 |
Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479 
|
||
Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
|
Al-Ahram Weekly 27 April - 3 May 2000 Issue No. 479
|
||
| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
| ||
Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Special Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Any way they want
By Thomas Gorguissian
Once again Arab-Muslims are being demonised by Hollywood. This time the film is Rules of Engagement, a box-office hit starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L Jackson. Last weekend it took $8 million at movie theatres, meaning that, just 17 days after general release, it has already grossed $43 million.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has called for protests against the film, which it describes as "probably the most vicious anti-Arab racist film ever made by a major Hollywood Studio". Protests were staged in Washington DC, Chicago, Colorado and other places. Paramount Pictures, which produced Rules of Engagement, predictably defended its farrago of racist nonsense as "a fictional account of the consequences of extremism in all its forms." The film, it naively insists, "is not an indictment of any government, culture, or people."
And the plot of this film which indicts no one? The American embassy in Yemen is surrounded by a large crowd of demonstrators. Marine Colonel Terry Childers (Samuel L Jackson) is sent to evacuate the ambassador and his family. Childers launches his mission, the ambassador's safety is secured, but three of his men are shot. The Colonel orders his men to fire at the crowd.
Eighty-three Yemenis, including women and children, are massacred by Marines -- a realistic-looking scene that has evoked cheers from some American audience. A diplomatic crisis erupts and Colonel Childers faces a court-martial for violating the Rules of Engagement by killing unarmed civilians. During the court-martial proceedings, Colonel Childers, with the support of his defence lawyer, his former Vietnam comrade Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), contends the protesters, even the women and children, were armed. Also, there was "a declaration of Islamic Jihad against the United States" and a call to kill Americans, be they civilian or military. Colonel Childers' act was, therefore, not only justifiable, but patriotic too. The military hero correctly assessed a situation that politicians and diplomats were trying to brush under the carpet.
"This film is the worst ever," points out Jack Shaheen, author of The TV Arab, an upcoming book about the image of Arab-Muslims propagated by Hollywood. He told Al-Ahram Weekly that the film is not only immoral but dangerous too. The message it conveys, he argues, is simple: "It is appropriate and morally correct to kill Arabs, even children." In the US film industry, he believes, "it is perfectly acceptable to vilify, to demonise, whatever or whoever is Arab and Muslim."
William Rugh, former American ambassador to Yemen, said in an interview that Rules of Engagement is another "Hollywood film and it is not fair."
A still from Paramount's Rules of Engagement, top, a film that has sparked widespread protests for its racist stereotyping of Arabs as violent fanatics
(photo: AP)
"It is a biased film that reinforces prejudice against Arabs," he added, and the way in which the women and children are portrayed "is not realistic, not believable, and a distortion." Rugh, who is now the president of AMIDEAST, an organisation that promotes greater understanding of the Middle East among Americans, sees the film's "misrepresentation" of Yemen as a product of ignorance. And the majority of Arabs would agree with his assertion that far greater efforts are needed to rectify such distorted perceptions.
To say that Rules of Engagement is just a fictional presentation "is unacceptable", argues ADC Communications Director Hussein Ibish. He insists Hollywood studios have a "social responsibility."
"They have certain standards, guidelines and limitations which are applied when other ethnic and racial groups are the subject of their fictional presentation." There is a need for "better understanding and sensitivity," Ibish pointed out in a recent interview. ADC, he revealed, sent a second letter to Paramount last week requesting a meeting to discuss issues related to the film. Ibish believes such meetings have had positive results in the case of other studios, resulting in films such as Three Kings and The 13th Warrior in which negative stereotyping of Arabs is minimal.
Directed by William Friedkin, and based on an idea by James Webb III, a Regan Adminstration member , Rules of Engagement received several notices criticising the film's explicit racism. It deliberately presents the events as having occurred in America's recent history, which is why, Yemeni Ambassador to the US Abdel-Wahab Al-Hajjri points out, so many viewers ask, "When did this happen?"
"All of a sudden Yemenis, even women and children, have become terrorists, and they want to kill Americans. This is outrageous," he complained.
Pentagon participation in the film led the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) to urge Secretary of Defence William Cohen to rectify his department's policy to prevent the Pentagon from being associated with any future anti-Muslim stereotyping on screen. But last week, at the Pentagon's regular briefing session, spokesman Kenneth Bacon explained that his department's primary consideration is to make sure that "movies provide a fair and, hopefully accurate, portrayal of the military." He also said that studios "have a right to make the movies any way they want to make them. We pay attention to how they portray the military, when we decide whether to support the movie or not."
With Rules of Engagement anti-Arab bigotry unfortunately continues. Some Arab activists believe that the issue has to be taken to court, while others, like Jack Shaheen, see it as part of a political agenda. During the peace process, after all, tolerance, understanding and sensitivity towards the concerns of others have been consistently demanded of the Arabs. Such sensitivity, though, has yet to be reciprocated.
