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There was a time, after the Nazis, when every Hollywood bad guy seemed to be German.
With the onset of the Cold War, they became Russian.
David Suchet as a terrorist in the film Executive Decision, said to portray Islamic and western values as incompatible.
Now the blockbuster bogeyman is Muslim, according to a study published today.
Popular films, from action movies to cartoons, are portraying “crude or exaggerated stereotypes” of Muslims who are shown as the “enemy within” bent on “attacking” the western way of life, the report claims.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission said films as diverse as The Siege, a portrayal of a terrorist attack on New York starring Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis, the British comedy East is East and Disney’s Aladdin are reinforcing impressions that Muslims are violent and dangerous.
The Siege is said to portray the “monolithic stereotype” that Muslims are terrorists and ready to be martyred and Aladdin depicted them as “ruthless caricatures” coming from a “barbaric” land.
While the character Aladdin is westernised with an American twang, the bad characters have “exaggerated and ridiculous accents”.
The reports claims Raiders of the Lost Ark, starring Harrison Ford, also exhibited “cultural stereotypes” and East is East, a story of an Anglo-Pakistani family in Salford, with its wife-beating husband “fits into many of the negative perceptions people have of Muslims”.
The study entitled The British Media and Muslim Representation: The Ideology of Demonisation argues that all these “negative stereotypes” along with negative portrayal in the media affect the general perception of Muslims and has a crucial role in influencing detrimental public views.
A survey conducted as part of the research revealed that Muslims in Britain felt negative images of their faith on the big and small screen had consequences in their daily lives.
Those interviewed “found a direct correlation between media portrayal and their social experiences of exclusion, hatred, discrimination and violence”.
As well as deep unease with big screen portrayals, the research also claimed there was a perception of “unashamed bias” in the media against Muslims, with 62% believing the media to be Islamophobic and 16% describing it as racist. Only 4% considered its representation “fair”.
The report, which involved interviewing more than 1,125 Muslims in England, Scotland and Wales, concluded that there was evident from all genres that they contained negative stereotypes about Islam and Muslim/Arabs.
The report said: “The accounts of the respondents indicate that the negative portrayal of Muslims is heavily presented in the films that are produced in both the UK and US.
“In the movies Muslims are mostly portrayed as terrorists who randomly kill people (usually innocents) or blow things up - including themselves - or as hijackers, misogynistic or stupid, who cannot achieve anything and are therefore in need of continuous supervision.”
Arzu Merali, head of research at the commission and co-author of the report, denied that there was an element of paranoia in the findings.
She said it was particularly disturbing because recent research showed that as many as eight of 10 Britons had no close contact with Muslims.
She said: “The problem is that Muslim characters are overwhelmingly bad characters. They are all professionally Muslim and that more often than not means that they are violent and backward.
“What our research showed was that this has been going on for at least 20 years, long before 9/11 happened.”
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Starring Harrison Ford.
Indiana Jones must find the ark of the covenant before the Nazis. The report says: “The cultural stereotypes and scenarios are patently obvious,” pointing to a street scene featuring bazaars, veiled women and bearded men in traditional dress, all set to snake-charming music.
Aladdin (1992)
The report queries why a children’s cartoon describes Aladdin’s homeland as “barbaric”, and notes that “good Arabs” including Aladdin are given American accents while the rest of the cast have “exaggerated and ridiculous Arab accents”.
The Siege (1998)
Starring Denzel Washington, Annette Bening , Bruce Willis and Tony Shalhoub.
Palestinian terrorists attack New York city in response to the US military abduction of an Islamic religious leader. The report says that the film depicts Muslims as the “enemy within” and that the characters display the “monolithic stereotype of the Arab/Palestinian Muslim being violent and ready to be martyred for their cause”.
East Is East (1999)
Starring Om Puri and Linda Bassett.
A mixed-race Anglo-Pakistani family in 1970s Salford struggle against the traditional background enforced upon them by their father. The report says the representation of the Muslim husband as a polygamous wife-beating tyrant “fits into many of the negative perceptions people have of Muslims”.
Executive Decision (1996)
Starring Kurt Russell and Halle Berry.
Palestinians hijack a Boeing 747 to launch a nerve gas attack on Washington DC. Report says the film “plays on the worst fears ... about a potential terrorist lurking in every Arab/Middle Eastern/Muslim-looking person, and the incompatibility of Islamic and western values”.
House of Sand and Fog (2003)
Starring Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley An abandoned wife is evicted from her home, which is taken over by an Iranian family forced to flee their country following the 1979 revolution. The report says the film constructs a “negative description of the revolution, without enabling any detailed or balanced analysis of the event”.
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