By Aaliyah Medawar
The Western Perspective
Upon the soil of the Middle East and the Maghreb, civilization was forged. Empires rose and fell upon its shores. Writing, medicine, mathematics, science, and more were innovated by its scholars. The son of God was born in Palestine, the prophet of the Lord in Saudi Arabia, and the leader of the Exodus in Egypt. Since the dawn of time, this fertile crescent, this region of creation, has been a pillar of society.
But when one thinks of this land, the gifts it has given do not come to mind. More often than not, it is remembered for the shadows upon its history, as if no other region in the world is without its share of wicked leaders and cultural flaws. To many, the first thing that comes to mind upon hearing about the MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) world is less than exemplary.
The cruel terrorist ideologies, the offensive stereotypes of ‘camel jockeys’ or ‘sand dwellers,’ the oil, the ‘uncivilized, homogenous’ culture,
the oppressed women, all thoughts of a beautiful, but not uniquely imperfect or ignorant, region are painted in a nuance-free light, for many fail to realize the ignorance of society is not a summation of the culture for which it is found it. If that were true, all Americans would be seen as members of the Ku Klux Klan or followers of bigoted politicians.
I shall not deny nor excuse the crimes of corrupt MENA governments. In Afghanistan, women are being denied the right to exist on all levels down to their very speech, and in many countries, the infection of deplorable, yet woefully rampant, homophobia and religious intolerance has spread like gangrene to its people. Colorism decrees that those of dark skin are inferior or ugly, as is anyone who does not fit a rigid ideal of femininity, be they veiled or not, leading to toxic comments about body types and removing the right of bodily autonomy to many. There are issues of patriarchy, of generational trauma, of immigrant culture, of overworking oneself, of education, and of so much more.
But I shall not sit here and condemn such a diverse and wonderful collection of cultures to a sentence of generalization, misinformation, and downright hatred. Not when I myself am among them.
This is an open letter to the American people, both those who lack the nuance to see the Middle East and Maghreb as nothing more than a land of waifs, animals, and terrorists; it is also for those who wish to learn more than the stereotypes that have been fed to them time and time again. To both, I simply say, I hope that by the end of this study, you walk away with a new perspective.
The Land of Milk and Honey
Is it any wonder why so many stories are set in the land of “al-Sharq al-Awsat” (Arabic for Middle East)? With their rich history, stunning architecture, and gorgeous landscapes, many Middle Eastern countries could serve as a visually and narratively pleasing backdrop to craft a story. Sadly, however, Orientalism often turns what could be a beautiful portrayal of a culture that, while flawed, is still worthy of respect, into a mockery full of racial stereotyping and Western assumptions.
Plenty of pieces of media are guilty of this ignorant ridicule. In films, “The Prince of Persia” and “Gods of Egypt” are very clear cut examples of this, or even beloved classics like “The Mummy.”
“Prince of Persia” began as a video game series, one that did not have a Middle Eastern director, let alone any MENA voice actors, at its forefront until this year. For decades, since its conception in 1989, white men dominated both its production and its portrayals, with no hint of any cultural consultants of non-Western origins anywhere near the project. This becomes very clear in the character design.
The Prince is very Western-looking. While the Middle East is an incredibly diverse place, full of people of all ethnicities, skin colors, and national origins, he is clearly meant to be an ideal white hero. His hair is straight, his skin is pale, and his nose bears an ‘attractive’ aquiline shape rather than an ‘ugly’ hook many people claim is characteristic of Middle Easterners. But then you see the game's villains. For the men, there are large noses, ‘Arabic’ sounding names, excessive facial hair, or grotesque body types.
Meanwhile, the women are either highly sexualized, but still ‘white’ enough, with their straight hair and idealized Western beauty standard body types, or hideous old hags who fit Middle Eastern stereotypes both in body and in morals. The love interests in the game have a similar problem, as they are white-passing, sexualized, or both. In a lot of portrayals of the Middle East, women are either these powerful femme fatales, the Circe-esque seductress-sorceresses of the Orient, or defenseless, oppressed waifs, ones who must be liberated from their culture’s wicked oppression by an equally, though differentially, tyrannical white male who happens to be conventionally attractive.
It was not until this year that diversity crept into this space. Now, the main protagonist of the game is of clear Afro-Middle Eastern descent, and an important distinction is made. The game acknowledges that there is an explicit difference between being Arab and being Middle Eastern. Not all Middle Easterners are Arab, but all Arabs are Middle Eastern. There are multiple indigenous groups such as the Amazigh, the Kurdish, the Copts, and the Assyrians, among many others, that have a unique culture outside of large ethnic collectives like Arabians or Persians.
That even goes for religion, as Muslims, Christians, Jews, Druze, Zoroastrians, and countless others all exist in a region mainly painted to be purely Muslim. But even those ‘broader’ factions have their own unique identities. Two non-Arab countries like Iran and Türkiye are just as distinct as two Arab countries like Iraq and Yemen, but while the latter are two Arab nations, Persian and Turkic cultures are distinctly non-Arabic speaking. Regardless, all four countries have their own individual ethnic groups within the majority, and there can be a lot of overlap with non-Middle Eastern nations.
How shocking, an Afro-Persian protagonist, written by Middle Eastern people, is better developed than a stereotypical “White Man In Arab-Seeming Clothing” despite the fact the country of origin is not even an Arabian one. His diverse ethnic origin reflects the fact that actual Middle Eastern people understand the diversity of the region they were raised in, as opposed to a collection of those with European ancestry simply using the exotic aesthetic of a ‘white enough’ culture to sell a game.
The Bible is the most famous example that shows this diversity, as it includes Moses, a prophet who would have looked Middle Eastern, and his Ethiopian wife, Tzipporah, among many other diverse examples. Though the Bible has been whitewashed front to back, due in part to paintings from the Renaissance that placed Jesus– whose true name is Yeshua– in Italy, there can be no denying that the Middle East is not simply one race. Why shouldn’t a Persian prince– whose empire once extended to Egypt, a mere stone’s throw away from the African nation of the Sudan– better reflect the culture he belongs to?
The fact that the developers took the time to portray this culture in such a meaningful way has truly made an impact. For the first time in fourteen years, this game is going to be voiced in Farsi– the language of Persia, now called Iran. In an interview conducted by the BBC, a man named Emad Saedi was interviewed about the impact of such a monumental change.
Tom Gerken, the author of the article, phrases it thusly, “Emad said it is a ‘huge step forward’ to include the language, in part because he felt Iran and Persian culture are ‘under-represented in today's world.’ ‘In a world that is saturated with Western culture content, seeing something from other parts of the world feels like a breath of fresh air, especially from a hidden gem like Iran," he said. "It feels like we are finally being seen after being ignored for many years.’”
On The Silver Screen
Sadly, however, the movie adaptation, made in 2010, shows that ‘being ignored’ is not unique, nor does “Gods of Egypt,” made six years later. Western fetishization permeates both of these films down to its very core. To begin, there are their respective casts. Only the extras seem to have any MENA origins, and more often than not they are simply what is known as Fellahin– peasants– ones with no lines, no memorable characterization, or even enough screen time to truly count as positive representation. The same goes for the film “The Mummy.” While I personally love the movie, there can be no denying that its portrayal of the Middle East is not the most forgiving.
Having ‘poor-seeming’ MENA extras is not a problem given the historical contexts of the films, but there are no other social classes these actors portray. Across the board, any trace of true Middle Eastern origin is associated with filth, poverty, and crime, given the appearance of pickpockets and brutes in the crowds. The fact that in all three of these movies there are little to no central characters played by people of Middle Eastern origin is no help either. There are none in the Prince of Persia, nor in Gods of Egypt.
Meanwhile, in “The Mummy,” there are only four Middle Eastern actors. One is Oded Fehr, a man from Israel whose family is described as being “European Jewish.” Two others are Omid Djalili and Mohammed Afifi, an Iranian– a culture which is distinctly not Arabian due to its language family and ethnicity– and Moroccan duo who play the vile, “very good time” chanting, Warden Gad Hassan and the imbecilic Hangman he converses with during the attempted execution of Rick O’Connell. The final one is Aharon Ipalé, a Mizrahi, meaning both Arab and ethnically Jewish, man who plays the Pharaoh Seti I– a stern man who gets murdered on-screen after having around a minute of screen time in the first movie and maybe one or two minutes more in the second.
The issue is not the diverse cast. As I mentioned, the Middle East is not a homogenous region. The occasional pale Greek or Roman in a historical setting is not inherently anachronistic. The Mummy is set in 1925, meaning the presence of French, English, Spanish, or even German influence is not the end of the world. I myself have Egyptian, Lebanese, and Armenian origins, though my DNA shows I am French as well due in part to the fact France once “owned” the countries my family is from. This non-MENA influence extends the appearance of those with African ancestry. Chadwick Boseman and Steve Toussaint’s roles of Thoth and Seso are not at all inaccurate, nor should they be treated as such.
But a line must be drawn. Why is the Egyptian priest Imhotep– who was a real, non-cursed, ancient Egyptian academic who helped the Pharaoh Djoser maintain a reign of economic and social stability– played by a South African, Dutchman? Why is his lover Anck-su-namun Venezuelan? Why are the only Middle Eastern actors regulated to a few minutes of screen-time, death, or a role steeped in outdated, overused, and offensive stereotypes? In “Gods of Egypt” and “Prince of Persia” alike, the protagonists are conventionally attractive white men, while their supporting casts are made up of non-Middle Eastern actors. For “The Prince of Persia,” it is majority white, but “Gods of Egypt” seems to have every race other than the one it uses the cultures of. Elodie Yung, who in the movie plays Hathor, is French and Cambodian, while Set is King “This Is Sparta!” Leonidas himself, Gerard Butler.
Claiming that the Middle East is simply one culture with one people, all of whom are either stupid, ugly, violent, oppressed, or sexualized, is illogical, reductive, and cruel— both to the diversity they are trying to erase in the Middle East and other, less ‘popular’ cultures that could have their stories shared to the world. Jada Pinkett Smith’s Cleopatra ‘biography’ misrepresents a Greek Ptolemaic queen, when in reality there are plenty of black noblewomen to tell the stories of. This occurs both in Egypt, as is the case with the Kushite queen Amanirenas (as Egypt and Kush had a close political history for millennia, and Kushite rulers once controlled all of Egypt from the 8th to the 7th century BC as well as founded the 25th dynasty of Egypt), who fought— and won— against Roman invaders and kept her kingdom independent, and elsewhere, like Nzinga of Ndongo and Matamba (now Angola), who valiantly defended her people from the Portuguese empire’s attempts at colonization. But instead of sharing a lesser-known story, she simply rehashed a queen that she changed to fit her narrative. There are countless queens, both the ones I have mentioned, along with the countless others that exist out there, she could have brought attention to, as they would be real examples of the message she was trying to send.
Meanwhile, on the opposite side of the “all one race” spectrum, there seems to be an insistence on having white actors like Italian-ancestry having Alfred Molina, who plays Sheikh Omar in “The Prince of Persia” and an extra in Indiana Jones, be spray-painted brown to pass for an Arab. In Molina’s case, this has been done multiple times, both in the case of a Persian Sheikh and as an extra in Indiana Jones— which also features a character like Sallah, a heroic, kind, archaeological genius who has the added “benefit” of being played by the Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies, also known as Gimli from “Lord of the Rings.” Regardless of what side these inaccuracies are on, the fact remains that the Middle East should not be a playground for Westerners to arbitrarily assign their own perceptions.
In 1976, a movie by the name of “The Seven-Per-Cent Solution” was released. This pastiche work of Sherlock Holmes followed the famed consulting detective seeking treatment for his cocaine addiction by Sigmund Freud in Vienna. In the original book, the plot is simple; a German baron swaps out his young stepmother for an actress to gain control of her fortune and manufacture weapons. But in the movie, this is forgone in place of a bizarre, racist, portrayal of the Middle East. Instead, the baron is selling his lover to a Middle Eastern mogul, known as a pasha– a high-ranking status in the Ottoman Empire, who seeks to put her in a harem in exchange for paying off the baron’s debts because he has a fetish for white women with red hair. It is not clear if he is Arab, though his guards do yell in the language, or Turkish, as his culture is simply one hodge-podge of Middle Eastern aesthetics.
The writers and director went out of their way to be racist. There was not even a tinge of Middle Eastern influence in the original text, but like the villains in “The Prince of Persia,” ‘Arab’ seeming cultures are a convenient scapegoat for an ‘easy evil,’ even if it makes no logical sense. Why is an Arabian lord in Austria? While the wealthy can travel, would it not be simpler to have a German villain in a Germanic setting? Or is it too controversial to have a white man be the bad guy when you can use the commodity of a foreign aesthetic for both visual interest and easy characterization?
They’re Arab! Of course they would be the fat, greedy, unattractive, sexually perverse villain! Why would an audience need to question it? Nevermind the fact that this movie is set in a time where World War I was impending, meaning a scarred, though still conventionally attractive, German villain would not only be geographically fitting but serve as commentary on how money, not people, are more important to wealthy elites during a time where countries were sacrificing their young men to a cause fueled by nationalism and imperialism.
It does not help that not even a year later, another Holmes pastiche, “The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as We Know It,” was released. Originally intended as a comedy, this modernized John Cleese-lead film opens with a man named Dr. Gropinger, who is a caricature of the much disliked Henry Kissinger, heading to the Middle East on a goodwill tour. However, as he has lost his agenda and has no idea what country he’s in, he greets the stereotypically portrayed Arab crowd in Hebrew and is unceremoniously shot dead. Not only are their appearances rooted in bigotry, be it their haphazard keffiyeh headpieces or obnoxious facial hair, but their actions are disgusting. Arabs kill a man because he speaks to them in Hebrew.
Rather than acknowledge the flaws of a religiously intolerant society, which given England’s Protestant history of Catholic executions and discrimination against anyone remotely non-white (or white but non-English for that matter) is a touch of ‘pot calling the kettle black,’ they poke fun at the fact “Arabs hate Infidels (particularly Jews or Christians).” Many Arabs are Jewish. The same goes for other religions. When Armenia, the first Christian nation, was undergoing the horrific events of the Armenian Genocide in 1915, it was Palestine, a majority Muslim country, that gave them refuge, so much so that the two countries continue to find solidarity in one another to this day. While there are many people in the Middle East who are bigoted, the Western world seems to forget that not all of them are– and many are in fact minorities, be it of gender, sexual orientation, creed, or color, that are spoken about in such derisive terms.
Hospitality is an intrinsic part of Middle Eastern culture. Be it calling family friends ‘uncle’ or ‘aunt’ or the fact that groups like the Bedouins, a nomadic culture well known throughout various MENA nations for their survival skills and generosity, have been famed for treating those they come across in the desert with the kindness of kings since Biblical times and beyond, saying that the Middle East is this purely hateful, xenophobic place is looking upon the love that this culture prize and spitting upon it. Only, rather than use saliva, it seems that many countries, be it the United States in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan or otherwise, prefer to use bombs instead.
Even before the 70s, the Middle East has been simply a set piece, not a fully formed culture, to the West. The 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia screams White Savior, as Peter O’Toole traipses about the desert with colonialist ideals guiding him to glory. “The Sheik,” made in 1921, has an all-white cast wherein an Arabian prince falls for a white woman, though languishes over the fact they cannot be together as he is Arab. But not to worry! In the end, he is ‘redeemed,’ as a well-respected Western doctor and author informs him that he is not Arab at all– but rather the son of a British father and Spanish mother who died in the desert, leaving their baby to be raised by the previous Sheik.
Unsurprisingly, the villain in “The Sheik” is an ugly brute named Omair– a white man, famous for doing blackface in the 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation,” whose face is darkened with paint as prances around in inaccurate Arab-looking garb. He is a murderous bandit, and Diana, the film’s white female lead who has a moment of feeling shame for wearing ‘Arab dress,’ is nearly raped by him. All other “Arab” characters in the film are unnoteworthy servants or a tribal chieftain who is so unimportant to the narrative that I struggle to recall what he looks like. Sadly, these are only two examples, and if I were to list the entirety of films and literature that butcher the Middle East and bathe in the blood that comes with the profit, at least two hundred and fifty more pieces of media such as this would be named.
The Pillaging of the Orient
But this is nothing new. Historically, the Middle East has always been the target of this condescending, shallow misrepresentation, be it deliberate or otherwise. In the mid-to-late 1800s, Jean-Léon Gérôme became known as one of the most famous Orientalist artists in the world. You do not have to look too deep to see that these paintings, rich in detail, were made in mean spirits. His work, The Snake Charmer, features a sexualized MENA child, ‘Arabic-looking’ writing that forms no distinct words or sentences, and yet another representation of people from this region as the “Fellahin” that has come to be associated with a diverse region.
Though he has traveled throughout the Middle East, Gérôme views it as inherently inferior to his European sentiments. Its people are impoverished, its language nonsensical, and its culture one giant smear of sex, slums, sand, and snakes. Its only use to him is for profit and his own sense of exoticism. As someone who has studied art history, this painting leaves me dumbfounded. Where is this in the Ottoman Empire? Why is a child naked? Is it because they are poor, young, or simply because they are, presumably, Arab? Snake charming is not an Ottoman practice, though it was found in Egypt. Is this Egypt? If so, why is the snake a boa constrictor, a type not found in the Middle East? And if it is Egypt, are the overt Turkish influences as a result of Ottoman influence, or was Gérôme just making it up as he did the ‘Arabic’ on the top of the canvas?
There are a plethora of paintings like this, all of which reduce the Middle East to an aesthetic that can be transmuted as needed if it makes it more palatable– or perhaps more shocking– to Western audiences. For centuries, Orientalism has been used to force down MENA cultures to please their white oppressors, and the scars still are seen to this day. Is the Middle East not the land that invented gauze– be it in Gaza, Palestine, which is now being horrifically bombed, or from the notion that it came from the Persian word Gazi or Arabic word Gaz, both meaning cloth? That gave the West its alphabet? In the Renaissance, they worshiped the Greeks and Romans, not realizing that their architecture, their gods, their cuisine, and their academia had some influence from the Middle East and vice versa.
Stuffed grape leaves– Warak Enab to the Arabs and Dolma to the Greeks– are separated only by spices, and the palmette on Greek vases most certainly came from the palms of Egypt. But only a few centuries earlier, King Richard was ransacking the Holy Land in the name of Christianity– a religion born in Jerusalem and which had been appropriated by Judea’s Roman oppressors and turned into a tool still used to this day for power, control, and greed.
Identity and Industry
But even when people want to portray the Middle East in a flattering light, some cannot bring themselves to do so. Oftentimes, those of Indian descent are used in place of actual Middle Eastern actors. A notable example is Ben Kingsley, who, unsurprisingly, played the villain, Nizam, in “The Prince of Persia” simply because he was ambiguous brown enough to pass for Arab. Not only that, but he played Colonel Behrani, an Iranian in the film “Colonel House of Sand and Fog,” an Arab ruler in a French romance film from the 80s, a Muslim inventor from the 12th century named Al-Jazari in “1001 Inventions and the Library of Secrets” (2003), and is set to play the retired Egyptian psychiatrist Ibrahim Arif in an upcoming adaptation of Richard Osman’s “The Thursday Murder Club” series.
He has also played a Jewish accountant, a South American doctor, and various other ethnicities simply because he ‘looks the part,’ not because he belongs to the culture. While he does play these roles well, as Kingsley is a phenomenal actor, would it have truly been so hard to find a skilled actor who actually belongs to the cultures that these films centered around? If their race and ethnicity is part of their character as well as how they behave– would it not be better to have someone who understands the nuances of that culture to play them?
Kingsley is British and Gujarati. He was born Krishna Pandit Bhanji. But the film industry is cruel and unsurprisingly racist. One cannot have an ethnic name, nor show their culture proudly, without ridicule and scrutiny. You have to take what you can get, and sadly, as Kingsley has said, there are not many roles for half-Indian and half-white actors. For a while, it was a purely white-dominated industry, with ancillary ‘ethnic’ characters being played by white people in makeup if needed.
The answer to solving the diversity problem should not be shoving ‘brown enough’ actors in ‘brown enough’ roles, but rather creating spaces where true representative diversity is encouraged– where Krishna Pandit Bhanji does not have to become Ben Kingsley to find a job.
Now I will not deny that Middle Eastern cultures do not often encourage their children to become actors. As a second-generation American, I cannot deny this. Doctor, Lawyer, Engineer. I am sure many people, Arab or not, have heard a parent or grandparent put these careers forward, as they are the only ‘respectable,’ and more importantly well paying, jobs out there that can bring prestige to a finally. Reputation is important in cultures like mine, and one must often play politics with their families as a result, especially if said family are immigrants who have left hardship. Of course they would want you to be successful, so they fled to a foreign country with only “three dollars in their pocket” (as my family has claimed) and a dream of a better life. My grandfather jumped a boat to get to the United States, he wanted my father to join the family business of construction and was livid when he did not. I could only imagine how conflicted he would have been if my dad became the next Omar Shariff.
However, this is something that the next generation should take responsibility for. Following our dreams means taking risks, and if one wants to become an actor, they should be willing to make the sacrifices that come with it, as reaping the rewards can make it all worth it. Comedians like Ramy Youssef, who played the character Ramy Hassan in his Hulu comedy series “Ramy,” had upbringings like this, but it was through taking chances that he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a Peabody Award in 2020, as well as received nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards. Hollywood’s claim of ‘there are not enough MENA actors’ is not only false but also not impossible, as many are out there simply waiting to be discovered.
Cultural Confusion
But somehow, Hollywood thinks that conflating two cultures is a viable solution. I am not just speaking of The Mummy’s Erick Avari, who plays Dr. Terence Bey, an Egyptian– though his Arabic is hard to understand if not actually not Arabic at all– curator of the Cairo Museum of Antiquities, despite being Indian. Though his line of “Sons of the Pharaoh!” has become my favorite substitution for a more vulgar expletive, there is a far worse offender than a one-off ‘brown enough’ character in an already predominantly white film.
I am speaking of a party far more guilty, that being both adaptations of Disney’s “Aladdin.”
The fact it is actually pronounced Allah-ah-deen (meaning “nobility of faith” hence the distinct use of ‘Allah’) speaks enough to this fact, as regardless of whether it is live-action or animated, Disney’s portrayal of the Middle East is as culturally confused as a French man in lederhosen. In the original animated media, the only major person of color in the cast is Jasmine’s actress Lea Salonga, and she’s Filipino. While I adored Robin Williams’ portrayal of the genie, the rest of the film has troubling stereotypes. There is a brothel-harem (which in actuality simply refers to a secluded part of a Muslim household where women gather due to the gender roles of MENA cultures), men who threaten to cut off limbs, police brutality, the corrupt and perverted Jafar (as he, like Jaffar in “The Prince of Persia,” is a caricature of an Arab man), an idiotic sultan, and so much more that would make many MENA viewers exchange looks.
Aladdin being a thief with a heart of gold is not a problem, nor is Jasmine, as she is a strong character with good morals. But when the movie’s main song mentions how the fictional city of Agrabah is a place “Where it's flat and immense and the heat is intense/It's barbaric, but hey, it's home” (which was originally “Where they cut off your ear/ If they don't like your face/It's barbaric, but hey, it's home”), how caravans of camels roam, and how Prince Ali has “slaves, servants, and flunkies (proud to work for him),” you tend to take notice of the more offensive parts.
The culture they show in “Aladdin” is no help either. Once India, specifically Agra (one “bah” short of being the name of the main setting) as the Sultan’s castle bears an eerie resemblance to the Taj Mahal, is meshed with MENA culture, whilst the MENA culture in question is in a primordial soup of concepts. I could not safely tell you if this is Arab, Turkish, Iranian or anything other than a headache to try to pinpoint. The names are no help either. Jasmine, or rather Yasamin, is Persian, Aladdin and Jafar are Arabic, and the Genie is an anglicization of the Arabic word Jinn– which refers to a morally gray spirit from pre-Islamic cultures, which is still found in the MENA world today.
The live-action version has only one merit to its name over the animated version. It has Middle Eastern actors. Mena Massoud, who plays Aladdin, is Egyptian. Marwan Kenzari (Jafar) is Tunisian. Nasim Pedrad (Dalia, Jasmine’s attendant) is Iranian, as is Navid Negahban, who plays the Sultan. Even minor characters, like the guard Hakim, have MENA actors, as the man in question is played by Numan Acar, who is Turkish. But once again, Middle Eastern and Arab culture has no distinction, and Indian actors are still thrown in the place of MENA ones. There are a few minor characters of this ethnicity, and Jasmine herself is played by Naomi Scott, who is Gujarati. While Jasmine is still strong, she is not played by a woman who shares the ethnicity of her character.
While I am not a fan of Disney’s live-action remakes for several non-MENA concerns, I think this one stings the hardest. I do not look Arab. I have my European mother’s complexion. But I can only imagine how many little MENA girls are out there looking for princesses who look like them, only to have them be played by people who are not them. One cannot simply look at one’s skin and say ‘good enough.’ A person can bring a culture to a character in such subtle ways that only those who “get it” get it. But not only is casting Indian and other ‘non-descript brown actors’ hurting the MENA community, it is hurting Indian people all the same. Why should their culture be a commodity too? Why do we all have to be interchanged in one Orientalist hot pot? Can’t these cultures be looked at beyond appearance? Can’t people try– just try– to see that a culture is not simply an aesthetic one can take off at will?
How much longer will this smudge of ethnicity– where Asian blends with Middle Eastern– plague the state of media? When can we be free?
The Impact on Reality
Whether it is paintings, books, or film, this is a problem. Statistics show that in the media, the Middle East is hardly touched upon meaningfully. An article by The Nerdist describes this, stating: “Founded by Azita Ghanizada, the MENA Arts Advocacy Coalition (MAAC) fights for the advancement and visibility of Middle Eastern and North African performers in film and television. In 2017, the organization did a study on the representation of MENA characters in Hollywood. The study found that 92% of all scripted shows had absolutely no MENA representation. Among the few that did, an astounding 78% of characters from the Middle East or North Africa were portrayed as trained terrorists, agents, soldiers or tyrants.”
To the Western world, MENA characters are either Osama Bin Laden, the battered wife, or the exotic temptress. When one thinks of a terrorist, they think of a Muslim, especially after 9/11. Islamophobic hate crimes are on the rise, some extending to people who are Middle Eastern– but not Muslim– or even Jewish. People just want to hate. Hate is profitable, especially for the elites, as if everyone is too distracted with hating others, they will not notice all the injustices being enacted against them. It does not matter how or who, if you are “the other” or can be made one, you are prime to be a lightning rod of discrimination. You are only as white as they want you to be.
For the MENA world, this manifests as the West needing their land for oil and using the bigotry of corrupt powers in the Middle East to create their own. Edward Said, author of the 1978 publication of “Orientalism” describes it as such, “So far as the United States seems to be concerned, it is only a slight overstatement to say that Moslems and Arabs are essentially seen as either oil suppliers or potential terrorists. Very little of the detail, the human density, the passion of Arab–Moslem life has entered the awareness of even those people whose profession it is to report the Arab world. What we have, instead, is a series of crude, essentialized caricatures of the Islamic world, presented in such a way as to make that world vulnerable to military aggression.”
How many must suffer to further this selfishness? How many slipshod portrayals of the Middle East must we endure? When will it end?
Modern MENA Voices
I cannot answer these questions, but what I do know is that people are fighting back. In recent years, there has been a surge of positive MENA portrayals beyond the remake of “Prince of Persia.” In 2006, “Night at the Museum” was released, and it featured none other than Ahkmenrah, an Egyptian pharaoh. But unlike the countless movies that came before it, this prince was treated with dignity.
He was funny, he was regal, he was sweet, he was a charming, and attractive, young man, and more importantly he was played by Rami Malek, an Egyptian actor. “Assassin’s Creed,” the video game series, too had its moment of glory, for it released “Mirage,” a game set in ancient Baghdad. Though your character can be less than moral, given the assassin part, not every Arab character is portrayed as such, and Iraq is not this land of bombs, sand, camels, and terrorists, but a glorious kingdom, lush with plants, people, architecture, and a refreshing lack of a yellow filter over the screen to emphasize the fact it's not the West.
But MENA creators too are changing the scene. Books like Persepolis, written by Marjane Satrapi, a woman from Iran, are being published, highlighting both the beauty and the flaws of the Middle East. Through the modern medium of a graphic novel, and eventually an animated film, Satrapi tells the story of her childhood and her journey as a person, both in Iran and in Europe. It highlights the struggle between wanting to be Western and wanting to keep a hold of a culture in a time where the country said culture belonged to is being dominated by a corrupt government, whose ideals are turning men into monsters or corpses and women into either subservient wives or supporters of a regime that hates them. But it also acknowledges that this is a trend that is not unique to the MENA world. In times like these, where this trend of history is showing up everywhere, it is important to remember this.
Popular media too is allowing for MENA voices to take center stage. In Marvel’s “Moon Knight,” not only is mental illness treated with dignity, but audiences are treated to the organization’s first female Egyptian superhero, one is asked by a little girl “Enti superhero Musreya?” (Are you an Egyptian [f] superhero?) and replies in Arabic with a simple “En’a” (I am). Her name is Layla El-Faouly, The Scarlet Scarab. Played by an Egyptian-Palestinian actress, May Calamawy, Layla is unashamedly Arab. Her skin is not white, her hair is curly, her intelligence is remarkable, and her skills as a hero are astounding. She is beautiful, but not sexualized, and she reflects the diverse culture of the Middle East in a revolutionary way. Layla speaks French, highlighting the colonial past of Egypt, but she also knows both Arabic and Ancient Egyptian, showing her connection to her culture and its rich history.
But in an act that spits in the face of both Western and Eastern racism, Layla is an Arab woman married to a Jewish man. It is not clear if she is Muslim, Coptic (a branch of Christianity in Egypt), a follower of the Kemetic pantheon, or even some form of atheist or agnostic, but what is clear is she is not Jewish and married to a Jewish person. In the Middle East, even in the West, this is something that is monumental. John Cleese’s film showed hatred, but here there is only love. Layla loves Marc Spector, aka Moon Knight, and the alters that are a part of him (as he has DID due to his abusive childhood). His religion, his mental health, even his superhero status do nothing to deter her from loving him as an equal partner. She is not a subservient waif. She is not a provocative siren. She is simply Layla El-Fouly.
Though views on the Middle East are changing, the battle is yet to be won. It is important for us as a society to acknowledge the past so that we may move on to a better future. Through research, understanding, and empathy, the public perception of this region can become something more than shallow stereotypes and half-baked misunderstandings. Perhaps, with enough people on the side of the people, rather than the governments that seek to manipulate the world’s attitude towards such things, the support can allow for those in the Middle East to demand more, for their education, for their women, for their rights, for their lives. Education is the key to progress, for it is emotional and intellectual strength that can propel us to be our best and fight for those who need it. The spark is already there but it will take a lot of fuel to turn it into a flame. One day, I know that it will become an inferno.
“No human relation gives one possession in another—every two souls are absolutely different. In friendship or in love, the two side by side raise hands together to find what one cannot reach alone.”
― Kahlil Gibran
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