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The Comic Book Arab
How so? The thirty Arab types the author has classified as “good” are almost without exception passive and play minor roles. They are not actively good in the same way nearly all 149 villains are actively evil. In other words, the comic book reader rarely sees an Arab “fighting the good fight.” A common portrayal of a good Arab is as a benevolent monarch who enlists the heroes' help to save his people. We see him briefly in a frame or two explaining his troubles to westerners at tale’s opening before disappearing completely until he again appears in a final frame or two at story’s end to express his gratitude. Not once did the author encounter a benevolent Arab prince leading his people into battle to fight against evil. Aman’s actions are the strongest evidence of his nature. Sadly, the few benevolent Arabs of comic books seem content to let the super heroes do all their work for them. The Arab villains, on the other hand, dominate the scenarios. Zestfully, they pursue their evil ends frame after frame after frame. They wade into personal combat against our heroes, spitting upon them and deriding them. They carry out acts of torture with Mephistophelian glee. Their features are frequently bestial, demonized and dehumanized. Their faces drip with hatred and fanaticism. They have no honor, eager to slay both soldier and civilian alike. The are megalomaniacal, with no social consciousness. They are anti-American, anti-West, anti-Israel, anti-Jewish, anti-Christian. Despising freedom and democracy, they give their allegiance to tyranny and servitude. They oppress women from all lands. They are uncouth, unclean, unkempt; their clothes soiled and too smelly even for apes. In short, as the good Arab does nothing, we feel nothing for him, but we properly despise the evil Arab for his terrible appearance, words and actions. While the author noted well over a hundred Arab villains, he noted not a single Arab hero or heroine, one that actively pursues good. Such a gross imbalance in the portrayal of an ethnic group leads to the inevitable question: Why? Why do images reveal an Iron Curtain between Arabs and Americans, a barrier unlike that in any other relationship between Americans and other peoples? What makes Arabs such attractive whipping-boys for writers and illustrators? The author feels there is no single answer to this query. Rather, the status quo is due to a number of factors. Perhaps the greatest of these is ignorance. The average American knows little about Arabs or the Arab world; those involved in the creation and publication of comic books are clearly no exception. One need only to recall the instances in Batman: A Death in the Family where Batman addresses the Arabs in Farsi. Arabic, French or English would have served Batman better. Apparently never having traveled to the Arab world these imagemakers familiarize themselves with Arabs not through personal contact, but through already pervasive stereotypes: Arabs have harems. Arabs oppress their women. Arabs are desert bandits. Arabs are fanatical terrorists. Arabs are fabulously wealthy oil sheikhs. Arabs hate America, its people, its culture, its values, etc... Imagemakers and publishers need to be made aware of the tremendous discrepancy between their Arab caricatures and reality. Herein lies the second factor for the prevalent negative images: the number of Arab-Americans is relatively few, approximately 3 million. Hence, unflattering Arab stereotypes are rarely challenged. There are few to say, “Hey, that’s not how Arabs are. Look at me. My family is from such and such a place in the Middle East, and they don’t look, or act like that.” The relative small number of Arab-Americans allows those in the comic book industry to get away with negative portrayals of their ethnic group without fear of attack. Can you imagine comic books portraying Jewish or African-Americans as they do Arabs? The industry would be rightly accused of racism. Most groups are generally well-represented in the industry. Such is not the case with Arabs, or Arab-Americans. A third factor is politics. For whatever reasons, the United States has chosen Israel as its ally par excellence in the Middle East to the chagrin of the Arab world. Perceiving the U.S. interests as being linked with Israel’s, America has in the past looked with little sympathy on Arab grievances against the West and the Jewish State. To many, if Arabs are allied against Israel then they are allied against America, and thus Israel’s enemies become our enemies. It should come as no surprise then, that we find in comic books Arabs attempting to blow up Times Square (The Punisher). Such a plot is an embellishment and extension of what is already believed to be true: Arabs would destroy Americans and their way of life if they but had the chance. Since Arabs are America’s villains in comic books, American super heroes should thrash them at will.
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