Imagine you are in a crowed plaza:
it’s about noon, there are people in restaurants for their lunch; couples out
the cinema for the matinée; some others in the supermarket. And the, you
realize about a group of people all dressed the same, with turbans and weird
hats, all over their knees looking in the same direction while proffering words
in a strange language. Would you run away? Give the alarm? Or just think about
their sacred hour in direction to the Mecca for a Moslem group? Thinking about
terrorism when you see Arab people in a land in which there are not even direct
contact has in Hollywood movies one of its reasons.
If we watch carefully must of the
action movies, we might recognize a pattern in which the ‘bad guy’ is a
foreigner and, among them, Arabians are one of the must recurrent. We can’t
think of several reasons for that, but the true is that the effect in people
minds is evident: they are dangerous! In early times, Hollywood show us them
with a dirty turban, brandish a blade, and conspiring against the good guys;
lately, they are showing us almost the same concept, but with modern weapons,
so what do they expect from us thinking about them?
Furthermore, when our heroes move to
any Arab land, the lifestyle they use to show is the one of a third world
country in which men are insensible machist; and women move from belly dancers to
submissive uncultured persons. So, it’s in this context in which our heroes are
attacked, kidnaped, or even murdered, just because they do not share the same
traditions.
Hence, having films as the only
source of information for countries which are far from us in any other way is
just enough for creating paradigms if we don’t understand that fiction in
movies is not only about the story but also the whole stage in which this story
is developed.
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