¶ … U.S. And Arabian Cinema
There are a number of different ways that the third chapter of Lina Khatib's work of non-fiction, Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World, builds upon the previous two chapters of this book. Those ways predominantly relate to the thematic issues the author explores in this manuscript. As established in the initial two chapters, a comparison between how Arabs are portrayed in Arabian films and in Hollywood films is scrutinized in the third chapter. However, the author also explores the core ways in which films are differentiated between Arabia and Hollywood. Both of these thematic issues are analyzed again in the third chapter of this work (since they are the general motifs of this book). However, the author contextualizes these themes in the third chapter with a focus on films that portray some of the most salient conflicts in the Middle East over the last several decades: both the enduring Arabian and Israeli martial encounter and the Gulf War.
Viewed through this contextual lens, there are more than a few aspects of this third chapter that effectively function as a case study for some of the information presented in the other two chapters. The principle difference in the way that these two respective cultures are differentiated...
The author denotes that there is an inherent distinction according to gender of these film types, and that the latter is unequivocally masculine whereas the former is unmistakably feminine. Additionally, the author denotes the fact that the Arabian characters (as well as the Israeli and even Americans) portrayed in Middle Eastern films are much more developed and realistic as opposed to the way they are portrayed in Hollywood films -- which largely depend on stereotypical caricatures.
Still, the most notable aspect of chapter three is that it underlies some of the basic similarities between the usage of cinema in both Hollywood and in the Middle East. Granted, each respective region takes different approaches to how it goes about reaching those aims, but one of the most fascinating aspects of this chapter is that it reveals that the goals of film are the same between. Those goals consist of inducing a sentiment of nationalism. For Americans, that
nationalism is predicated on action films and
stereotypes in which Americans are usually good and Arabian -- particularly those rendered in the aforementioned martial encounters -- are the opposite. But in both cultures, film is an extremely viable medium for inducing pride and a sentiment of…
