Western Representation of Arabs

Orientalism
Arab Media Production
Western Representation of Arabs. Some stereotypes exist: Segmental,
Mercantilist, Agricultural, Patriarchal, Patrimonial, Tribal, Inherently religious,
Asiatic, Dependent, Underdeveloped, Stratified
Western Media portrays arabs in a stereotypical way, i.e. Aladdin,
underdeveloped countries, wars and scheming, violent, greedy. In addition,
news propagates a negative view of Arabs.
Orientalism is a way that distorts the image of Arab culture exotic,
backward, uncivilized and dangerous. It is an acceptance of the west through
exaggeration and distortion of the Arab reality. It is since the period of
European enlightenment and Arab colonization. Orientalism gave them a
rationale to colonize, as the west constructed the east as extremely weak
and inferior needing help. This helped give them a reason to colonize and
rescue Arabs.
Arab media production:
Al Jazeera gained worldwide attention as it followed the Afghanistan war from
its office there. Nominated as one of the best news websites. Also
circumvented censorship and contributed to free speech and information in
the Arab world.
This weeks lecture covered western representation of Arabs, orientalism and
Arab Media production. During this lecture, I began to realize why there is
often a preconceived idea of what an Arab looks like, and how that
stereotype is propagated.
We saw the various Arab stereotypes present in western culture, which
included being segmental, patriarchal, underdeveloped, dependent and
tribal. I realized that I was already familiar with these stereotypes, having
grown up watching western media. However, I was surprised to see how
western movies and media portrayed and propagated Arab stereotypes,
even in nuanced ways we may not notice at first hand. Growing up, I must
have seen the Disney movie, Aladdin, at least 10 times. Never had I noticed
the stereotypes present in the movie. However, in the lecture and
accompanying article, we saw that Aladdin portrayed Arabs in the movie as
scheming, mystical, violent and greedy. It was instantly obvious to me that
these stereotypes are all around us, in Hollywood movies and the media, as
news outlets portray Arabs as barbaric, and Hollywood movies barely show
the Arab world as anything but a war-torn, underdeveloped region.

In addition, we examined orientalism, which distorts and exaggerates the

view of Arab culture, presenting a stereotype that makes the Arab world
seem a mystical, exotic, backward and uncivilized place. This is theorized to
have come about during the period of European enlightenment and Arab
colonization. It is seen as way for European colonizers to provide themselves
with an excuse. It provided a rationale behind colonization, as it portrayed
the east and the Arab world as extremely weak and inferior, needing help
and rescue from the western world.
With regards to Arab media production, a prominent and successful media
outlet is Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera was widely acclaimed during the Afghanistan
war, as it was the only news outlet that covered the war directly from its
office in Afghanistan. It is hailed as one of the best news websites, and was
recently commended for standing against censorship in the Arab world,
providing an outlet for free speech and information.
My question is this; would the Arab world be in a different state if these
stereotypes had not been propagated? Indeed, these stereotypes could have
spurred on colonization. Had that not occurred, would this be a completely
different Arab world? If yes, that could show the power of misconceptions
and stereotypes.