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However, countering this phenomenon of “flattening” and “single stories” is difficult. How can you change the way people perceive a culture if that culture has only been portrayed in one way for the entirety of their lives? I believe this unflattening comes with expanding one’s education/sources of knowledge and finding the hidden narratives that exist in our society. For example, I found the movie “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” and wondered why I had never heard of it before. Not only did it teach me about the values of the Muslim community and about countering stereotypes, but it was genuinely engaging and fun to watch. I think I might have been just as excited and nervous during the big rivalry football game as students who actually went to that high school. As a teenager and a person of color, the movie was relatable. As members of a society that often flattens the narratives of many cultures, it is important for us to seek out these new narratives and continue expanding our understanding of other cultures.

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Flattening the narratives in people’s stories puts our community in danger of listening to a single story. This is why we need to counter stereotypes in general, and especially stereotypes on Islam and the Middle East, under our class’s content. As a person from the Middle East, I (Bilge) often hear biases about how women’s rights are not important in the Middle East. It is correct that women face problems in the Middle East, like anywhere else in the world, but we cannot flatten the stories of women and assume that their rights are devalued all around the Middle East. Indeed, in my hometown, Istanbul, protests for women's rights - both by Muslim and non-Muslim people - have been going on for a long time. Thus, both my own experience and our class’s content show us the importance of countering stereotypes.

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                                                                                                                                                             Conclusion

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                                                                                                                                                             Conclusion

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Movies that counter these stereotypes exist, however, they are sparse and usually do not gain as much popularity as films that casually depict Middle Eastern men as either terrorists or villains and Middle Eastern women as exotic and submissive. This normalization of racist slurs and stereotypical depictions represents the “flattening” of Islam in film and, on a greater scale, people of color in film. Just last week, six Asian women were murdered in Atlanta, and the murderer stated that he didn’t shoot anyone because of their race but because of his own sex addiction. Although the pandemic and this specific tragedy in Atlanta have highlighted the prevalence of anti-Asian racism, it has existed for decades due to stereotyping of the community. In film, Asian women are constantly hypersexualized and fetishized, and their race and sexuality are constantly entangled. Overall, film flattens the narratives of people of color, affecting the outsider’s perception of specific cultures.

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“Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” presents insider perspectives that serve as a counterspeech to Islamic stereotypes in a post 9/11 country. A strategy that is apparent in “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” and also in “Kedi,” a film focusing on the relationships individuals in Istanbul have with street cats, is one that displays members of a community as they live their daily lives. These depictions counteract those that villainize Muslims and show how, in reality, Arab-Americans are not very different from anyone else. The film humanizes the Arab-American community and shows that they share the same values and have the same passions. They can connect through a very basic topic: football.

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Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football  - Feature Length Documentary

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In contrast to all of these negative stereotypes, there is one scene in the movie where Aladdin encourages the Americans to become dictators by saying: “Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests.” Aladdin’s suggestions here are clearly current critiques of the so-called democratic American society, where wealth and power are unevenly distributed. Thus, although the movie reinforces stereotypes about Arabs, it also encourages Americans to question their own system.

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"The Dictator" presents the outsider perspectives towards the Middle Eastern people, and in all but one scene, it reinforces stereotypes. The movie strengthens the stereotypes about Middle Easterns as anti-democratic, antisemitic, and anti-feminist as the main character Alaaddin is portrayed in such a way. The small details in the movie also reinforce various stereotypes about Arabs. For example, the Wadiyan man plotting Aladdin’s end and wishing to bring democracy actually wants this in order to sell the country’s oil to Westerners and gain money. Thus, the movie gives the subtle message that the Wadiyans do not actually care about bringing democracy but rather earning more money. Just like Ridouani says in his essay: “As oil producers, Arabs become archetypes of wealth-exhibition and money-wasting people” (Ridouani, 12). Another important flaw in the movie is the lack of background information about Aladdin. Through a few scenes, the audience sees that he needs love and shows compassion in certain situations, but the audience does not see why he became a dictator. Thus, the movie reinforces Arabic stereotypes without actually telling the story of the Arabs, just like Michael Green analyzed while working on other American movies, “What’s more, the movie fails to provide any kind of larger context that might explain their actions” (Green).

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One of the most eye-opening scenes in the documentary is when the Fordson football team is shown praying before the game-- a practice shamed by many outsiders of the community who believe this practice infringes on the separation of church and state. The opposing football team also prays, but this practice is accepted because they pray to Jesus, not Allah. Besides demonstrating discrimination based on religion, this scene also demonstrates that the two teams are not different. They are connected to their faith, have a strong bond with their teammates and community, and play football.

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Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football: American Dream Clip

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The documentary starts with a quote that states, “we cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home,” followed by clips from government leaders and individuals with a large platform that encourage Islamophobia. It then cuts into the halls of Fordson high school and discusses the demographics of Dearborn, Michigan. 70% of Dearborn is made up of Arab-Americans, and 95% of the students at Fordson identify as Arab. This large concentration of Arabs make for a close-knit community that lives with shared experiences, especially post 9/11. The members of the community discuss how people improperly base a whole religion off the actions of a few and how they fail to recognize that Muslims share much of the same ideals and goals as Americans, yet continually face hate crimes and racial profiling. By showing the daily lives of these Arab-American individuals, the documentary shows how many perceptions of Arab-Americans are wrong.

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The intended audience of the documentary “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” is Americans who have assumptions of Muslims in a post 9/11 world. The film humanizes the Islamic community and connects them with American families using a well-known topic: American football. The film is also intended for Muslims to find solace in their stories being represented on the screen. Muslim communities have been and continue to be depicted as villains and terrorists in film, and this documentary provides them an alternative narrative that reflects lived experiences. The actors in the film are real members of the Dearborn community and real students at Fordson high school. The football players, coaches, and family members provide the audience with genuine stories and people to relate to/connect with. This genuineness is furthered visually as the documentary is predominantly filmed on the high school’s football field and in football players' homes.

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Interestingly, although various scenes in the movie demonstrate hatred towards Jewish people, the language Aladeen speaks in the movie as he switches from English to Wadiyan is Hebrew, as the actor playing Aladeen is actually Jewish.

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The Dictator (2012) - The Helicopter Scene (7/10) | Movieclips

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Most of the movie's scenes depict the North African leader as someone who does not respect women. One such scene is when he asks his wife, “Is it a boy or is it abortion?” when he learns that she is pregnant. Additionally, when he sees that Zoey does not remove her armpit hair, he says it is disgusting, reinforcing gender stereotypes on women. He is also portrayed as a Middle Eastern terrorist when he is flying over Manhattan with two Americans and starts talking to his friend in Wadiyan. Because the only English words they use are “Empire State Building” and their hand gestures demonstrate a bomb, the Americans fear Alaaddin and his friend. The audience is informed through subtitles that the friends are just having an innocent conversation about fireworks, but the Americans' assumptions in the scene are dangerous.

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The movie's intended audience is Americans since its depiction of the North African leader as a racist, antisemitic, anti-feminist person could be disturbing for Middle Eastern audiences. The producer, Paramount pictures, said that the movie was inspired by the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. One of the cast members said that he based his performance on Muammar Gaddafi. They actually wanted to film the movie in the United Nations headquarters, but they could not get permission for the text since it was based on the lives of real dictators, which would harm real international relations. Thus, they filmed the movie in Spain and the United States. The leading actor, Baron Cohen, attended the Academy Awards wearing the dictator costume he wore in the movie and was accompanied by two female bodyguards, resembling Gaddafi’s Amazonian Guard. His behavior was not found appropriate by the Academy, but they did not ban him either.

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“Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football” was released on September 11th of 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The film tells the story of a predominantly Arab-American football team in Dearborn, Michigan, as they prepare to face their rival high school. The film displays the effects post 9/11 racism has on Muslim students and communities while showing that the Arab American students are really no different than any other high school students in America. The film shows a Muslim community seeking acceptance in a world where racial stereotypes and Islamophobia are normalized.

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"The Dictator" is a 2012 comedy film directed by Larry Charles. It is about the story of a dictator who is invited to New York for a UN assemblance to discuss the international concerns over his nuclear weapons program. When unexpected things happen in New York and his oppressive regime is threatened, he risks his life to ensure that democracy never comes to his country. The movie subtly refers to the nuclear conflict between Iran and Israel when the dictator, Aladeen, makes the announcement on nuclear weapons and jokingly promises never to use them against Israel. With references to the oil crisis and the nuclear problems, the movie, in a way, blames the Middle Eastern countries for causing conflicts in the international community. In other scenes, Aladeen meets with a vegan feminist in New York, and their conflicts reflect the cultural differences between the “educated” American and the “uneducated” Middle Eastern person.

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Richa: “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football”

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Richa: “Fordson: Faith, Fasting, Football”

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Analyzing the relationship between movies and the Arabs, we see that the first half of the 1900s represented Muslims as exotic and mystical. These oriental stereotypes manifested into Arab women playing roles such as belly-dancers or princesses and Arab men performing magic, as inspired by The Arabian Nights. From the 1980s to the 1990s, Palestinians were portrayed in films as murderers. They were shown murdering Americans to convince Americans that the Palestinians were villains to advance a hidden US governmental agenda. Post 9/11, Muslims were shown on the screen as terrorists. In American media, the actions of 19 Arab individuals were reflecting the actions of over 1.8 billion people. Systemic racism in America is propagated through American cinema, as shown in the film “Planet of the Arabs.” This short-film shows movie clips that state the Islamic God, Allah, is commanding Muslims to kill Americans and cartoon depictions that show Arabs as thieves and dangerous. These stereotypes continue to persist in the modern-day film industry, which we hope to investigate through our analysis of specific films.

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The East is different. Although acknowledging this difference does not necessarily mean the demonization of the “Other,” most of the dominant stereotypes that frame pop cultural representations of the East, especially the Arabs and the Muslims, are bound to clichés that are detrimental to the well-being of the society. In movies, Middle Eastern men are either terrorists or villains, while Middle Eastern women are portrayed with an exotic and submissive image. As Ridouani says in his essay “The representation of Arabs and Muslims in Western Media,” for the Westerners, Arabs, and Muslims “live in mythical kingdoms of endless desert dotted with oil wells, tents, run-down mosques, palaces, goats, and camels” (Ridouani, 9).

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                                                                                    Dominant Stereotypes that Continue to Frame Pop Cultural Representations 

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                                                                                    Dominant Stereotypes that Continue to Frame Pop Cultural Representations 