"It came as quite a shock to suddenly recognize a form of racial stereotyping that is so widespread-yet somehow invisible-and almost as old as the cinema itself. Dr. Shaheen carefully documents an astonishing array of Arab villains, sheikhs, and maidens. Highly recommended!"
John Skillin
Director, Audio Visual Services, Montclair Public Library
"This taut, well-argued analysis of ethnicity betrayed shows us the power of Hollywood's movies to miseducate the senses-and, since the senses are its gateways, to distort the soul."
Camelia Anwar Sadat
"Reel Bad Arabs performs an invaluable service by visually demonstrating the sheer volume of unrelenting negative images found in Hollywood films... Shaheen stresses that Hollywood's Arab images now seriously interfere with the ability of Americans to think rationally about the Middle East. Jack Shaheen says, 'Enough.' No sane person could disagree."
Cineaste
"One of the major benefits of the film -- and certainly, of Shaheen's approach -- is to encourage students to take their popular culture seriously and to help them recognize how easily political perspectives can be embedded into what seems to be a pure entertainment... Ours is a culture which truly needs to recognize how stereotypes are perpetuated. Almost all minority groups -- Black, Asians, gays and lesbians, Hispanics -- are examined by scholars in terms of how American popular culture stereotypes them. Often missing is a discussion of the ramifications of this stereotyping. Reel Bad Arabs does both: it explains what the stereotypes are and it challenges viewers to recognize what stereotyping can do."
Teaching Sociology
"Timely and salutary ... highly recommended for all public and academic libraries."
Library Journal
"The relentless cinematic assault on Arabs has been our culture's most insidious yet closeted disgrace-until now. [Reel Bad Arabs] casts a penetrating spotlight on the movies that have shaped our infinitely distorted and warped views of Arab and Muslim life."
Renee Tajima-Pena
Producer-Director, Sundance Award-Winning Film, My America
"The documentary successfully illustrates the racism inherent in blockbuster cinema, by using popular filmic examples to ensure the film's premise resonates with its audience... The film is subdivided into several chapters such as: Myths of Arabland; The Arab Threat: Mideast Politics & Hollywood; Terror Inc. Demonizing Palestinians & Muslims; Islamophohia; and Getting Real. In this way, audiences unfamiliar with visual media studies, or the history of U.S. international relations, receive an introduction into the highly controversial historical relationship between the U.S. and the Middle East."
Linnea J. Hussein
Columbia University
Film & History
"Jack Shaheen is a one-man anti-defamation league who has exposed Hollywood's denigration of Arabs in most, if not all, of its films."
Helen Thomas
Distinguished Journalist and Author
"Jack G. Shaheen has long been a prophet in the Hollywood wilderness, writing from carefully documented scholarship that exposes the film industry's negative portrayals of Arabs and Muslims."
James M. Wall
Senior Contributing Editor, The Christian Century
"How can one ignore this thesis given the accumulative impact of the compiled images coupled with Dr. Shaheen's commentary? Very impressive work."
Janice Welsch
Professor Emeritus, Western Illinois University
Co-author, Multicultural Films: A Resource Guide
"Jack Shaheen exposes in appalling detail this nightmare side of the Hollywood dream machine."
Christopher Dickey
Author, Innocent Blood
Middle East Editor Newsweek Magazine
"Calm, measured, fair, even-handed, and compassionate. A powerful and important film that validates the human dignity of Arabs and Muslims."
Laurence Michalak
Director of CEMAT, the Overseas Research Center in Tunisia of the American Institute of Maghreb Studies
"An excellent starting point for discussions about media representations of race, gender, and religion, the relationship between politics and entertainment media, and the effects of stereotyping."
Journalism History
