UpClose: Jack Shaheen
Oct. 9 — "We fail to empathize with anything Arab because all of our lives we've been brought up to think that they were different. Much like Germans were brought up to think Jews were different. Even though Germany's Jews were part of the culture and they had neighbors that they got along with. The dehumanization of Jews in the German press ... mainly the German press, and the editorial cartoons .... made the Holocaust much more feasible."— Dr. Jack Shaheen, author of "Reel Bad Arabs"
UpClose tonight, Oct. 9: Jack Shaheen
The road from Pittsburgh to Edwardsville, Illinois took a detour: through Beirut. That may explain why a man from the steelworker's family became a leading critic of how Arabs are portrayed in the popular culture. The Muslims he met for the first time while he taught at the American University in Beirut were a far cry from the characters his kids called "the bad Arabs" in the cartoons they watched back in the United States.
It wasn't just the way Porky Pig and Bugs Bunny portrayed the Arabs. Jack Shaheen, a Christian of Lebanese descent, then began to pay more attention to TV dramas and found the same thing - the Arabs were the "bad guys, the ugly ones." So when he returned to the United States, the Communications Professor began researching the images of Arabs on American television and in movies. Growing up around movie theatres (his mother worked as a cashier), Shaheen saw his share of films. And as an adult, he didn't like what he saw.
The Professor Emeritus from Southern Illinois University has authored three books, The TV Arab, Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture, and most recently, Reel Bad Arabs to make his case that Arabs have been vilified and demeaned throughout the American media.
Since September 11th, his message has been harder for people to hear. But as Shaheen told John Donvan on tonight's UpClose, "You have 19 Arab Muslim terrorists responsible for the death of 3000 or so Americans. 3000 of us. And they?re Arab Muslims, right? Do they represent 300 million Arabs? Do their actions represent 1.2 billion Muslims??the problem is we have this Islam-o-phobia in this country. That everything Muslim is associated with evil and we have these evil men who did these terrible things in the name of Islam."
Shaheen points out there?s never been a movie showing a positive portrayal of Arab-Americans as U.S. veterans of any of our wars or as a regular family member. After watching nearly 1000 films, he concludes that Hollywood is "poisoning and corrupting the minds of young people. And they?re instilling within these young people a sense of hatred. It's wrong."
Richard Harris
Senior Producer
Nightline UpClose |
