Hollywood’s Representation of Arabs and Muslims at the Aftermath of the Cold War; Case Study: Navy Seals (1990) and True Lies (1994).

Abstract

This piece of research deals with Hollywood’s representation of Arabs and Muslims of the Middle East in Lewis Teague’s film Navy Seals (1990) and James Cameron’s movie True Lies (1994) at the aftermath of the Cold War (1945-1989). These movies contain the West’s strategy which is used to project racial and stereotypical images and even statements against Arabs and Muslims, who are usually depicted as being anti-American and terrorists. The United States therefore creates via media, in addition to clichés against Arabs and Muslims, degrading images which increase the rate of hatred towards a religion named Islam. To achieve our purpose, we have chosen to link the two American movies Navy Seals and True Lies with Edward W. Said’s theory of Orientalism (1978) which is the most appropriate for our subject. The importance of the following dissertation is to bring the reader to understand how the West faces and depicts Arabs and Muslims of the Middle Eastern area. Our aim then goes further to show how America, thanks to her major media, ideology, and power, appears with the highest position of domination in the world. In other terms, our dissertation seeks to find how the Western monopoly, mainly in the East, is applied through American capitalist values and culture extension which are on the whole independently distinctive from the Middle East and its people. We have concluded in this research paper that both Navy Seals and True Lies have the purpose to strengthen racial and stereotypical images of Arabs and Muslims. Also it is realized that behind each Western negative depiction, there are different political, economic and cultural interests that are linked to the Eastern area.