Читать книгу America on Film - Sean Griffin - Страница 40

Like all of the cultural groups discussed throughout this book, the five million people of Arab descent living in America today are a highly diverse group of people. They can trace their national heritages to over 20 nations that stretch across Northern Africa (such as Morocco, Libya, Egypt) and onto the Arabian Peninsula (including Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq). The Arab world overlaps with the Middle East, which also includes Israel, Turkey, and Iran. Often what seems to define the idea of the Middle East in Western thinking is the Arabic language and/or the Muslim religion, although there are many different languages spoken and religions practiced throughout the entire region. In fact, there are more African American Muslims in the United States than Arab American Muslims, and most Lebanese Americans identify as Christians.

Much of the current strife in the Middle East is a continuation of centuries‐long struggles between religions, tribes, and nations. During the Middle Ages, Christian Europeans waged war against Muslims (and others) in an attempt to claim and colonize the Holy Lands. These so‐called Crusades eventually gave way to more modern forms of colonialism, wherein various European powers controlled the region, extracting material wealth and strategic advantages. The situation was exacerbated by the creation of the Jewish state of Israel by the United Nations in 1948. Israel was created by dividing the former British territory of Palestine; Palestine was mostly inhabited by Arabs, and they vehemently rejected the partitioning. Wars and armed conflict between Israel, Palestine, and Palestine’s Arab supporters immediately resulted and continue to this day. In yet other parts of the Middle East, corruption and greed for the area’s wealth and strategic location allowed for the rise of brutal dictators (Muammar Qaddafi of Libya, Saddam Hussein of Iraq, Bashar al‐Assad in Syria), and most recently anti‐Western religious extremists such as the Taliban, Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, and ISIS. Much of the Middle East continues to be an unstable region filled with violent struggle, fueled by highly diverse and opposing nations, religions, cultures, and ideologies. As such, Americans of Middle Eastern descent are themselves a highly diverse group of individuals.

Intriguingly, one of the most significant things about Arab Americans onscreen in America is their relative scarcity: Hollywood has much more regularly depicted images of Middle Eastern Arabs while nearly ignoring the presence of Arab Americans. In classical Hollywood cinema, Middle Eastern Arabs could sometimes be found interacting with British or French protagonists (as soldiers, explorers, archaeologists, or tourists), images that reflected the history of European colonialism in the region. In films such as Beau Geste (1926 and 1939) and The Four Feathers (1915, 1929, 1939, and 2002), European armies battle scores of Arab tribesmen, and the films somehow make it seems as though the Arabs rather than the colonizing nations are the villainous invaders. Sultans are shown sending their armies to lay siege to the white soldiers’ fortresses, scimitars blazing and ululations rending the air to make them seem strange and terrifying. Some critics have referred to these films as “Easterns,” because their narrative tropes seem almost identical to those of the Hollywood Western, replacing bloodthirsty Indian savages with bloodthirsty Arab ones.

In other films, Arabs were sexualized figures who either enticed or otherwise served the lusts of white lead characters. Intriguingly, a number of Hollywood films show Europeans “going native” – being personally transformed by participating in Arabic culture – one aspect of Orientalist desire. As discussed more fully in chapter 6, Orientalism is the term used to describe the ways in which the West has imagined 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 Arab (2013) try to individuate Arab Americans characters and issues. Still, Hollywood seems much more comfortable with images of mythical exoticism on display in films like Gods of Egypt (2016) and the Aladdin remake (2019). Orientalism combines with the terrorist stereotype in American blockbusters like the “historical” action film 300 (2006), which cast white British actors as heroic Spartans battling hordes of (literally) monstrous, dark‐skinned, and sexually perverse Persians. The film seemed almost designed to exploit and capitalize on post 9/11 anti‐Arab and anti‐Muslim feelings in American culture; its grotesque stereotyping encourages audiences to hate and fear its Persian characters while simultaneously inflaming and justifying white masculine violence. Although the film was protested by media activists and the Iranian government itself, the film’s sequel 300: Rise of an Empire (2014) mines similar ground. And Arab terrorists remain front and center in the few Hollywood films that do attempt to engage with the actual wars in the Middle East, such as The Kingdom (2007), The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and American Sniper (2014). Perhaps in an attempt to balance these portrayals, a few other post‐9/11 films, such as Crash (2004) and Babel (2006) included more empathetic Arab or Persian characters in attempts to convey the complex, interwoven impact individuals can have on each other’s lives across cultures. Yet, even in these films, these characters were given less screen time than the “white” characters (played by bigger name stars such as Matt Dillon and Brad Pitt).

Against this complex socio‐political backdrop, it is perhaps no surprise that Arab and/or Arab American actors in Hollywood have not had an easy time finding challenging or complex characters to play. One of the first actors of openly Arab descent to make a name for himself was Omar Sharif, who was an Egyptian film star before his performance in Lawrence of Arabia earned him an Oscar nomination and catapulted him to international fame. After his lead role as Dr Zhivago (1965), he played leading men in several Hollywood films including Funny Girl and Funny Lady (1975). Sharif continued his acting career in mostly European films and passed away in 2015. American actors of Lebanese heritage such as Danny Thomas, Jamie Farr, and Casey Kasem have worked more regularly in television and radio. Thomas was the star of the popular sitcom Make Room for Daddy (1953–65), Farr played the cross‐dressing Corporal Klinger in the TV show M*A*S*H (1972–83), and Kasem had a decades‐long career as a successful radio host and voice‐over artist, performing the voice of Shaggy in the long‐running Scooby‐Doo cartoons. Another actor of Lebanese descent (though born in Wisconsin) is Tony Shalhoub. He has consistently found work on the Broadway stage, winning a Tony award for The Band’s Visit (2017), on television (Wings [1990–1997], Monk [2002–2009]), and as a character actor in Hollywood films including Galaxy Quest (1999), the first three Spy Kids films (2001, 2002, 2003), and the Cars franchise (2006, 2011, 2016). Most recently, actor Rami Malek (of Egyptian heritage) has won accolades for his lead role in Mr. Robot (2015–2018) as well as an Academy Award for playing Freddie Mercury (who was of Persian heritage) in the musical biopic Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).

Other successful actors of Arab descent include F. Murray Abraham (who won an Oscar for his role as Salieri in Amadeus [1984]), Shohreh Aghdashloo (who garnered an Oscar nomination for her role as an Iranian immigrant in House of Sand and Fog [2003]), Alexander Siddig (Dr. Bashir on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine [1993–9]), and Kathy Najimy (Sister Act [1992], Hocus Pocus [1993]). It should be noted, though, that many actors of Middle Eastern heritage are still regularly cast as terrorists or sheiks; if they want to work, they are sometimes compelled to accept those roles. Also, many still feel compelled to alter or change their Arabic‐sounding names in order to work in the business. For example, F. Murray Abraham’s birth name is Fahrid Murray Abraham; the actor’s official stage name potentially hides his Middle Eastern heritage.

Rami Malek in his Oscar‐winning role as Queen vocalist Freddie Mercury in Bohemian Rhapsody (2018).