the ADC (the American‐Arab Anti‐Discrimination Committee) began to protest these types of media stereotypes. They picketed films like The Siege and Rules of Engagement, handing out leaflets challenging the films’ portrayal of Muslim and Arab cultures. An even more vociferous action was waged against the use of stereotypes in Disney’s Aladdin (1992). Disney eventually agreed to rewrite some offensive song lyrics, but not to eliminate or alter other scenes – and the studio continued to use Arab stereotypes for comic effect in live‐action pictures such as Father of the Bride II (1995) and Kazaam (1996). Such protests against media stereotyping have continued into the twenty‐first century, but the events of 11 September 2001, seemed to give terrifying credence to the “accuracy” of the terrorist stereotype. Of course, most Muslim and/or Arab Americans have nothing to do with terrorism, yet they have been subjected to increased surveillance, random hate crimes, and continued stereotyping and profiling. Many Americans seemingly make no distinction between Arabs, Arab Americans, and Muslim terrorists. The United States itself was content to invade Iraq in alleged retaliation for the September 11 attacks, despite the fact that Iraq had few‐to‐no connections with the international terrorists who caused them.
Occasional independent or Hollywood films such as Party Girl (1995), American Dreamz (2006), Towelhead (2007), Amreeka (2009), and the documentary American
