The Move To Internalized Othering of Arabs in American Cinema

Freedom, Resistance and Other QuestionsWith Attention to 2014’s Camp XRay

Evil Billionaires, Bombers and Belly

Dancers

Some comic relief to begin…

American School TextbooksStereotyping Arabs along with the film industry since 1898 (at least)

NomadsJihadistsNot impacted by Colonialism (for better or worse)HomogeneousUnderrepresentedPalestinian Israeli conflict (Israeli POV)Camel walkersAll poor, only a few rich people, no middle classUniformly MuslimHelpless and Useless Ancient Egypt

The American mainstream media?

24/7 anti-Arab programming at your fingertips…

Fatima’s Coochee Dance, 1896

This way for the Streets of Cairo! One hundred and fifty Oriental beauties! The warmest spectacle on earth! See Her dance the Hootchy-Kootchy! Anywhere else but in the ocean breezes of Coney Island she would be consumed by her own fire!(Donna Carlton, Looking for Little Egypt)

Road to Morocco, 1942

Disney’s Aladdin

Rules of Engagement (2000)

Indiana Jones…

Reel Bad Arabs

•Jack Shaheen•Celluloid’s Arabs in American film have remained virtually unchanged in their stereotypes since the beginning of the industry•The cultural « other »

•What is an Arab?•Brute murderers•Sleazy rapists•Religious fanatics•Oil-rich dimwits•Women abusers

•Cues:•Black beard headdress, dark sunglasses, weapons, harem maidens, pimpin’ cars etc

Reel Bad Arabs

« Those who tell the stories rule society. » (Plato)

Inherited stereotypes from European art and writing.-Georges Méliès and Arabland

Very few exceptions in over a thousand films studied:•The Lion of the Desert (1981)•Hanna K (1983)•The Seventh Coin (1992)•Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991)•The 13th Warrior (1999)

•Not only are the portrayals bad, but absent are ordinary Arab people

Other scholars… Robert Cettl - focused on terrorism in American

Film in the pre and post 9/11 periods Rubina Ramji – representations of Islam in

American News and Film Laurence Michalak – Is the Arab in American

cinema getting better? Tim Jon Semmerling – Evil Arab depictions in

popular American films (Orientalist Fear) Lester D. Freidman – Depictions of ethnicity in

American cinema Mazin B. Qumsiyeh – 100 years of anti-Arab

stereotyping

Is 2014 the time for change?

Is 2014 the time for change?

Directed by: Peter Sattler

Starring: Kristen Stewart and Payman Maadi

“A young woman joins the military to be part of something bigger than herself and her small town roots. But she ends up as a new guard at Guantanamo Bay instead, where her mission is far from black and white. Surrounded by hostile jihadists and aggressive squadmates, she strikes up an unusual friendship with one of the detainees. A story of two people, on opposite sides of a war, struggling to find their way through the ethical quagmire of Guantanamo Bay. And in the process, they form an unlikely bond that changes them both.”

Is it Different? It is actually showing

Guantanamo Bay It depicts forced feedings There is a guard who is

sympathetic (gender binary? She’s a chick)

Complication of the prisoner (Ali) ethically; trying to understand why he is there; he doesn’t seem like a crazy terrorist

He is given the ultimate power over his own life and death at the climax of the film

What does the crew say? In the production notes, Peter Sattler says, “It’s not a political film; it’s a deeply human one.” I

don’t agree. Often filmmakers will say their very political films aren’t political because they don’t want to scare away American moviegoers. But if we look at the human element and we start identifying with the people who are imprisoned at Guantanamo, then we start asking what can be done for them, including closing the facility–and at that point it becomes political.

Payman: That’s 100% true. That’s good to hear. I agree with you. You cannot say it’s not a political film. When you say “Guantanamo Bay,” you’re talking about politics. When you say “terrorist” or “suspected terrorist,” you’re talking about politics. The focus is not on the political issues and that’s what Peter was trying to get across. But we can’t escape from the fact that there are political things in the movie and after you leave the theater you will think about the situation in the United States that has kept Guantanamo from closing.

It’s a ridiculous idea for you to think that you know anything for sure in life—other than to take care of your fellow people. Where the f*ck do you get off thinking otherwise? These two people couldn’t be from more different worlds and perspectives, and probably disagree fundamentally on most things, but there’s a through-line for all of us—and that’s what people forget, and that’s what makes people capable of doing terrible things to each other. What makes you different from any other person that walks the earth? – Kristen Stewart

it’s been very interesting because anyone who has an agenda can cherry pick anything to support or deny whatever they’re trying to do. To some degree, people have done that with the movie, most of the time sight unseen. People will be like, “Oh, I can’t believe this movie is sympathetic for terrorists” and it’s like well, if you saw the film, it’s not entirely sympathetic. We try to present a very balanced look at life [in Guantanamo Bay]. We have some very nasty detainees in there that are not nice at all and we try and do the balance thing, but it’s interesting because in this day and age with media, everyone is just looking for a headline, something they can drill on Twitter, so it’s a mentality of everyone wanting to make a snap judgment about something, when it reality, everything, especially a situation a complex as Guantanamo Bay, is more nuanced than that. – Peter Sattler

What do the critics say? One of the strengths of Sattler’s screenplay is his

refusal to make this a straightforward drama about enemies, injustice or dehumanizing persecution. He makes it about empathy, and in doing so broadens the intimate story to find thematic universality. (David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter)

Whether you’re a guard or an inmate at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, the place, as depicted in “Camp X-Ray,” is a living hell, but not in the most obvious ways. It’s not a rank dungeon with clanging torture chambers. This relentlessly dour first feature, directed and written by Peter Sattler, was actually shot in an abandoned juvenile prison in Whittier, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. As you observe the 24-hour-a-day surveillance in which guards, two to a shift, go round and round, peeking into each room every three minutes to make sure a detainee hasn’t attempted suicide, you have the sickening sense of people locked in a miserable, dehumanizing ritual from which there is no exit. We learn early in the film that the word “prisoners” is not permitted because it would support the argument that those behind bars are subject to the terms of the Geneva Conventions . Everyone, inmates and guards alike, is behind bars. (NY TIMES)

It is challenging

It is a remarkable humanizing experience in a dehumanized place

It reflects the reasons for current criticisms of the Obama Admin. in failing to close GITMO after 2009 promises.

Absent Depictions

Why is this still racist?

•Ali is depicted as being well-read (interested in Harry Potter);he speaks fluent English; and he is very Westernized in his appearance and his thinking.

•He was arrested in Germany where he had been living.

•Everyone else fits the Bomber-Jihadi stereotype; implication that their incarceration is justified.

It goes deeper than that though…and gets more

dangerousFor this, we need to look at historical processes of Othering

and how this process manifests in Camp X-Ray

The Philosophical History of Othering

Fichte (no noumena) Husserl

(intersubjectivity) Sartre (orientation

through otherness) Lévinas (creation of

the Self by virtue of the Other)

Said (imperial domination of the Other because of value placement)

Foucault… PanopticismTwo technologies of punishment:1.Monarchal2.Disciplinary

The Metaphor of the Panopticon

The permeation into society

Characteristics of Panopticism Salvationary Laboratory of Power Systemic Power Social conditioning Internalization

The structure of the prison, permeating throughout society From the film’s prison

to your living room and into your mind

This leaves us with the question: What sort of freedom is possible?

Freedom exists only in relation (ontologically) to power; momentary; not found in institutional structures

A process of rejecting the « essential » self that society has imposed on you. Ali does this with regularity But he also conforms in very overt

ways

Resistance ≠ Protecting Freedom Resistance = Freedom

What forms of Power exist? Under panoptic/disciplinary rule,

there is only the power of life: BIOPOWER Discipline of the body and population

regulation « Life becomes resistance to power

when power takes life as its object . »

If there is no ontological freedom, are there ontological ethics?

Immanuel Kant

Human freedom is presupposed by moral law that is rationally understood

The Critique of Practical Reason

The Categorical Imperative

Freedom = the ability of the individual to legislate for him or herself, free from external forces and in accordance with universal moral categories.

The ETHICAL PARADOX: You are free to choose, as long it is the right choice.

Michel Foucault

Morality and rationality sanction domination and exclusion. The centrality of reason is based on the violent exclusion of Madness or « THE OTHER ».

Incarceration is made possible through the universalization of moral codes and by making them sacred.

It is the notion of what is properly « human » that authorizes a whole series of exclusions and disciplinary practices.

GITMO is the hyperexample of this.

Let’s revisit with the Director said…

Sattler said it was important for the movie not to take sides. "In my opinion, it's largely apolitical. There's so much propaganda around Guantanamo Bay that I really didn't want this film to have an agenda. I wanted it to be very sincere, and tell the honest, emotional story of what it must be like for both of those sides to exist in that very heightened and strained world. The challenge with this kind of film is not to manipulate the audience, at least politically."

The real message of Camp X-Ray?

Power over life and humanistic sympathy will only be granted to you if you resemble the moral codes that our society holds to be universal and sacred.

Ultimately, this is the most pervasive form of Othering - far worse than Billionaires, Belly Dancers and Bombers.

It lacks tolerance (and acceptance) of differences in moral, religious and cultural codes on the deepest, internalized level. It operates under the guise of morality and tolerance but reenacts difference fundamentally.

It’s not an overt spectacle of Othering anymore; it is a subtle exertion of power over individuals who are socially constructed in ways that don’t fit our image of our socially-constructed selves.

It is an arbitrary sense of identity confronting an equally arbitrary sense of identity and declaring one or the other morally wrong, and allowing for the power of mortality to be wielded by one over the other.

The Climax of the Film

Ali is only granted the right to take his own life by Cole because she sees his resemblance to her humanity – not an innate humanity, the dignity of which should be equally respected in all other prisoners. Only his suffering is recognized. Only it is given a voice and sympathy.

He is exceptional because he is Americanized. He holds the same ideals as her. He speaks her language (literally and figuratively) and because of this, she absolves him.

While it seems to be challenging this power binary, in fact, it upholds it.

Questions this raises…

Others in Arab cinema - is there overlap?

Victimization of Arabs through distorted western media - is it warranted?

Is reconciliation possible through the arts?