MUSLIM IN MOVIES: THE HOLLYWOOD CONSTRUCTION

Abstract

The pages of history communicate that the conflict and military confrontation between Islam
and West traces back to era of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in the seventh century and run
through the Byzantine Empire, the Crusades, the Spanish re-conquest, the fall of
Constantinople, the era of colonial and national independence, cold war era, post-cold war
era and above all after the incident of 9/11. There is a general perception as it is claimed that
mainstream media of west and US have been disseminating false information about Islamic
world since several decades. It is said this anti-Islamic campaign has reached to enormous
proportion with the demise of communism. As Trinka James has mentioned in her article that
analysts, in Islamic world believe that negative image of Islamic world is primarily a
conspiracy of American foreign office to invent a new bogy and enemy to fill vacuum created
by the collapse of Soviet Union and worldwide dissipation of communism, particularly after
demise of communism in former USSR. Apart from the role played by mainstream print or
electronic media in cultivating negative political indoctrination into minds of common man,
the big silver screen of cinema powered by Hollywood movies have been projecting
misrepresentation of Muslims. Islam and Muslim world as it has been substantively endorsed
by several researchers especially after 9/11. Consequently, due to distorted images, developed
and manipulated by the mainstream mass media with the help of different genres including
Hollywood Movies which projected anti Islam narratives by utilizing numerous technique of
propaganda, Islam is the name of negativity in the west.

This research is carried out at showing how Hollywood is constructing Muslims and Islam in movies. To analyze whether the Muslims
are constructed in a binary fashion under the orientalist perspective. The aspect of their
portrayal i.e. social, cultural and political. What moral, social and human values that are
associated with Muslims as individual and Islam as religion. The research was carried out
through content analysis. Quantitative technique and purposive sampling was selected by
selecting six Hollywood movies of 2012-2014 in which Muslim and Islam image was spoiled.