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Arab Defamation in the Media: Its Consequences and Solutions
Is it less a tragedy when an Arab is murdered than when anyone else is murdered? Now, let’s take a 60-second look at how this one-sided coverage translates into our political policy. Some Americans exposed to Arab-bashing grow up to be our leaders—leaders who turn their learned prejudices into foreign policy that can be costly in terms of American lives, our tax dollars, and our reputation as an ethical people. We want lawmakers and diplomats to be mature, and fair-minded, addressing all sides of an issue before committing our country to a course of action. How likely is that if they react automatically every time the word “Arab” comes up? I suspect that Ronald Reagan may have thought of the Arabs as “those guys” that tried to kill Paul Newman in Exodus, and Kirk Douglas in Cast a Giant Shadow, and Jimmy Stewart in Flight of the Phoenix. If a legislator is uninformed when it comes time to vote on an issue, he probably falls back on a special-interest lobby or a lifetime of impressions he’s picked up from the media. For example, on August 30th this year, in the Omaha World-Herald, Senator J. J. Exon, Democrat of Nebraska, said, “In the Arab world, life is not as important as in the non-Arab world.” Stereotyping Remedies Now that we know what the problem is, what’s the answer? What can we do about negative stereotyping? first, let’s talk about what the industry can do—and then what you can do. The producers who hire the writers, the actors who read the lines, and the directors who shoot the pictures can stop it in its tracks before it gets started! All it takes is one of those people, somewhere along the line, to have the courage to say: “No, I won’t do it. It’s wrong. What can we do to make it right?” A few years ago, I was doing one of the voices in the TV cartoon series, “Transformers.” One week, the script featured an evil character named Abdul, King of Carbombya. He was like all the other cartoon Arabs. I asked the director, “Are there any good Arabs in this script for balance?” We looked. There was one other—but he was no different than Abdul. So, I told the show’s director that, in good conscience, I couldn’t be a part of that show. I wrote a letter to the President and Chief Executive Officer of Marvel Productions, Margaret Ann Loesch. Here is her reply, in part: “Dear Casey: I received your letter regarding the negative stereotyping that has been occurring on television in the portrayal of Arabs and Arab-Americans. I share your concerns. “Your letter has been distributed to our writing staff and our voice directors in the hopes that they can be more sensitive to this issue and therefore more responsive to the problem.” Writing letters really works! And when broadcasters call our attention to stereotyping, it’s important to show our appreciation. This note was from Arthur Lord, director of Special News Operations at NBC News: “Dear Casey: Thanks for your kind letter concerning our ‘Today’ (show) report on Arab-bashing in the movies... The report generated quite a bit of mail—some of it quite positive. This response is gratifying, because perhaps people are beginning to be sensitized to the stereotyping of Arabs in the media and the lengthy process of ending that kind of abuse will have begun.” There’s an example of someone in the industry initiating a positive action. Mail encourages more of the same. Now what can the people who make those films do?
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