Media meditation 2: Reel Bad Arabs

I found the film Reel Bad Arabs to be very interesting as it shows how throughout American film history the Middle East and Arabs have been consistently portrayed as villains. More importantly the film also highlights the power of the media in terms of influencing American’s stereotypes and perceptions of Islam, when perhaps the messages and information it transmits is a false conception of reality. I personally have experienced this concept specifically with the Middle East and Muslims. Until recently my only knowledge on these topics was from what I saw on the news or from what I read about in the newspapers, which are regulated by the government. The information I retained from the media was only from the perspective of a smaller group of people who are in control of what is shown to Americans, and usually that material supports the American government, which has great power over the media. But after learning about the Middle East and the Islamic culture from a perspective other than the media’s or governments the knowledge I gained was quite different from what I was taught before, causing my perceptions to differ on these topics. The film Reel Bad Arabs highlights this idea of the media presenting mis-leading information to shape our perceptions on the Arabs and on almost any other topic and it is something that I think every American should watch.

Tribune Brain: The film starts out immediately involving our Limbic brain with sad Arabic sounding music that symbolizes a struggling feeling. The Limbic brain is consistently being evoked through out the rest of the film with scenes from movies depicting Middle Eastern people as villains. One part that especially involved my Limbic brain was the part where it showed Middle Eastern people who were protesting being shot by American soldiers who are standing above them on the top of a building. Then later in that same film a girl without a leg from being injured at this protest was shown. The scenes like this one that take place throughout the whole movie make viewers sad and feel sorry for the Arabic people through engaging the limbic brain. The Neocortex is also continuously engaged throughout the film as Jack Shaheen shows examples and makes analogies of how Arabs are vilified and stereotyped by American film. One example of the Neocortex is when Shaheen asks us why we can’t unlearn the stereotypes with the Arabs as we did with the blacks. Over the course of the film viewers are constantly thinking about they ways film has shifted their perspectives on the Middle East, which takes place in the Neocortex.





7 Principles…
Reality Construction- This principle is heavily demonstrated because the film is all about showing viewers how media has constructed a false reality for Americans about the Middle East and what the people are like.

Emotional Transfer- This film also contains a great deal of emotional transfer. The movie clips that it shows demonstrate how Arabs and Muslims symbolize and are connected to bad feelings and emotions.

Production Techniques- Production techniques are another large part of the film as it shows how the media has used production techniques to influence the way their audience’s views on Muslims, and how they should think and interact with them. In this case, it influences Americans to have a negative view on them, and to be condescending and rude to Arabs.

Value Messages- Value message is one of the main concepts of this film. One of its main messages is to be aware of how the media influences they way people think and to not judge the Arabs based on the way they are falsely presented in film.

8 Shifts…

Epistemological- Instead of learning about the Middle East and Arabs by reading, we learn about them through film and visuals. Viewers originally gain false information about Muslims through film, and are also shown those mis-representations through film too. There is very little to no reading in this media.

Personal Shift- The film also has personal shift in it from showing clips of the earlier films that portrayed Muslims and Arabs negatively. Seeing these clips causes viewers to reflect on their own personal experiences that they had when watching them. This occured with me when I thought about watching Aladen as a child.

Finally, Reel Bad Arabs contains several persuasive techniques including…

Big Lie: Big lie is demonstrated when the government and the different films persuaded people to have a bad impression on the Arabs through false and mis-leading information.

Repetition: There is a great deal of repetition as the entire film consists of examples of how film mis-represents Arabs in a negative light, to reinforce this issue to viewers.

Group Dynamics: The film includes a great deal of group dynamics. When talking about breaking the Arab stereotype Shaheen uses words such as “we” and “us” that are directed towards his audience stopping the false reality of Arabs.

Untold Stories: Untold stories is another technique that ties into the main theme of the film. It is used from the mis-representation of the Arabs, which causes them to have untold stories. This is because Americans are not provided an understanding the Islamic people and the Arabic culture from their point of view, and often times Americans are only told the bad things about them.