veiled4allah: by airbrushing, Hollywood misses an opportunity veiled4allah: by airbrushing, Hollywood misses an opportunityIn airbrushing out the Arabs, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas encourages a warped view of our collective cultural heritage. In its Hellenised form, it perpetuates the idea that all learning, all civilisation, even that all stories, come from the Greek and Roman tradition... ...As long as we think of the people of the Middle East as others, as belonging to a separate "civilisation", a different "cultural tradition", it's easier for those with an interest to demonise the people who live there, belittle their rights, and understate the suffering inflicted upon them. Faceless Iraqis elicit little sympathy. In its own small way, Sinbad could - should - have been a chance to celebrate our nearness to the traditions of the Middle East. In not taking that opportunity, we push them further away, where their voices cannot reach us.
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Subject: Re: by airbrushing, Hollywood misses an opportunity
Al-M, how appropriate! I have been revamping a paper I wrote a couple years ago on images of Middle Eastern/Muslim women in classic film. The latest thing I saw in this vein was SOLOMON AND SHEBA (1959), with Yul Brynner as Solomon and Gina Lolabrigida as Sheba.Throughout the whole movie I could not help but think, ok, the likelyhood that Sheba was either African or Arab is very high. Yet, we get the sense she is this bosomy white lady with no bee-hind, and a strong Italian accent. Nothing against Gina, but this is just an observation.
There are SO many instances of this. What I am trying to theorize right now, though, is that fuzzy area in which Black Christian actresses also got (and were thus complicit in, and perpetuated) these kinds of roles, however minor. Still working on this.