Tarek Fahmy: Cultural Critic

These are my favorite books:

Coexistence:
How de we accept difference without violence and hostilities?

This 4 part documentary is on the book “Orientalism” by Edward Said.

Jack Shaheen’s “Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People” appropriates many of it’s ideas from Edward Said’ book “Orientalism”.

I just bought the book and ran into this interview/documentary featuring Edward Said. The book was written in 1978.

“…Said described the “subtle and persistent Eurocentric prejudice against Arabo-Islamic peoples and their culture.” He argued that a long tradition of false and romanticized images of Asia and the Middle East in Western culture had served as an implicit justification for Europe and America’s colonial and imperial ambitions. Just as fiercely, he denounced the practice of Arab elites who internalized the American and British orientalists’ ideas of Arabic culture.”taken from a wikipedia entry.

PART #1

PARTT #2

PART #3

PART #4

Article Title: Dubai takes ’significant’ stake in Sony
LINK

State-owned Dubai International Capital makes investment in Japanese conglomerate.
“Hollywood and Washington spring from the same DNA.” Movie mogul Jack Valenti

After reading “Reel Bad Arabs”, Jack Shaheen, and watching the one hour documentary, I was thinking that it would be a kewl thesis topic to invent a fictitious Arab owned company that buys a Hollywood production studio and establishes a much needed Arabic lobby in Hollywood. Over time, that Arabic Hollywood voice would start to seep into western culture and politics in general, slowly changing the misleading ‘orientalist’ view of Arabs and painting a more humanistic picture of the peoples.

(DIC), a state owned Dubai International Capital just bought a ’significant’ share of Sony. As you may or may not know, Sony bought the Hollywood giant Colombia Pictures in 1989. In effect, DIC bought a stake in Colombia pictures as well. Will this be the start of eradicating the vilification of Arabs in Hollywood and culture in general or is it purely a financial endeavor on DIC’’s part?

Further research led me to a one hour documentary about jack Shaheen’s book. I found it on YOUTUBE. The documentary dissects the book using actual Hollywood footage of the films in question with shots of Jack Shaheen, the author, explaining his points and opinions.

It’s very well produced might i add.

• PART #1

• PART #2

PART #3

PART #4

PART #5

I continued to do research on racial Profiling, racism, and Islamaphobia. At the same time I was thinking how am I to translate this visually, as a Pratt Grad Comm D thesis project. I not only have to write at least 50 pages, I have to also present a visual project to accompany the text.

Not sure how i exactly found it, but I ran across a book titled: “Reel bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People“. The book is written by jack Shaheen. (ISBN 1-56656-388-7)

I found the first mention of it here: @ artthreat,net

In a nutshell, the book declares that Arabs and Muslims are the single most maligned and attacked group in the history of film. The author looked at over 1000 films that contained Arabs, 50 of which were neutral 6 depicted Arabs in a positive light, and the rest were negative stereotypical Orientalist depictions.