Tired Trope: The Untrustworthy Arab
Tired Trope: Untrustworthy Arabs
Hello, I'm back to drag a trope that Hollywood and mainstream western media loves to recycle: the untrustworthy Arabic character.
With western, English speaking media, there isn't a whole lot of choice when it comes to seeing diversity among characters or even the cast. If you like the action genre like I do, there's even less diversity plus the fact that the characters tend to fall into one of two roles, heroes or villains.
Guess which one Arabs and MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) fall into? Usually the baddies.
But there's a baddie adjacent trope Hollywood loves also! Even in the few instances when the Arabic character is technically a good guy, they are shown as the untrustworthy Arab.
The untrustworthy Arab trope frames the Arabic or MENA character(s) as baddies/villains from the white western character's POV, later revealing them to be a good guy and/or have been the good guy all along.
Usually this Arabic character still dies onscreen and the white good guy character then mourns their death, thus getting more Man Pain points for the plot and spurring him onto the finish.
(Yes, usually Man Pain comes from when The Woman Dies.)
Let me show you a few examples of the untrustworthy Arab. Will contain minor spoilers for Knightfall (2017) and Escape Plan (2013).
Example of the untrustworthy Arab trope: Raved
I watched Escape Plan (2013) on Netflix recently and I noticed that one of the prisoners, Raved, is played by Faran Tahir who also played Raza in Iron Man 1 (2008), memorable as the only MENA baddie of the movie who gets to speak any English lines.
Dies horribly, of course.
Still from Iron Man 2008: Why is there still a yellow filter even in a cave? Someone ban Hollywood from using yellow filters.
My thought process watching Escape Plan was:
Oh, look, that's the baddie from Iron Man 1, and he's playing another baddie here.
Oh, cool, he's joining the good guys.
Ugh, he's going to die, isn't he?
Oh, he's dead. (Sigh.)
Still from Escape Plan (or, my three emotions watching this movie).
So that's how the trope works, and it happens a lot in western media. It's annoying because it means when watching any movie/show, you can bet money on which character will die by their ethnicity, and MENA characters seem to be top of Hollywood's must die list because they're usually Bad Guy coded.
We could make a Scream-esque parody movie about those tropes. (Give me money, I'll make it.) It's not good enough, Hollywood. Not only is it racist but it's become so stale to show MENA as baddies or terrorists only (hard side eye at Wonder Woman 1984) that it makes for piss-poor storytelling. It's 2021, can't we move on from tired old tropes now?
Another example for the untrustworthy Arab is in Knightfall, and I'll go into more depth with this show because there's more to say.
I watched both seasons of Knightfall recently (don't judge, lockdown is hard) originally from The History Channel, now on Netflix. By the way, don't bother with season 2 if you want the MENA characters, there are none. Season 2 is for Mark Hamil fans only, I've decided, especially if you want to hear hints of his Joker voice coming through.
Season 1 of Knightfall starts with a short scene showing the siege of Acre, Jerusalem, 1291. It shows a band of Knights Templar (Christian warrior monks, usually Caucasian) fighting their last stand as a unit against the invading Mamluk army (this is the Arabic speaking, Ottoman adversary to the Templars, and thus are assigned the bad guy role in this series) before fleeing Acre.
This is when the Christian hold over Jerusalem is lost, and the Templars return to France.
And, look, I admit I'm guilty of seeking out Templars in media because I know there's a good chance I might get some Muslim or MENA characters somewhere. This show had quite a few, and at least 2 supporting characters with a decent amount of scenes and lines.
Character 1: Draper (good guy coded)
Draper, a MENA character in natural lighting with no yellow filter. Let's bask in this glory for a second, before realising he's shown this way because he converted to Christianity, lol.
Draper is played by British-Iranian actor Nasser Memarzia. So a MENA actor playing a MENA character, yay! This already is rare, so I was happy to see this character onscreen.
Draper is a doctor/healer, shown to be a voice of reason and kindness among the Templars. I did like Draper, and I liked that he had facial hair (although all the dudes have facial hair in this period, and his hair is light/grey) while also being 'a good guy'. Usually MENA + facial hair/beard = bad, so I do like to see a good guy MENA with facial hair.
What I wasn't so keen on was Draper only being shown as a good guy because he was now Christian (I'll have to take my crumbs when I can get them, I suppose), and season 2 killing him off swiftly for no good reason (sigh).
So if you want to watch Knightfall for Draper, only watch season 1.
Now for the other side of the coin...
Character 2: Rashid (the untrustworthy Arab)
Rashid. No yellow filter, but he has to remain in the shadows at all times despite his squad literally being called The Brotherhood of Light. Lol, the irony.
Obviously the imagery is shadowed and dark most of the time because he's Muslim and bad guy coded, insert long sigh here.
Rashid is played by Akin Gazi, a Turkish Cypriot British actor. So again, at least we have a MENA actor playing a MENA character.
Unlike Draper, Rashid doesn't appear at the start of the season (unless you count a brief flashback) he appears at the end of episode 5 and has his first speaking lines in episode 6.
Episode 6 very much frames Rashid and his squad of Saracens (The Brotherhood of Light) as The Bad Guys as they indulge in a fair bit of torture for the lead Caucasian character, Landry.
(Can't say I cared that much about the 'hero' being tortured because Landry had annoyed me so much all season and I was ready to throttle him myself. The show could be renamed Landry's Bad Decision Making and it would be more accurate.)
Anyway, back to Rashid.
That stupid yellow filter for any Arabic desert scene. How I loathe yellow filter.
So all this sets up the Saracens (aka Arab/MENA/brown people) as the baddies/villains, playing into the racism of a mostly white audience no doubt. We've even seen the white Templars capture and kill one of the Saracen soldiers by this point, and the audience is steered into not feeling any sympathy because he's viewed by the Templars as 'infidel' and 'enemy', etc. This all leads further into sowing mistrust of the MENA characters, setting them up as pantomime villains.
A side note of interest: some episodes of the season, including Rashid's first appearance in episode 6, are directed by Metin Hüseyin, who is Turkish Cypriot British.
As with any media showing MENA, I do pay attention to the credits to see who wrote the story, who produced it, and where it was filmed. While Knightfall does have a lot of Caucasian names front and centre, there are some MENA names in there too, which is worth noting.
What unfolds toward the end of the season is that The Brotherhood of Light aren't actually the bad guys (cue white shock...!) and are on the same side as the hero Landry in his goals of protecting the show's McGuffin, the Holy Grail.
I did actually enjoy the scenes of MENA characters uniting with the Templars to fight the boss bad guys (King Philip of France and the Pope), it's just a pity that Rashid dies promptly after the grand reveal of him actually being a good guy.
That swift death is like a punch on the nose and seems so pointless, but that's all part of the trope. MENA are only fodder for the white characters' story.
My overall impression of Knightfall season 1 is: watch it if you're really desperate for MENA characters. Try not to laugh too much at the Orientalism of it all when the Brotherhood of Light show up, because it's more than a bit cringe in places.
(They reminded me of the Hassansins, pictured below in yellow filter yet again, from the Prince of Persia movie.)
What's the take away from all this?
The take away is that it sucks to see brown people, particularly Muslims in this example, portrayed only as the villains in media, or as untrustworthy and deceitful even when they're the good guys.
It's racist. It's a racist stereotype and it does harm to real people by perpetuating inaccurate bias and promoting racism toward MENA and Muslims.
And, also, the trope being overused and tired literally means that it's become predictable and boring. YAWN. Show us something else, Hollywood!
How do we fix the tired trope? Well, I keep saying:
if we had MORE diversity in media and MORE rep in general then it wouldn't matter so much if one Basic White Movie here or there had generic racist tropes because it wouldn't be THE ONLY rep we see.
So the answer is, as always, we need MORE rep and MORE diversity across the board. I want to see MENA shown as good guys without an asterisk. Just good guys, period.
~*~
See my post about Muslim good guys.
See my post about Orientalism.
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