MTV an unwitting tool for Western propaganda?
Hollywood - source for Western imperialism
"Those who
tell the stories also rule society"
- Plato in his
'Republic'
Hameed Abdul Karim
This may surprise many, but Hollywood is the leading propagandistic
source for Western imperialism. In other words, Hollywood is the sleek
and sophisticated PR Company working hand in glove with the West's
ruling elite along with other section of the print and electronic media.
Jack Shaheen gives evidence of this in his book The Reel Arabs - How
Hollywood Vilifies a Peoplewhen he quotes an incident where then Defence
Secretary William Cohen hosted a dinner for Hollywood luminaries at a
cost of US $ 295,000 because, according to the US Government, Hollywood
helped immensely in creating a favourable atmosphere for recruiting.
The Bridge over River Kwai
A scene from the movie The Bridge over River Kwai. Courtesy:
Google |
Establishing the link between the Pentagon and Hollywood he goes on
to cite another incident where Donald Baruch then head of the Department
of Defence (DOD) cautioned the producer of The Bridge over River Kwai
not to go overboard with negative images of the Japanese in movies that
are sanctioned by the US Government because that might be detrimental to
America's national interests.
Unfortunately the same rule doesn't apply to the Arabs in particular
and Muslims in general as was evident in the movie Jewel of the Nile
telecast by MTV on Friday December 18 after its news bulletin.
Take for example the scene where 'Sheikh Omar' the Arab Muslim
villain and ruler of the desert kingdom dupes the nice and very White
reporter Joan Wilder to write his biography while all along all he
wanted was to bed the pretty White blonde.
And what's the emphasis here? Arab 'Sheiks' are crazy over White
blonde women! Of course, our superwoman realizes this - albeit a bit
late in the day - and does a few heroic things, along with Jack Colton,
her boyfriend, to bring down the evil Arabs.
When Ms. Wilder discovers that her host is a scheming scoundrel she
remonstrates with him and he tells her that if he wanted the truth to be
conveyed to the world would hire '60 Minutes' but he wouldn't do that
because the Western media cannot understand the spirit of his good
vision.
What's the bite here? Oooh, the Western media is good!
Jewel of the Nile
No Hollywood hate movies of the same theme as Jewel of the Nile are
free from the standard fare. And sure enough in this movie too you find
Arab women dressed rather shabbily, moving about in the background like
zombies carrying all sorts of things on their heads - like as if they
were beasts of burden.
In comparison our Joan is smart and clever too! Oh, yeah, there are
the belly dancers too to complete the picture of a depraved society and
camels and chickens, beggars and hook nosed vile looking hawkers are
thrown in to ensure that no positive image of Arabs ever enters of the
viewers' minds.
As expected you find the same old filthy market place just outside
the palace with all the attendant fanfare of filthy Arabs going about
life with idiotic looks on their faces and dressed in soiled clothes
like as if they lived in the most primitive of societies. Arabs are
presented as messy desert dwellers and as some kind of buffoons you
would expect to see in your local zoo.
Islam is not spared either. The word 'Sheikh' in Islam is one that is
used respectfully to describe a religious leader or a devout man.
But in this movie our 'Sheikh' is a clown who can only do some stupid
things, like jumping from a rampart using his umbrella as a parachute.
American heroes
Incidentally, he seems to be the only one in possession of an
umbrella in the entire desert kingdom! In one scene the Sheikh, a.k.a.
'Jewel', runs away from Omar's goons alongside our American heroes and
the dimwitted fellow wanted to know 'whether we are jogging'.
With a look of disdain our heroine says 'yes' and the 'silly sheikh'
is happy he's catching up with what's in vogue in the U.S.
In another scene we have a 'towel head' Arab welcoming our American
heroes in the traditional manner offering them food and drink. In
response the junior hero Danny de Vito asks 'you got a toilet?' The
insinuation here is that the bloody Ay-Rabs are un-hygienically and so
don't bother to have toilets like those in the good old West. Little
does the poor fellow know that it were the towel head Arabs who had not
only toilets but also public baths in Spain long before the notorious
Spaniard C. Columbus was born!
It was the same Arabs who provided the world with the fundamentals of
science, mathematics, astronomy and botany among many other
contributions that helped the Europeans to come out from their dark
ages?
Arab seaman pioneered navigational techniques, enabling them to
traverse the oceans as Jack Shaheen points out in his book.
One reason attributed to the vilification of Arabs and Muslims is to
de-humanise them so that it would be easier for the world to accept
their slaughter and the plunder of their lands by the US, Britain,
Israel and the rest of the West.
That's happening right now in front of our eyes in Palestine, Iraq
and Afghanistan. Or else how would you imagine a woman like former US
Madeline Albright saying that it was alright to slaughter six hundred
thousand Iraqi children for the cause of democracy?
Instead of giving the Arabs and Muslims their due place in history,
Hollywood deems it fit to vilify them and had done just that for over a
hundred years now and it looks like TV Channels like MTV have become
unwitting tools in the propagation of ridicule and hate that Western
imperialism spreads, via Hollywood, around the globe to perpetuate its
hegemony and its superiority complex. |