Tired Trope: The Untrustworthy Arab
[Image: thesaurus entry for the word 'untrustworthy', next to image of fictional character Rashid from Knightfall] 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 w...