Arabs and Muslims in the Media

by Alsultany, Evelyn

• ISBN13: 9780814707326
• ISBN10: 0814707327
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-08-20
• Publisher: New York Univ Pr

Summary

After 9/11, there was an increase in both the incidence of hate crimes and government policies that targeted Arabs and Muslims and the proliferation of sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media. Arabs and Muslims in the Mediaexamines this paradox and investigates the increase of sympathetic images of "the enemy" during the War on Terror. Evelyn Alsultany explains that a new standard in racial and cultural representations emerged out of the multicultural movement of the 1990s that involves balancing a negative representation with a positive one, what she refers to as "simplified complex representations." This has meant that if the storyline of a TV drama or film represents an Arab or Muslim as a terrorist, then the storyline also includes a "positive" representation of an Arab, Muslim, Arab American, or Muslim American to offset the potential stereotype. Analyzing how TV dramas such as West Wing, The Practice, 24, Threat Matrix, The Agency, Navy NCIS, and Sleeper Cell, news-reporting, and non-profit advertising have represented Arabs, Muslims, Arab Americans, and Muslim Americans during the War on Terror, this book demonstrates how more diverse representations do not in themselves solve the problem of racial stereotyping and how even seemingly positive images can produce meanings that can justify exclusion and inequality.

Author Biography

Evelyn Alsultany is an Associate Professor in the Program in American Culture at the University of Michigan. She is co-editor of Arab and Arab American Feminisms and of Between the Middle East and the Americas. She is also guest curator of Reclaiming Identity: Dismantling Arab Stereotypes (www.arabstereotypes.org).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. ix
Introduction	p. 1
Challenging the Terrorist Stereotype	p. 18
Mourning the Suspension of Arab American Civil Rights	p. 47
Evoking Sympathy for the Muslim Woman	p. 71
Regulating Sympathy for the Muslim Man	p. 100
Selling Muslim American Identity	p. 132
Epilogue	p. 163
Notes	p. 179
Bibliography	p. 205
Index	p. 221
About the Author	p. 227
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