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Planet of the Arabs is a worrying YouTube montage highlighting the bordering on systematic demonisation of Arabs and other ME ethnic groups (the Persians) in many Hollywood movies in recent decades. This is the clip here. But in my opinion Hollywood is too amorphic and vague to be taken seriously, with many of it's "attacks" on many non-American nationalities seen as crude stereotyping that has some basis in truth, but would mostly be irritating at best and dangerous at worst if the stereotyping was applied in real life (I'd say the bit were the US Marines were mowing down dozens of protestors, and Chuck Norris' smugness was more appalling than the Arab villivication).

I think anyone who tries to take any part of True Lies seriously needs to hae their head examined considering how deliberately camp it is.

Not to mention how it has Faisal on the good guys' side. I watched it last night and it's still great, still much better than Die Hard 4. I'm sure there is a trend in Hollywood demonising arabs (or at least reinforcing the stereotype as it does with all things), but that's probably due to many credible threats and sources of dramatic conflict coming from the arab world.

but that's probably due to many credible threats and sources of dramatic conflict coming from the arab world.

You could probably apply that to africans or african-americans as well, but it's less politically correct to have an overwhelming majority of films portraying them in a bad light. I don't like picking and choosing what ethnicity to sympathize with based on how much conflict they're perceived to generate.

Big Orange wrote:Planet of the Arabs is a worrying YouTube montage highlighting the bordering on systematic demonisation of Arabs and other ME ethnic groups (the Persians) in many Hollywood movies in recent decades. This is the clip here. But in my opinion Hollywood is too amorphic and vague to be taken seriously, with many of it's "attacks" on many non-American nationalities seen as crude stereotyping that has some basis in truth, but would mostly be irritating at best and dangerous at worst if the stereotyping was applied in real life (I'd say the bit were the US Marines were mowing down dozens of protestors, and Chuck Norris' smugness was more appalling than the Arab villivication).

Have you seen that Chuck Norris movie, or the movie with the protestors being fired upon?

I saw the movie with the protesters being fired upon. I kinda forgot what it was about though, but I remember it had Samuel L. Jackson being court martianed for "wasting those motherfuckers!"

Shroom Man 777 wrote:I saw the movie with the protesters being fired upon. I kinda forgot what it was about though, but I remember it had Samuel L. Jackson being court martianed for "wasting those motherfuckers!"

Rules of Engagement. SLJ and his marines are evaccing an embassy when they come under fire from shooters hidden in the crowd. They start taking casualties and he eventually orders them to return fire with the 'waste the motherfuckers' line (which comes back to bite him in the ass at the court martial that follows).

Of course putting that movie in there seems odd as it's fairly obvious that the majority of the crowd is unarmed and not doing more than being loud and throwing the occasional rock.


But since we're talking about people being demonized by being the villains in movies shall we mention the stupidly large number of films where the villain has been Random White Asshole #4327.

From the looks of it, its not quite the Arabs, but more the ye traditional, dessert-dwelling Arabs who's ancestors lived according to medieval mindset for a long time and their culture is still adjusting. The segments I've seen mostly indicate hatred againts these countries, although I wouldn't doubt that there is quite a bit of ye general hatred.

As for not liking Jews, who doesn in stereotype-nation? Seriously, it seems from here that the Jews are most hated people/religion in the world.

Oh, and isn't Arab and Muslim not quite the same thing?

Zixinus wrote: As for not liking Jews, who doesn in stereotype-nation? Seriously, it seems from here that the Jews are most hated people/religion in the world.

Oh, and isn't Arab and Muslim not quite the same thing?

Many Arabs were Christian and still are (among the Lebenese, Egyptians, and Palestinians), while some are religiously Jewish or descended from Jews, despite the impression (real or propagated) of fierce anti-Semitism. I see Hollywood as pretty tunnel visioned in most cases, with Christian, Jewish, and Hindu terrorists being essentially invisible (despite employing similarily destructive methods). Also most Iranians, Afghans, and Pakistanis are not culturally or linguistically Arab, yet are arguably more fiercely Islamic.

From the looks of it, its not quite the Arabs, but more the ye traditional, dessert-dwelling Arabs who's ancestors lived according to medieval mindset for a long time and their culture is still adjusting. The segments I've seen mostly indicate hatred againts these countries, although I wouldn't doubt that there is quite a bit of ye general hatred.

You mean the beduin ? Are not the tent dwellers viewed like rednecks even in middle east ?