Three Films, One Spectator and A Polemic: Arab Documentaries and 'Global' Audiences - 0 views
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The world is really not a global village. It is only so for those who are able to go anywhere without visas, have almost all the world’s knowledge production translated into their language, and the most important art institutions just around the corner from where they live. The rest only live under this pretense of globalism, internationalism and many other ism(s) that conceal the way power works in the world.
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What exists is a hand-picking of a few films from all over the global south to be taken to world festivals to fulfill a quota of “world cinema,” African cinema, Arab cinema, Iranian cinema or whichever one is in vogue depending on the political climate.
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with these exhibition circuits in mind, many filmmakers consciously or unconsciously tweak their narratives to appeal to the imaginary spectators located in this ambiguous global realm. Strategies deployed include explaining that which need not be explained if the film was targeted primarily to a familiar audience (including a phrase such as “Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt for 30 years” is an example), having the film speak in a language other than its subjects’ native tongue rather than just adding subtitles, and opting for the consolidation of a narrative at the expense of maintaining the almost always deeply fragmented political nuances of their story. These strategies often result in films that are simplistic, clichéd, and politically problematic.
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TCM Explores Depictions of Arabs in Cinema in Acclaimed Race & Hollywood Initiative - 0 views
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Turner Classic Movies is preparing to launch Race & Hollywood: Arab Images on Film, a month-long movie event that focuses on the diverse portrayals of Arabs in cinema. Tuesday and Thursday nights in July, TCM host Robert Osborne will be joined by internationally acclaimed professor, author and Middle East media consultant Dr. Jack G. Shaheen to introduce a wide range of films and provide extensive insight into Hollywood's ever-changing attitude toward Arab people.
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14 TCM premieres, including the award-winning Gulf War action drama Three Kings (1999), starring George Clooney, Mark Wahlberg and Ice Cube; the romantic comedy-adventure Jewel of the Nile (1985), starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas; the Libya-set dramas Lion of the Desert (1981), starring Anthony Quinn; The Black Tent (1956), with Donald Sinden; the adventure films Tarzan the Fearless (1933), with Buster Crabbe; and the silent classic The Sheik (1921), starring Rudolph Valentino. The July lineup will also include David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia (1962), Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), Kismet (1944), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and several animated shorts featuring Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Popeye and other famous characters
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I can't say the celluloid Arab has changed. He is what he has always been - the cultural 'other.' Arabs have too often been viewed as backward, barbaric and dangerously different through Hollywood's distorted lens. Unfortunately, these stereotypes are now deeply ingrained in American cinema
Looking backwards at Muslims in Spain - Al Jazeera English - 0 views
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El Principe is a curious mix between a US terrorism series like "24" and a steamy Mexican or Brazilian telenovela. The series is entertaining, until one realises that this show is actually shaping public perceptions of Islam and Spain's Muslims, and that the six million Spanish viewers who tune in every Tuesday night take the show quite seriously.
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Viewers don't see it as a comical, distorted depiction of North Africa, but as a reliable source of information on Islamic culture and Muslim family life. In reality, El Principe is evidence of just how backwards Spain's discourse on diversity and immigration is.
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If the aim of the series was to show that being Spanish and Muslim is not a contradiction, El Principe has not been successful. The Muslim men are in effect cultural monsters. With his Armani suits and Caribbean accent, Farouk tries to portray a domineering Muslim patriarch - even ordering his sister Fatima to obey him instead of the police. This ultra-macho character, we find out, is actually sterile, yet instead of seeing a doctor, he blames his wife Leila for their infertility.
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Meet the new vanguard of Moroccan photography | Middle East Eye - 0 views
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14 emerging Moroccan photographers recently decided to form Noorseen, an art collective they hope will help them harness resources and share insights through the collaborative process
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“A lot of visible works of photographers on Morocco have similar tropes; the picturesque medina, the traditional costumes, the portrait of an elder,” says 22-year-old Noorseen member Mehdi Aït El Mallali. “We want to show the other side, which is an expression of the Moroccan youth. We show Morocco through our own eyes, as a member of this society.”
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“Throughout national and international exhibitions or festivals, the same few names represent Moroccan contemporary photography. Why can't we? Young photographers could take over, and we want to amplify our voice."
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Cinema and the Arab spring: the revolution starts here | Film | The Guardian - 1 views
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"If you want to understand the emotive universe from which the Arab spring arose, cinema is a good place to start. Look at a film like Elia Suleiman's Divine Intervention: there the director spits out an apricot pit at an Israeli tank and blows it up. The scene is both fantasy and prophecy."
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I don't think the idea of Islamic cinema even exists in the west. Islam is presumed not to have a modern culture. I'd argue it's important that these films don't insist on any kind of stylistic unity – and that in nearly all of them Islam is portrayed as quite marginal. They argue against religiosity as a determining force. They're all about change, too, about modernity, which neocons like Francis Fukuyama say the Islamic world is incapable of
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"If you want to be thought of as an auteur, you don't want to be categorised according to ethnicity or religion," Ahmad says. "By calling someone 'Islamic', you're meant to be taking away from their universal appeal."
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Liberal Islamophobia: Anti-Muslim hostility is not just a conservative phenomenon | Mid... - 1 views
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it would be wrong to view Islamophobia as a strictly conservative phenomenon. Polling data indicate that 49 percent of Democrats hold unfavourable views of Islam. Also, Brookings Institution scholar Shadi Hamid has argued that US President Barack Obama, a Democrat, holds views that amount to “Islamic exceptionalism”. Hamid argues that Obama’s statements about Muslims suggest that he is “frustrated by Islam” and that he has bought into Samuel Huntington’s “clash of civilizations” thesis
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American news media, including liberal outlets, have done a poor job contextualising stories about Muslims and Islam. A growing body of empirical research into American news media coverage of Islam reveals deeply problematic patterns - negative, stereotypical portrayals, almost no Muslim sources, and few mention of Muslims or Islam in the context of positive news. That American news outlets apply the “terrorism” description almost exclusively to Muslim-perpetrated violence cannot be lost on anyone paying attention
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while denunciations of terrorism by Muslim groups generally go unreported, Islamophobic statements drive news narratives
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Radio Beijing in the Middle East | Joseph Braude - 1 views
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The decision to expose Egyptians to the show was the outcome of a protocol signed by the Chinese government and the Egyptian Radio and Television Union (ERTU), a division of Egypt's information ministry, for the express purpose of using mass media to prepare the population for a stronger alliance between the two states. China gave ERTU the rights to the program for free and paid for the translation and overdubbing. Egyptian Information Minister Duraya Sharaf al-Din, toasting the program's premiere during a visit to the Chinese embassy in Cairo, told Chinese radio that her government wants the series to instill an emotional connection with China that will popularize political and economic ties.
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The show falls outside the news cycle and offers little entertainment value, but for the narrow purpose of inducing Egyptian and Tunisian youth to enroll in their local Confucius Institutes it strikes precisely the right chords. Young listeners in an unstable country with high unemployment hear that they can study Chinese for free and dramatically boost their job prospects. The show's guests manage to preempt defensive reactions from the kind of nationalistic listeners who would bristle at such an overture from a foreign power: They are assured that Egypt, too, is a great civilization and only lags behind China owing to its history of exploitation by the West. A step toward China is a step toward liberation and progress. Beijing comes across as a refreshingly hospitable destination for study abroad, moreover. Its people honor guests and reject the anti-Arab stereotypes widespread in Europe and the United States.
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Who listens to such a broadcast? Unlike America's Radio Sawa or the BBC from London, CRI Arabic isn't available on local radio in the region (with the exception of what appears to be a pilot project on FM radio in the sparsely populated North African republic of Mauritania). Nor does it figure prominently among Arabic stations hyped online. One finds it advertised in venues where Arabs already curious about China are likely to go. For example, the website of the Chinese embassy in Cairo features a link on its home page, while in person the embassy's cultural attaché encourages the young people he meets to tune in. Some Confucius Institute chapters also disseminate links to prospective students as a kind of audio brochure.
Boston Review - Democracy and Muslim Minorities - 0 views
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In this issue, we consider three democracies and their relationship to Muslim minority communities. Martha C. Nussbaum examines how the stereotype of the “Muslim terrorist” is further marginalizing Muslim liberals in India John R. Bowen probes how the emergence of sharia tribunals serving a Muslim minority will affect English law and women David Mikhail on what the experience of Shakir Baloch, a Muslim moderate detained after 9/11, means for the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world
Viral Syndrome: The welcome future of journalism - Al Jazeera English - 2 views
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News organisations both big and small hire these tech-savvy, often worldly young people with multidisciplinary backgrounds to ensure that, in an ever-changing media environment, their content can compete. But why is such competition necessary?
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Today's media industry is still trying to find a solid revenue model.
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In order for advertisers to get eyes on their products and services, they must turn to an increasingly sophisticated suite of - analytics tools
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Dinner with the enemy: How Egyptian drama El-Daif sparked a row over Islam and the hija... - 0 views
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El-Daif (The Guest), a new drama written by journalist Ibrahim Eissa and directed by Khalid El-Bagoury that has become both a box office and a critical hit in Egypt, while at the same time attracting controversy.
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a heated discussion about religious discourse between the younger and older man. The suitor, who appears to be highly influenced by Islamic fundamentalists, keeps engaging in arguments with Yahia, which are mostly won by the wit of the latter.
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El-Daif is set mainly in the house of Yahia, who in many ways echoes the character of writer Eissa, a journalist and intellectual known for his outspoken writings on religion.
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White masks in Tunisia - Africa is a Country - 0 views
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Despite the emphasis on the Islamic coda that prohibits discrimination against fellow black Muslims and Act 21 of the national constitution which emphasizes that all Tunisians are “equal before the law without any discrimination,” racism against its black citizens permeates the social, institutional, and political strata of Tunisia.
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“the level of interaction between Sub-Saharan in general and the Tunisian population is negligible.”
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Maha Abdelahmid, co-founder of l’Association de défense des droits des Noirs (ADAM or the Tunisian League for the Defence of the Rights of Blacks) states that birth certificates delivered to black Tunisians who are born in Djerba (in the south east of Tunisia, known for its large black community) still carry the title “freed slaves.”
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Close encounters of the Arab kind - BBC News - 0 views
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Rarely has mainstream sci-fi attempted to grapple with the complexities of the Arab world. As Lebanese Canadian sci-fi writer Amal el-Mohtar explained, the mainstream sci-fi she grew up with was "very, very white... except for the aliens, of course." Though it might at times have featured characters from ethnic minorities, rarely did it seek to positively engage with other cultures beyond exoticisation or fear-mongering.
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It might come as a surprise that one of the first sci-fi novels written was not, in fact, Shelley's Frankenstein or HG Wells' The Time Machine, but the work of 13th Century Baghdad-based writer and physician, Zakariya al-Qazwini.
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Awaj bin Anfaq is the story of a curious alien who arrives on planet Earth to observe human behaviour and finds himself perplexed by the oddities of this apparently sophisticated species. Neither is Mr Qazwini's work a regional anomaly. There are numerous examples of early Islamic sci-fi or fantasy fiction from the Arab world, not least of course, the fabulous Arabian Nights, replete with flying carpets, mystical jinn and even a little intergalactic travel.
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Saudi sitcom breaks taboos on homosexuality and Israel | Financial Times - 0 views
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produced by Middle East Broadcasting Centre, or MBC, which was brought under government control after its founder was among hundreds of royals, businessmen and former officials detained in 2017 at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh as part of an anti-corruption campaign
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a Saudi-Israeli friendship blossoming on a TV show aired by a state-controlled broadcaster immediately raised speculation that the kingdom wanted to encourage Saudis to accept the normalisation of ties with Jerusalem
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MBC has defended its decision to broach such subjects on the screen. “If the choice is between a stereotypical image of the Arab world and one where MBC shows tolerance, mutual living and meetings between religions and cultures, then so be it,” spokesman Mazen Hayek said earlier this week on the network’s Egyptian channel. “At least we would be helping to heal wounds and bring people together.”
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