Muslim portrayal in film shortly after 9/11

[Editors Note]

I wrote this essay myself. It is an original work by me. I feel the need to point this out since I get so much traffic to it from Google (probably because students need an essay on this topic or whatever). I would not have posted it in its entirety if I did not want people to read it. However, I did not include the bibliography or works cited page (I still get them confused) because I don't want out and out theft of this paper. Instead, use it to give yourself a starting point, to get you watching films you didn't know existed, or discussing films or the topics in the paper. A simple google search by an instructor will lead them to this website and many, not all but most, professors will do this basic task. Heck, they have software that does it automatically for them. Ever wonder why they want an electronic version and a hard copy? So, don't be stupid and pass this crappy paper off as your own. Use my quotes, double back on my sources, or, hell, cite me and this dumb website, but don't pretend you did the research and wrote this paper. And, if you want to be a real pal, leave a comment to let me know what you ended up doing with this essay after you found it. Thanks!

The year is 1915 the birth of feature-length cinema. Riots originating from movie theaters engulf Boston and Philadelphia (“The Birth of a Nation”). The twenty-eighth President of the United States, Thomas Woodrow Wilson, sits in a private theater in the White House to screen a new movie (“The Birth of a Nation”). Days later, the film’s promoters start a firestorm campaign claiming Wilson himself endorsed the film as “like writing history with lightning. And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true” (“The Birth of a Nation”). In Lafayette, Indiana, a white man murders a black teenager after viewing the film (“The Birth of a Nation”). This movie is credited with the birth of cinema and the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.

Flash-forward twenty years. In Germany, filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl premiers her triumphant film chronicling the 1934 Nazi Party congress at Nuremberg. Her film will become one of the top three most profitable movies in Germany for the year (“Triumph of the Will”). Her country’s leader gave his endorsement, citing the film as an “incomparable glorification of the power and beauty of our Movement” (“Triumph of the Will”). American Frank Capra called the film “a psychological weapon aimed at destroying the will to resist” and remarked that the film’s effectiveness was “just as lethal” (“Triumph of the Will”).

Since the inception of cinema, movies have contained the power to change the world. In the early twentieth century, Birth of a Nation capitalized on the red-scare and economic woes after the Great War, and the film pinned the perils of the country on civil rights and the African American community. Triumph of the Will manipulated a country savaged by a depression and demoralized from a lost war into worshiping a maniacal tyrant. In recent time, the United States created and capitalized on a fear of Muslims to stereotype and revile Arabs and Muslims in film (Akram 68). The United States and its recently jaded history with Muslims reached the zenith on September 11, 2001 when Arab terrorists murdered almost 3000 American citizens. Rather than expand and magnify more Muslim stereotypes in movies, Hollywood filmmakers are finally beginning to provide a more nuanced and temperate approach to Arabs and Muslims in films.

One of the first major waves of anti-Arab films from the United States began in the 1970s. Due in part to the horrendous handling of the oil and gas crisis by President Jimmy Carter, coupled with the Iranian hostage crisis and several airline hijackings, American sentiments to the Middle East began to falter (Semmerling “Introduction”). Several television movies were hastily produced to capitalize on the current political climate (Semmerling “Introduction”). These low budget movies portrayed the Muslim terrorists as mad beings with no discernible motive other than religious fanaticism (Semmerling “Introduction”; Akram 66). This trend continued into the late 1980s when the Soviet Union collapsed (Akram 67-69). Prior to the demise of the Red Empire, films tended to have Russian villains to counter the brave American protagonists (Mandel 20). Faced with the now inevitable, Hollywood needed a new enemy for the United States in films (Mandel 20). Enter the Arabs.

Hollywood seemed blessed that within a few years of the end of the Soviet Union, a war with Iraq was started and terrorists from the Middle East attempted to blow up the World Trade Center. Replacing the icons of Cossacks with thick accents, Hollywood melded Arabs into a faceless people from an unknown part of the world hellbent on destroying the way of life of Americans into the new archenemies of American heroes in films (Semmerling “Introduction”; Mandel 20). Considering many Americans knew little about the Middle East, Hollywood was able to capitalize on this ignorance to instill fear (Akram 67). What mattered to Americans, and what Hollywood played up, was that Arabs did not speak english, followed a different religion alien to the vast majority of the United States, and featured a wholly different culture not readily found in America (Semmerling “Introduction”). Hollywood was able to create a mythology of about Arabs and Muslims out of the void of American ignorance (Shaheen “Introduction”). By creating a basic template for Arabs and Muslims as generic villains, Hollywood could easily and readily intersperse Arabs and Muslims into any film that needed an antagonist, even those that didn’t require such a villain (Shaheen “Introduction”). Countless movies have been constructed in this manner, from Father of the Bride 2 to Back to the Future (Shaheen 193, 83). Even films that featured terrorists, and by Hollywood’s standard thereby required Arabs and Muslims, such as True Lies, Arabs and Muslims were not essential; the film The Sum of All Fears was originally going to star Arab and Muslim terrorists until pressure caused the director to switch to neoNazis as the main villains (Shaheen 500).

What seems unfortunately ironic is that the 1998 film The Siege attempted to undo many of these fears and provide a dialogue for Muslim-American relations, but instead compounded stereotypes and further degradation the image of Muslims in the eyes of Americans (Wilkins 419; Mandel 24). The film chronicles an outbreak of terrorist attacks in New York City through the eyes of Anthony Hubbard, the head of the FBI’s counter-terrorism unit. In the film, terrorists from an unknown Middle Eastern country hijack and destroy a bus full of the elderly, bomb an opera hall, and nearly blow up a school filled with children. The United States is trying to stop the terrorists by any means; the army is ordered to corral all American-Arabs into internment camps until the terrorism outbreak is cured. In the end, all of the terrorists are killed and America prevails.

The chief complaints lobbied against the film are that it continues to present Muslims in films as terrorists, gives no layered motivation for the terrorists, and it shows the United States as the morally righteous, even when breaking the rules for its own advantage (Wilkins 420; Muravchik 57). Tony Shalhoub plays muslim FBI agent Frank Haddad, partner to Denzel Washinton’s Anthony Hubbard. Other than Haddad, the other Muslims in the film are terrorists (Wilkins 423; Mandel 23). Furthermore, the terrorists in the film aren’t even given a country of origin (Wilkins 425). This detachment of the terrorists from a native country serves several purposes. The first purpose of denying the terrorists a home country is to play on the ignorance of the audience. It can be assumed that the average movie audience does not have a firm understanding of the Middle East well enough to know the countries and the precise customs found in each (Jones 17; Ebert). It should be noted that the movie was released in 1998, long before CNN and other news outlets plastered maps of Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and the region after 9/11 and the Afghan/ Iraq war. Film critic Roger Ebert remarked that the audience, who is so thoroughly uninformed or uninterested, “may even be a little restless” (Ebert). By keeping the audience figuratively in the dark, the movie is able to project whatever it desires for the homeland of the terrorists. Moreover, the lack of homeland removes possible motives for the terrorists’ actions. If the terrorists are provided a homeland, the terrorists may claim that their homeland is being threatened and should be defended. This could sway the audience into finding the actions of the terrorists to be just. The audience is never privy to the homeland of the terrorists, yet all of the major traits of Brooklyn and americana are found in the busy New York streets (Wilkins 425-426).

Religion, and the disdain to the American culture, are the sole motives of the terrorists in the film as well (Jones 17). The red herring lays with the kidnapping of a prominent Sheik by the hands of American military. The Sheik is being detained by U.S. officials somewhere in the United States, unbeknown to Hubbard and the rest of the FBI. The “demand” given to the FBI initially is to “free him”, but at the conclusion of the film, the screenplay states that the motive all along was that the United States “must learn the consequences of trying to tell the world how to live” while preaching of the virtue of martyrdom (“Siege”). Hubbard retorts “if there is a God, he weeps at the crimes we commit in his name,” which demoralizes the religious claim the terrorist was attempting to communicate (“Siege”). The scene allows the agent of the United States to win the moral argument, asserting America’s, and presumably Christian, religious fortitude. This moral high ground extends to the lone wolf Colonel who ordered the internment of the Arabs in New York City (Muravchik 58). Reminiscent to the closing of A Few Good Men, the audience may be inclined, though halfheartedly told not to, agree with the methods of the army in the pursuit of securing America, by any means necessary (Muravchik 58). Yet, it seems that this safe method of constructing Arab enemies in film would become more secure in the aftermath of September 11. In actuality, the earnest attempt of The Siege is expanding and becoming more honest. Examining the film Syriana, some of the problems that were prevalent in The Siege are addressed and corrected; Syriana provides specific locations within the Middle East, contextualizes the motives of the people in the Middle East in nuance, and gives moral ambiguity to both the terrorists and the Americans in the film (Mandel 27).

In The Siege, one of the rare moments where a location in the Middle East is named is the home country of Hassad, which happens to be Lebanon. In Syriana, numerous countries are mentioned, and not in passing. The film notes Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and other places. Moreover, and more importantly, the film depicts these locations in detail. The film opens in Iran during an investigation conducted by a CIA agent Bob Baer. The streets of the the city, the people, are presented in a naturalist manner. Contrasting the opening of The Siege, which shows goat herders, Syriana is strikingly different. Moreover, the film takes the time to show the neighborhoods of the people in the Middle East. The audience watches characters go to mosques, the market, and other habitual activities. The living barracks of the Muslim workers are shown, the surrounding environment, where they play soccer, climb an electrical tower, talk about women and comic books, where they go to school, and the radical mosque where they are indoctrinated with anti-Western, anti-Islamic religious dogma. Rather than give only passing mention to these places, or not at all, the film allows the audience to linger on these locales in a hope of providing context and history of the Muslims.

The film also gives context for the motives of the Muslims other than religious ideology. In The Siege, the primary and only substantial cause of the terrorists is strict interpretation of the Koran (Mandel 27). The terrorist preaches before his death on the virtues of martyrdom, how the Western countries are corrupt, and that death in the name of God is glory. Syriana does this to an extent, but beneath the words of the religious leaders is the economic situation that causes the Muslims to turn to terrorism and other violent activity. The future terrorists live in a work camp and are subjected to beatings by the Arab and Muslim guards who are working for rich Arabs and Americans. Capitalizing on their broken spirits, members of the terrorist organizations descend to indoctrinate the unemployed with talks of Paradise and the love of God. They are coerced to join the religious group, and only after do the religious talks become more radical, more antiWestern, and more violent. Within the religious groups that are already fractured from the mainstream do smaller groups form: the groups that will produce terrorists. In the film, there are no crazed Muslims waving guns in the air praising Allah as they are about to blow themselves into millions of pieces. The terrorists doubt and question their religion and their mission, and many moderate religious Muslims are shown in the film. The tone of religion, and its use as a motives, are very different than that in The Siege.

The moral certitude of the film Syriana is perhaps the most strikingly different than that of The Siege. In The Siege, Hubbard and the United States, sans the army Colonel, are presented as the moral beings in the movie. The United States in Syriana is just one group that is morally ambiguous. As already discussed, the eventual terrorists in Syriana are allowed to be given multiple causes and development for their motives. Economic, as well as social and religious, reasons provide context for their actions. While the audience may not agree or empathize with their plight, the movie at least gives a more earnest attempt at letting the terrorists have real motives. Moreover, the United States has several motives as well, sometimes conflicting. Rather than just being the shining light of moral example for the world to follow, much of the film shows the economic riches for the United States in the region. Economic concerns, the quest for more money, are a driving force for the Americans, and the moral compromising that encompasses this lust for wealth is presented unflinchingly. In one scene, an American’s son dies at the party of a wealthy Saudi investor. This tragedy occurs after the Saudi decided against an investment, much to the dismay of the American. Later, the Saudi changes his mind on the investment, and the American believes that it is a result of his son’s death. Knowing this reason why the Saudi changed his position on the deal, the American uses his son’s death as a gambit in new negotiations. Syriana doesn’t characterize the moment like The Siege does with the army Colonel.

Arab reaction to the film The Siege was understandably terse. The Arab-American AntiDiscrimination Committee (ADC) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) both despaired against The Siege (Muravchik 57). The film was rallied as a portrayal of “Arabs and Muslims as a homogeneous, threatening mass” that resorts to only identifying them with terrorists (Muravchik 57). The film targets the audience’s fears of the oriental Muslim customs and religion (Semmerling “Introduction”). Denzel Washington, who starred in the film, remarked that “there are Jewish terrorists but nobody would associate them with their religion,” which seems to suggest an inherent bias against Muslims and their religion (Muravchik 57). Terrorism, which has existed among the Catholics and the Jews from the IRA to Mossad, is only focused on the Arabs and Muslims (Muravchik 57). No massive rallies and public outcry to the level that The Siege received was given to Syriana upon its release in theaters.

It is difficult for this association of terrorism to be broken from Arabs and Muslims. Even in the film Syriana, which strides to rectify many of the faults of The Siege and previous films focusing on Arabs and Muslims, the movie still shows Muslims as terrorists (Mandel 27). Other movies since September 11 still do this as well. The Kingdom focuses on a terrorist bombing of Americans in the Middle East and the difficulties that are associated with investigating the bombing. Munich, which deals with Israeli’s and Palestinians, shows terrorism on both sides, and arrives at a conclusion that the cycle of violence is futile and continuous. The puppet comedy Team America: World Police adds to the terrorist stereotype by having the United States combat Middle Eastern terrorists as well.

Yet, the difference in this new wave of American-made Muslim films is the ultimate treatment of Arabs and Muslims. In The Kingdom, Americans are working alongside a Saudi Colonel to solve the terrorist bombing. In Munich, both Palestinians and Israeils are shown to be culpable in terrorism, as well as critiquing the modern American reaction to terrorism. Even Team America: World Police satirizes American perspectives of terrorists and Muslims through past movie stereotypes, as well as savagely mocking supposed moral superiority of the United States that was found in many films prior to September 11.

Just because terrorism has been closely associated with Arabs and Muslims doesn’t mean the tie must forever be severed (Jones 17). Rather, it may be a necessary transition in film and the perception of Arabs and Muslims that terrorism and its association with Arabs and Muslims be addressed. In the wake of September 11, many americans were angrily chanting the callous choruses of country western songs exuberantly showcasing the United States’ resolve to bringing justice and accountability to the people responsible for the attacks. In less than a decade, the tone of the country has shifted, and the tone of film. As the country has seen the issues of terrorism addressed in film, smaller, more personal films about the Middle East are being produced. The Namesake focuses on an Indian man and his conflicting nature of his family’s heritage when dating a young American woman. No one in that film is a terrorist.

It takes time for decades of film stereotypes to be addressed, resolved, and forgiven. The egregious mistakes of past films, such as The Siege and many others, are appearing to be addressed by important figures in Hollywood, such as the Academy-Award winning screenwriter of Syriana and the much honored Steven Spielberg. Whether or not this shift in the treatment of Arabs and Muslims in film is permanent or not is unknown. There has simply been not enough time, not enough movies made, and not enough scholarly research into this area of film to provide a clear answer as to whether or not a significant change is occurring in film. Films like Syriana, The Kingdom, Charlie Wilson’s War, and others have had little to no analytical thought given into their portrayal of Arabs and Muslims. Moreover, if this does become a permanent change in filmmaking and Hollywood’s attitude toward Arabs and Muslims, the cause of the change is unknown. Rather than being a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11, the filmmakers may be using Arabs and Muslims to create anti-War films about Afghanistan and Iraq or anti-intervention films about the Middle East.

Filmmaking undergoes a natural evolution. Yet, the response works to Birth of a Nation didn’t help end the negative portrayal of African Americans in movies or reverse the damages to civil liberties. And though greatly lessened, African American stereotypes still exist in films today. A Muslim apologist film isn’t needed either. Dances with Wolves, in its noblest attempts, still managed to offend many Native Americans with its central white protagonist and the suggestion of the end of Native Americans at the film’s conclusion. When sympathetic portrayals of Arabs and Muslims are as predominant or more so than the negative stereotypes found in past films, the evidence that a change in Hollywood filmmaking regarding its presentation of Arabs and Muslims will be clear and palpable. The course of the last several years of film suggest that the maturing of American filmmaking toward Arabs and Muslims is genuine and will continue to lessen the negative stereotypes that predominantly existed prior to September 11.

African American religion in film

[Editors Note]

I wrote this essay myself. It is an original work by me. I feel the need to point this out since I get so much traffic to it from Google (probably because students need an essay on this topic or whatever). I would not have posted it in its entirety if I did not want people to read it. However, I did not include the bibliography or works cited page (I still get them confused) because I don't want out and out theft of this paper. Instead, use it to give yourself a starting point, to get you watching films you didn't know existed, or discussing films or the topics in the paper. A simple google search by an instructor will lead them to this website and many, not all but most, professors will do this basic task. Heck, they have software that does it automatically for them. Ever wonder why they want an electronic version and a hard copy? So, don't be stupid and pass this crappy paper off as your own. Use my quotes, double back on my sources, or, hell, cite me and this dumb website, but don't pretend you did the research and wrote this paper. And, if you want to be a real pal, leave a comment to let me know what you ended up doing with this essay after you found it. Thanks!

When examining African American film, or any aspect of film, it is usually necessary to start at the beginning with D.W. Griffith’s 1915 opus The Birth of a Nation. Back during its premier, then President Woodrow Wilson praised the film with the declaration that it was “like writing history with lightning” (Greatest Films). The film sparked much controversy during its day, and resulted in at least 1 riot that left a young African American man killed (Greatest Films). Today, much of the controversy remains. The popular Web site IMDb accept user reviews ranging from 1 to 10, with 10 being the best possible score given to a movie. The Birth of a Nation averages at a 7.6/10 rating, with 26.5% giving it a 10 and a surprising 10.7% giving it a 1 (IMDb). In more prolific circles, The Birth of a Nation falls victim to divisiveness as well. In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked The Birth of a Nation as the 44th best motion picture ever (Greatest Films). However, in 2007, the list was recompiled and the influential film was not on the list, replaced by another work of D.W. Griffith, Intolerance: Love’s Struggle Through the Ages, an apologetica released after the success and criticism of The Birth of a Nation(Greatest Films). Entertainment Weekly listed the film as the sixth most controversial movie ever made. As a result, before discussing African Americans and the portrayal of African American religion in film, it is important to consider the origins of some of the racist stereotypes that shaped such portrayals in film.

The primary reason for the need to start film criticism, especially African American film criticism, with The Birth of a Nation is because of how wildly revolutionary and influential it was for film both artistically and commercially. While experimental and silent films existed long before D.W. Griffith’s masterpiece from the late 19th century, many of today’s common aspects of film are found in The Birth of a Nation. For starters, many films prior to the release of The Birth of a Nation were considerably shorter than today’s films (Greatest Films). The film was an impressive and successful three hour epic. Many common elements in the grammar of film, from the different uses of closeup shots to the inclusion of parallel action, that is a scene where to disjointed events take place at the same time, were all included (Jozajtis). It is true that many of these devices and motifs of film existed prior to The Birth of the Nation, but it was among the first to use them all in one film and to a high level of greatness (Greatest Films).

However, the film’s impressive quality and craftsmanship isn’t the only important thing about the film itself. Rather, the film’s overt racism and its box office success are just as, if arguably more, noteworthy (Weisenfeld 17). The Birth of a Nationis based off of a popular novel of the time called The Clansman written by Thomas Dixon (Weisenfeld 19). The story, in great summation, is that of the South during The Civil War and its immediate Reconstruction. Many of the film’s “black” actors are White men in blackface, which is the act of applying a copious amount of dark makeup to a pale actor to give the appearance that the actor is an African American or a dark-skinned minority (Greatest Films). But, despicable as blackface is, the most racist section of the film occurs at the climax (Griffith). Rioting African Americans are attempting to break into the home of a proper Southern family (Griffith). Help is sent to the Ku Klux Klan, and in heroic fashion, the Klan arrives in time to stop the rioters, disarm them, and disenfranchise the black vote, and ends with an image of the cross of Christ (Griffith).

The then newly formed National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, attempted to protest the film in various cities across the United States, but to little effect (Jozajtis 168). The film premiered and set records for ticket sales until 22 years later with the release of Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Jozajtis 168). African Americans detested the film, and two directors, Emmett Scott and Oscar Micheaux filmed their own rebuttals, The Birth of a Race and Within Our Gates, respectively, but with no approval from critics, them being White, and much smaller financial success (Rhodes 38). The damage had already been done, and coupling the racist imagery with the financial success of the film catapulted gross racial stereotypes into film for decades to come with “the cumulative effect of constant picturization of this kind [being] tremendously effective in shaping racial attitudes” (Weisenfeld 4). Despite the great amounts of racism existing throughout the film, it is still a technical masterwork and should not suffer any diminishment in its craft because of its racism. It would not only be unfair, but untrue, and such historical reverse analysis, such as the current diminishing of the work of the great American filmmaker John Ford, does a disservice to film analysis and discussion.

Among these stereotypes is the thread of bigotry. The brute or buck “sole aim was raping white women” (Rhodes 36). This stereotype is the one found at the ending climax of Birth of a Nation with the rioting African Americans trying to break into the house where the virtuous Southern women dwell (Jozajtis). Women received  a similar stereotype, the scheming Jezebel who would cast a “spell over vulnerable men” (Rhodes 36). What we see in these early films are two sexualized African American stereotypes that “fueled the practice of lynching, which rose to epidemic proportions in the early twentieth century” (Rhodes 36). Moreover, these two stereotypes, among all of the very first African American film stereotypes, was devoid of religion. Highlighting this lack of religion in African American film caricatures is in the name of the sexual woman stereotype “Jezebel.” The name Jezebel comes from the Bible. In Revelation, it is remarked that “You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols.” (Revelation). The African American Jezebel as such then not only is devoid of religious character herself, but is an openly threatening creature to pious practicing religious people, particularly Southerners. These anti-religious, deviant stereotypes “illustrated whites’ irrational fears of miscegenation and black liberation, and were employed liberally in early motion pictures” (Rhodes 37).

It is ironic then that African American audiences clamored for Christian, religious films. The great silent filmmaker Cecile B. DeMille’s 1928 religious classic The King of Kings played in African American theaters in Baltimore. The movie was so packed with patrons that “the theater booked it for a return engagement“ (Weisenfeld 2). The audience was “ecstatic, emotional” and “overcome by religious ecstasy” (Weisenfeld 2). As evident by the reaction, “Black audiences clearly appreciated The King of Kings” and it is with great distress that despite the love of religious films, the earlier stereotypes of African Americans in film being devoid of religion, or trivialized in “newsreels that poke fun at Negro revivals or baptisms” (Weisenfeld 2).

African Americans in film are often caricatured and stereotyped even when not maliciously intended. One of the most notorious examples is Imitation of Life, a 1934 film based on the novel by Fannie Hurst and nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture (it lost to It Happened One Night). Here is a film that tries earnestly to address the concept of race and its impact on society, but falls to the trappings of many race films before it. The film’s African American characters remain stereotypes. The young woman, Peola, is a “tragic mulatto,” who is ashamed of her mixed blood and tries repeatedly to pass herself off as white (Stahl). She is in a constant state of disconnection from society because of her lighter complexion (Stahl). The mother of Peola, Delilah, embodies the caricature of the “mammy” (Stahl). Delilah is overtly religious, overweight, and full of unembridled optimism in the face of any adversity (Stahl). Without any want, she aids her white female friend in making millions, and always remains a lower-income woman (Stahl). Delilah exists only to serve whites, not to be seen, and ask nothing in return. She is a gross envisioning of the ideal Black person and presented as the model of behavior to solve racial issues.

The aspect of religion underwent a transformation in the film, at least. In older films of the twentieth century, African Americans in film are portrayed as barbarous and primitive in their concept of religion (Rhodes 36). This misconception can be traced to religious and philosophical examination of Africans in general (Mbiti 10). European scholars, through a Western heliocentric perspective, viewed African religion as a simple, primordial run of religion on an evolutionary ladder (Mbiti 10). Africans would exist in a stage where their religious beliefs would be viewed as “polytheistic”, and not yet matured to the “superior” form of monotheism (Mbiti 10). Africans, according to some scholars, had many gods that existed in all forms of life, from rocks to trees to animals to humans (Mbiti 10).

This notion, however, was incorrect and Africans, much like the Europeans, believed in a centralized concept of God (Mbiti 34). To the Africans, God existed beyond any concrete definitions of time and space, and was the creator of all (Mbiti 34). God was omniscient and all-seeing. However, one of the central differences was the pervasiveness of religion in the life of Africans. For Africans, religion and spirituality is inseparatable from daily life (Mbiti 35). It is in this aspect that Europeans misinformed values became to being. What European scholars saw as worshiping of inanimate objects and many gods, Africans regarded as carrying their religious beliefs into their work and everyday life (Mbiti 35).

It is no surprise that in these misconceptions that African religion in film is often trivialized and reduced to caricatures. Africans are reduced to dancing around fires, singing, and pagan worshipers. For its benefit, in Imitation of Life, Delilah is at least a Christian with no “lesser” form of religion than those of the white counterparts in the film.  Her death in the film is treated with a massive funeral with much song and love and joy. Nevertheless, her religion is used to present her as an idealized form of the African American to white audiences looking for docile interaction between the races.

This is akin to the use of religion by slave masters during slavery. Once, slave masters were reluctant to bring religion to their slaves fearing insurrection (McDowell). By teaching them the tenets of Christianity, as well as sharing stories of slave rebellion as notable in Exodus, masters feared their slaves would rise up and revolt (McDowell). Once Christianity did enter the lives of the slaves, masters would manipulate the teachings to suit their needs (McDowell). Masters would instruct slaves that it would be goodly Christian to be docile and obey commands, and that while they may have a hard life, they shall be rewarded in the afterlife (McDowell). Frederick Douglass would remark that even the most religious slave owners were the cruelest to their slaves (McDowell).

Another example of African American religion in film can be traced to the 1943 William Wellman classic The Ox Bow Incident. In this film, the African American character is presented as weak by cause of his religion (Wellman). The African American is marginalized and de-empowered by his religion for resisting a lynching of a white man accused of stealing cattle (Wellman). The African American is the only religious person in the crowd and is the only one calling for a pardon, however he is not presented as pious or a model of behavior, but weak for asserting the notion of religious resistance (Wellman).

Not all Hollywood films stereotype and demagogue African American religion. Spike Lee’s Malcolm X demonstrates the transformational power of religion. In the film, Malcolm Little is a thief and despot womanizer until his arrest (Lee). He exists as a criminal and a scoundrel for the first part of the film. After his arrest and incarceration, Malcolm is introduced to religion, specifically Islam. After his conversion, he becomes a wholly new individual (Lee). No longer a liar, Malcolm seeks truth (Lee). No longer submissive to his white oppressors, Malcolm is resilient and proactive (Lee).

It is during this transformation that he champions the cause of Black equality through the teachings of the Nation of Islam. A tireless worker within the church, Malcolm struggles to help the people around him. However, the film, being based on actual events, does not exist in only such simplistic terms. Rather, Malcolm observes the Nation of Islam to be corrupt (Lee). Blacks and whites, Islam and Christianity, are both fallible and susceptible to evil (Lee). Malcolm leaves the church to find a more purse sense of being religious and spiritual free from the chains of the organized Nation of Islam (Lee).

When he returns from his pilgrimage to the Middle East, Malcolm is changed once again. He is willing to be a martyr for his cause. During his trip, Malcolm learns new levels of tolerance, finding that both Black and white men can believe in similar goals and ideals; both can be members of the same religion and church (Lee). As such, the audience has seen the power of religion to transform a criminal into a crusader, the danger of religion in corrupting its church officials as in The Nation of Islam, and the salvation for those that look deeper into the meaning of a religion to learn tolerance of others (Lee).

Following this idea of connectivity through religion, the movie Glory continues the portrayal of African American religion in film. Heading the all Black military regiment, 54th Massachusetts Regiment, Thomas Searles enlists, and as a result, is not allowed to fraternize with his once friend and now commanding officer Robert Shaw (Zwick). However, the timid Shaw warms up to his position and historical chance of equality at Christmas when Thomas says “Merry Christmas” one listless night (Zwick).

Some criticism has been lobbied against Glory. Mainly among the complaints is the fact that the film, a story about the first all Black military regiment, is told through the eyes of a white protagonist. While it is true that a radically different story would arise from the same scenario being told by an African American director with a main African American character, one could argue that the intent of the film is to show the transformation that the regiment had on white people, specifically Robert Shaw. It is in this respect that such a criticism should not weigh down an otherwise sound movie. To make this point through another example, the movie Schindler’s List can be examined. Not an African American film, the Academy Award winning opus of Steven Speilberg entrenches itself in the midst of the Holocaust with the jewish quote from the Talmud "Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire" (Speilberg). Rather than tell the story completely form the point of view of a Jew, it is important to have the righteous man, Itzhak Stern, save the one life, the moral life of Oskar Schindler, who saves the world entire, the Schindler Jews, while at the same time showing Schindler’s failure to save the moral life of the Nazi Goeth (Speilberg). Both examples show the criticism against Glory for its outsider protagonist as trivial.

The practice of music with African American religion is also explored within the film Glory. A pivotal scene in the film takes place near the final battle. On its eve, the African American soldiers gather around a fire to sing spirituals (Zwick). Song has been a great part of the African American religious experience (McDowell). During slavery, Africans communicated through song and expressed their discontent lyrically most notably because of the lack of reading skills (McDowell). The film examines this issue, and among the singing and spirituality, the African American soldier most resilient to his situation, played by Denzel Washington, breaks down. Music and spirituality is linked for African Americans, as evident in Gloryand also in the original theatrical runs of classic Bible films. Choirs were sometimes brought in to theater halls to sing while The King of Kings played “in recognition of some general sense among its patrons that the event was a religious one” (Weisenfeld 2). “Music is an integral part of the film’s insistence upon African Americans’ conflation of religion” and is essential in film and religious context (Weisenfeld 2).

Movies have the power to shape attitudes and change nations. Much has been written about Leni Riefenstahl and Triumph of the Will shaping attitudes of Germans toward the Third Reich, as well as the reach the film had on other nations resulting in the deliberate effort of the United States to start engaging in propaganda film production. The harmonious coupling of the Three Mile Island incident and The China Syndrome resulted in public outcry toward nuclear power and set back the nuclear power industry. Lastly, as discussed in this paper, The Birth of a Nation and its handling of race cemented stereotypes for African Americans in film. Because film has such a power, it is important to monitor and discuss its tropes, and with African Americans and religion in film, the journey away from The Birth of a Nation to today is long, laborious, but not yet complete.

Exporting racism to Japan and gaming

[Editors Note]

I wrote this essay myself. It is an original work by me. I feel the need to point this out since I get so much traffic to it from Google (probably because students need an essay on this topic or whatever). I would not have posted it in its entirety if I did not want people to read it. However, I did not include the bibliography or works cited page (I still get them confused) because I don't want out and out theft of this paper. Instead, use it to give yourself a starting point. A simple google search by an instructor will lead them to this website and many, not all but most, professors will do this basic task. Heck, they have software that does it automatically for them. Ever wonder why they want an electronic version and a hard copy? So, don't be stupid and pass this crappy paper off as your own. Use my quotes, double back on my sources, or, hell, cite me and this dumb website, but don't pretend you did the research and wrote this paper. And, if you want to be a real pal, leave a comment to let me know what you ended up doing with this essay after you found it. Thanks!

Racism in Resident Evil 5, Its Reaction, and Video Games

A Brief Introduction of Racist Imagery in Japanese Pop Culture

The Japanese believe Whites are superior to all other ethnicities, including Asians (Greenwald). This is a typical sentiment that has seeped its way into various forms of popular culture, and the reason behind this surprising ideology is twofold. Studies in Japan believe the cause to be a mixture of Japanese remote location and strongly uniform political and religious doctrine (Greenwald). Rather than a result of malice or desire to oppress any particular ethnic group, scholars state that the Japanese are “insensitive toward other peoples because of centuries of homogeneous and isolated development” (Greenwald). According to University of Tokyo professor Nagayo Homma, "they have little social experience in dealing with different races" (Greenwald).  Because of their educational system, "they know about Martin Luther King and civil rights, but it's in an abstract context" as a result of their lack of internal civil right conflicts stemming from disenfranchisement from multiple ethnicities (Greenwald). Due to the isolationism and homogeneity, a person might suspect that strong ethnic pride might develop, but that outcome is absent because  “while whites generally are considered by Japanese to be advanced and "civilized," fellow Asians and others are sometimes seen as backward, even inferior” (Greenwald).

The reasoning for elevating Whites above other ethnic groups might lay in generational upbringing beginning in the 1940s. Tracing these attitudes from Japan can begin at the offset of World War II because “the first exposure to blacks came during the post-World War II occupation” (Greenwald). Japanese soldiers and civilians saw segregated army units, different housing, exclusion from certain actives that painted a picture of Whites being separate from Blacks, and certainly not equal (Greenwald).  Others picked up racial attitudes and stereotypes, such as Little Black Sambo, dolls and black mannequins with grotesquely large lips, from U.S. television, movies and books, or American acquaintances (Greenwald). It is not uncommon today for Japanese to avoid sitting next to Blacks on trains or taking the same elevator (Greenwald). Japanese popular media continued to perpetuate stereotypes like the Little Black Sambo with “television shows [featuring] “Rast Man,” “Soul Man and “Afro Man” doing blackface skits and Tinga Beauty in a gorilla make-up and a golden earring” (Greenwald).

"The Japanese," wrote Karen De Witt in the New York Times, "do have stereotypical images of black Americans, gleaned from American television and press accounts” which routinely portray “blacks are either entertainment or sports figures or slow, lazy, strong and destructive" (De Witt). If the root of this Japanese racism comes as an export from America, it is necessary to explore these exports, notably films because of the explosion of the American film industry in Japan post World War II. One seemingly innocuous image of African Americans from films that later premiered in Japan is that of the cigar chomping tough marine from James Cameron’s Aliens, a movie cited by developers as a source of inspiration with direct influences commonly found in the popular franchise Halo. In the film, this burly space marine is rarely seen without his cigar in mouth (Aliens). Also, he’s the demolition’s expert (Aliens). After its release in Japan, this image of a African American male remained, and propagated itself into numerous video games, from Team Fortress 2, the Halo series, and more. Like the Little Black Samba dolls, it is also shocking just how many have large afro hairstyles (Greenwald). The rarity of non-burly, cigar chomping, afro-sporting, African American males in video games is so prevalent, that the ability to find an image of one in a video game is a rarity, and if one is found, rest assured he’s at least a violent member in the military. But these are relatively mild caricatures compared to some of the more egregious examples found in more contemporary games.

Controversy Over Resident Evil 5 Trailer

In April of 2008, the Japanese video game studio Capcom released new footage of their upcoming game called Resident Evil 5. This title is another installment in an already popular series and a followup to the critically and commercially lauded Resident Evil 4 for the Nintendo Gamecube and Playstation 2 which was released in 2005 to little controversy. The series features a White protagonist, usually male and a police officer or military personnel, who must combat a sudden medical outbreak that has turned thousands of civilians into zombies (Resident). The protagonist must survive through the game, uncover bits and pieces of a global corporate conspiracy, and slay untold numbers of zombie civilians in his path (Resident).

N’Gai Croal, once gaming journalist for Newsweek and one of the few prominent African American video game journalists, did not like the footage he saw from Capcom on Resident Evil 5.

"It's like when you engage that kind of imagery you have to be careful with it. It would be like saying you were going to do some sort of zombie movie that appeared to be set in Europe in the 1940's with skinny, emaciated, Hasidic-looking people. If you put up that imagery people would be saying, 'Are you crazy?' Well, that's what this stuff looks like. This imagery has a history. It has a history and you can't pretend otherwise. That imagery still has a history that has to be engaged, that has to be understood. ... If you're going to engage imagery that has that potential, the onus is on the creator to be aware of that because there will be repercussions in the marketplace." (John).

These words prompted an intense internet debate regarding racism in video games, which eventually garnered enough attention to be mentioned in major newspapers like the L.A. Times and Wall Street Journal. This problem might have been avoided, N’Gai contends if there was more diversity in the creation of these Japanese games.

“I looked at the "Resident Evil 5" trailer and I was like, "Wow, clearly no one black worked on this game." Because I wonder, and I haven't sort of really dug into it that much, but I wonder what sort of advice Capcom gave them. The point isn't that you can't have black zombies. There was a lot of imagery in that trailer that dovetailed with classic racist imagery. What was not funny, but sort of interesting, was that there were so many gamers who could not at all see it. Like literally couldn't see it. So how could you have a conversation with people who don't understand what you're talking about and think that you're sort of seeing race where nothing exists?” (John).

Reaction to the Controversy

Within hours of Croal’s denouncement of the Resident Evil 5 trailer, on the popular message board NeoGAF, a veteran hotspot for news, gossip, discussion, that also has great influence on the industry, people were similarly scathing at even the discussion of this issue (N’Gai). Because the message board is moderated by a few users to ban members who spout racist and sexist remarks, pointed personal remarks against Croal were somewhat tempered, but despite the moderation, users expressed outrage and vitriolic anger (N’Gai). A few choice selections on the issue are:

“People need to give this shit a rest.” - ∀ Narayan

“Hopefully they don't alter the game because of some uptight whiny bitches.” - jett

“This is probably the fucking crappiest piece of bullshit I've read in months.” - Anasui Kishibe

However, the outrage was not just contained on message boards and general website commentators.  A featured community writer, Matthew Orona, for the video game website Bitmob wrote that he was “tired of hearing about racism” (Orona). To him and others, Croal’s comments was nothing more than “playing the race card” against video games and attracting unnecessary negative attention on the medium (Orona). He contends that “[g]iven the United States’ history, racism is understandably a very sensitive subject” but stipulates that "the need for some people to point out racism where it simply does not exist” is unfair (Orona). He ends his editorial by stating that the Irish and Scots have suffered more under the system of slavery (Orona).

Yet, it is important to note that not all reaction was negative. Stephen Totillo at MTV commented reviewed the racist imagery of the trailer with trepidation by remarking “when I see a town of what looks like impoverished African villagers -- the very image of global poverty, the very spectacle that since my youth thats been coded in me to evoke sympathy and charity -- I don't want to pull the trigger” (Totillo). The context, not the graphic violence, to Totillo is important since “[s]hooting zombies is something I can get behind, just as I can support video game fantasies of shooting Nazis or even causing mayhem in a big city” (Totillo). Totillo believes that ultimately the Resident Evil series “games are supposed to be about hiding from and shooting zombies”, but because of the racist imagery of the trailer, “[i]t looks like it's an advertisement to virtually shoot poor people” (Totillo).

The controversy caused enough of a sensation to be picked up and broadcasted on traditional mainstream news outlets. Variety ran articles about the controversy as did the L.A. Times, which began its article with the sensational starter of “a white man strides into an African village. The black villagers start morphing into crazed zombies, wielding pitchforks and knives. The white man starts shooting them down” (Pham). Eventually, Capcom would be forced to lighten the skin tones of some of the characters on screen, and even go so far as to replace them with White characters, despite publicly claiming initially that the reaction to the trailer would not influence development of the game in any way (Pham).

However, this did not silence critics. Several video game commentators felt that this solution of replacing villagers was “missing the point”. On their podcast discussing the review of the game, members of the popular website Giantbomb laughed at the entire issue (Davis):

Vinny Caravella: “How is it?”

Brad Shoemaker: “It’s pretty good.”

Jeff Gertsman: “Did you play co-op (cooperatively) with the rest of your klan?”

[laughter]

Ryan Davis: “Yeah, I don’t want to talk about racism in Resident Evil  5...”

Vinny Caravella: “Because there is none.”

The members went on to discuss the controversy surrounding the game, including the decision to “backpedal by inserting different ethnicities into the game” (Davis). The defense that the reviewer, Brad Shoemaker, gave and the rest of the people  agreed upon was given in an article in the New York Times stating that “because everyone is susceptible to becoming a zombie,” the issue of racism is unfounded (Davis):

Ryan Davis: “The Spaniards have been zombies, plenty of Americans  have  been zombies...”

Jeff Gertsman: “All zombies are created equal.”

However, Vinny Caravella brought the issue back to the original charge that the imagery in the game is considered racist or draws on parallels of racist ideology. One such example is that the virus in the game is supposed to make its infected “de-evolve” to a primordial state. As a result, the Africans in the game reverted to what the designers of the game considered to be the African primordial state, that of an almost nude male holding a spear while wearing a grass skirt.

General Racist Influences in Philosophy and Film

This misconception of backwardness and primitiveness can be traced to religious and philosophical examination of Africans in general (Mbiti 10). European scholars, through a Western heliocentric perspective, viewed African religion as a simple, primordial run of religion on an evolutionary ladder (Mbiti 10). Africans would exist in a stage where their religious beliefs would be viewed as “polytheistic”, and not yet matured to the “superior” form of monotheism (Mbiti 10). Africans, according to some scholars, had many gods that existed in all forms of life, from rocks to trees to animals to humans (Mbiti 10).

This notion, however, was incorrect and Africans, much like the Europeans, believed in a centralized concept of God (Mbiti 34). To the Africans, God existed beyond any concrete definitions of time and space, and was the creator of all (Mbiti 34). God was omniscient and all-seeing. However, one of the central differences was the pervasiveness of religion in the life of Africans (Mbiti 35). For Africans, religion and spirituality is inseparatable from daily life. It is in this aspect that Europeans misinformed values became to being. What European scholars saw as worshiping of inanimate objects and many gods, Africans regarded as carrying their religious beliefs into their work and everyday life (Mbiti 35).

African Americans in film are often caricatured and stereotyped even when not maliciously intended. One of the most notorious examples is Imitation of Life, a 1934 film based on the novel by Fannie Hurst and nominated for three Academy Awards including Best Picture (it lost to It Happened One Night). Here is a film that tries earnestly to address the concept of race and its impact on society, but falls to the trappings of many race films before it.

The film’s African American characters remain stereotypes. The young woman, Peola, is a “tragic mulatto,” who is ashamed of her mixed blood and tries repeatedly to pass herself off as white (Stahl). She is in a constant state of disconnection from society because of her lighter complexion. The mother of Peola, Delilah, embodies the caricature of the “mammy” (Stahl). Delilah is overtly religious, overweight, and full of unembridled optimism in the face of any adversity (Stahl). Without any want, she aids her white female friend in making millions, and always remains a lower-income woman (Stahl). Delilah exists only to serve whites, not to be seen, and ask nothing in return (Stahl). She is a gross envisioning of the ideal Black person and presented as the model of behavior to solve racial issues. The tragedy is that people may view this film and regard it as not racist, and then take much of it as dogmatic fact.

While Imitation of Life existed prior to World War II and the birth of nearly all Japanese video game designers, the movie was a popular commercial and critical hit. The film influenced those who saw it, who might have been the same people who sparked racial insensitivity in Japan post World War II, as well as other films that eventually crossed the Pacific.

Madworld, Heavy Rain, and Other Brief Examples People Agree On

The vast outcry against Croal and his comments regarding the Resident Evil 5 trailer does not suggest that in all cases counts of perceived racism in video games are dismissed. In the same episode of the podcast, Giantbomb discussed another game that contained racist imagery but did not garner a lot of press outrage (Davis). The game MadWorld, the game that features a man who brutally murders people on a fake television show with spikes, chainsaws, and bizarre deathtraps, features an African American character dressed as a pimp with big red lips (MadWorld). On the podcast (Davis):

Jeff Gertsman: “So how about the one Black character I’ve

encountered in the game called the Black Baron that comes out in his

big pimp costume with his fur coat and all this

stuff and says: ‘Yeah,

motherfucker!’ and introduces all of these death things... ‘Yeah,  motherfucker, you need to be throwing them into turbines!’ and... What?!”

Ryan Davis: “And the character literally looks like he’s wearing black face?”

Jeff Gertsman: “Yeah, totally. It’s messed up”

Ryan Davis: “And at the end of every one he gets murder”

Jeff Gertsman: “Yeah-”

Vinny Caravella: “By a ho?”

Jeff Gertsman: “Yes, by one of his ho’s who comes out and kills him... and  she has spikes coming out of her boobs.”

Several possibilities exist to explain the difference in coverage to both Resident Evil 5 and MadWorld regarding their perceived racism. The first, and perhaps biggest, explanation is that Resident Evil 5 was produced by Japanese developer Capcom, a company that has a 20 year history with making video games while Clover, the company that made MadWorld, is only a few years old with no major commercial breakthroughs (Resident, MadWorld). Moreover, Resident Evil 5 was the successor to the incredibly popular and critically lauded Resident Evil 4 (Resident). Lastly, in their first weeks of sale, Resident Evil 5 sold 1.5 million copies while MadWorld sold only 66,000 copies (STAFF).

Another brief example worth mentioning is the Playstation 3 title Heavy Rain developed by Quantic Dream. While the game is not developed by a Japanese studio (Quantic Dream is located in France), the game was praised by many for being an important entry in the video game medium for having a strong story, developed characters, and film-like similarities. Yet, stereotypes abound within its digital world. The only Latino characters, named Paco, is a sleazy drug dealer who forces a woman to strip naked at gunpoint (Heavy). There are also charges of sexism in the game regarding its nudity of its female protagonist and lingering camera shots on her naked body, compared to brief moments of male nudity in long camera shots (Heavy). More pointed is the only African American character named Mad Jack (Heavy). Mad Jack is a felon out on parole who is working in a junkyard as an automobile mechanic (Heavy). When an FBI investigator visits Mad Jack about his possible connection with a serial killer, Mad Jack attacks the FBI investigator and, depending on the actions of the player, violently kills the FBI agent in a car compactor (Heavy). Mad Jack is dressed in a soiled tank top with a shaved head and a pronounced mouth (Heavy).

American developers are not exempt from stereotypes as well. In the popular Gears of War series, a member of an military assault team is called Cole, nicknamed “Cole Train” (Gears). He is a thick-necked angry militant who’s vocabulary, when not in slang, is primarily limited to “shit” and “damn” (Gears). Before becoming a soldier, “Cole Train” was a defensive lineman (Gears).

Final Reflections

As of this writing, a court case is being reviewed in the Supreme Court of the United States regarding the violence and censorship of video games. In the 1990s, prominent U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman and Hilary Clinton displayed a gross lack of understanding of video games while decrying their content as offensive. Video game Senate hearings were held to discuss the violence in Mortal Kombat. The inclusion of a hidden sex game within Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas that could only be experienced by tampering with the game and hacking its code caused a class action suit and the game’s brief recall. Like comic and graphic novel bannings of the 1940s and 1950s, those that love video games feel that their art form is always under constant attack by an older generation that does not understand new technology. There is a desire for video games to be accepted as works of art on par with film. Yet, even the liberal and influential film critic Roger Ebert does not believe video games are art nor will ever be art (Ebert).

The reaction by the video game press and especially its users is understandable if their mindset of video games being constantly attacked is true. To them, the remarks of Croal regarding the racist imagery in Resident Evil 5 was just another assault on their beloved medium. One could view their knee-jerk response as a defensive mechanism to protect video games from further persecution. However, this would still not excuse racism in video games. The history of White authority figures shooting poor Blacks is not a history that becomes irrelevant simply because the poor Blacks are zombies. The racism of having a black-face pimp is not excused as a result of it being in the middle of an already outrageous game. Lastly, the history of racism, its stereotypes of Africans as primitive and their religion as simplistic, is intrinsic to the culture of those that make video games since their knowledge comes from film and television, which eventually got exported to Japan and influenced their culture, which returned to America in the late 1980s with the rebirth of video games. The United States exported racial stereotypes to Japan, which still exist today. Video games are just another arm of ingrained prejudice that deserves and necessitates examination.