One good Arab

Hollywood has moved on from portraying all Arabs as villains. Several recent films include one token 'good Arab' who likes the US.

by Sharif Nashashibi - Oct 29, 2007

I could not help but watch The Kingdom without feeling throughout that I had seen this all before many times. The film uses the same tired, and sadly successful, Hollywood formula of so many of its predecessors: Arab villains, American heroes, and lots of weapons.

In The Kingdom, a major terrorist attack is committed in Saudi Arabia by Saudis, targeting American civilians and causing FBI agents to travel there to track down terrorist mastermind Abu Hamza.

There are two differences between the recent crop of such films and their older counterparts: they now employ real Arabs to perpetuate the old stereotypes, and they utilise a token Arab "good guy" to make up for the fact that the rest of the Arab characters are bad.

Tony Shalhoub in The Siege is a striking example, an Arab-American cop trying to stop Arab terrorist cells from continuing their large-scale bomb attacks on US soil.

The vast majority of the Arabs in The Kingdom, young and old, are portrayed negatively - from the brutal, hate-filled, anti-western, religiously fanatical terrorists, to the inept, corrupt, heavy-handed, secretive and frustratingly bureaucratic Saudi authorities.

The "good Arab" is Saudi Colonel Faris al-Ghazi, played by Israeli-Palestinian actor Ashraf Barhoum. He helps the FBI team and is fond of American culture, having grown up watching The Six Million Dollar Man and The Hulk, who was his inspiration in his career choice in law enforcement because the superhero "killed only the bad guys". Al Ghazi is the only Arab in The Kingdom who we get to know and empathise with (this is even the case with Saladin and Prince Nasir in the far more balanced Kingdom of Heaven and Syriana, respectively). On the other hand, we are exposed in depth to the humanity, grief, compassion, determination, ability and patriotism of most of the American characters.

The overall message of this gung-ho film is as simple as it is dangerous: America's allies in the Middle East are unreliable and unstable, so whatever the objections and consequences, the US can and must project its power in the region to defend itself, safeguard its interests and secure justice against those who inherently seek the demise of the west and - we are reminded several times at the end of the film - Israel.

Put simply, The Kingdom perpetuates negative stereotypes for a quick buck and an adrenaline rush, at a time in the world where breeding such ignorance and prejudice has proven catastrophic.

This is not simply confined to the film. The media reported that the cast was treated "like royalty" in the United Arab Emirates - where the film was partly shot - with the main actor Jamie Foxx given security guards, paramedics, Rolls-Royce transport, a palatial hotel and even a food taster.

However, I recently watched him on The Daily Show on the More4 channel being interviewed about his stay in the UAE.

He mocked the Arabic language and food, talking about eating "baked tiger paws" and "boiled camel hump." It seems it is not just audiences that are being brainwashed.