As a communications major, I am intensely interested in how media effects relationships between people and what cultural and social standards it helps to set. This in mind, as I watched Reel Bad Arabs, I was, to say the least, shocked at what was being brought to my attention. My knowledge about the Middle East is very limited, but this I know- the place that comes into my imagination is not the place as it really exists. I was taken aback to realize that all of the misconceptions that appear in American film- the harem if barely clad women, the Arabian man with an angry face and a blood red turban, and the general incivility- are things that I have been picturing all of my life when I think of the words Middle East. I can't fully blame myself, apparently it has been ingrained into me through media since I was small. Case in point, Aladdin. I haven't seen the actual movie in years, but the clips shown in the film gave me flashbacks of men acting savagely, stuffing knives down their throats and sleeping on beds of nails. The shock only grew from there as a realized that my jaded image of the Middle East was aided by other Hollywood movies, including one of my absolute favorites, True Lies. As a student very interested in the cultural effects of media, this left me feeling that these films create a sort of cultural brick wall, upon which Hollywood has written graffiti which condemns the Middle East, and we cannot see the real place on the other side of the wall- a place of religion, rich background and most importantly, people just like us.
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