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2021/5/25

    Today, we learned about how the media, especially movies portray Arabs. But Mr. Paterson told us few things before we started. He told us about the story of Emily Wilder. She worked for the Associated Press, a company that gives topics to other big newspapers. However, Wilder was fired because when she was a university student, she was in a group that promoted "Justice for Palestine". The Associated Press said that she is biased so she shouldn't be working for the company. Mr. Paterson also told us that the head of the NY Times lives in the stolen land in "Israel". Then we watched the documentary "Reel Bad Arabs". Hollywood movies often use Arabs as the bad guys and project them as villains. For example, the Disney movie Aladdin starts off with the lyrics "They cut off their ear if they don't like your face it's barbaric but hey it's home". Also, even though they are of the same race, the villains have darker skin and stereotypical Arabic features, but the hero and the heroine have lighter skin and more eurocentric features. Arabs in this movie are also portrayed as being barbaric like when Jasmine gives the apple to the child, the man tries to cut her arms off. Arabs used to cut a criminal's arms so it is partly fact but the movie fails to mention the Muslim accustom of giving food to the poor. 
    When I watched the movie, I was shocked at how stereotypically Arabs are portrayed. As an Asian myself I don't really like how Hollywood portrays our race (and how they can't tell the difference between our cultures) so I can imagine how Arabs feel being misrepresented. And what shocked me the most was the fact that before Arabs became the "bad guys", Japanese people were portrayed in the same way. I don't get why Hollywood feels the need to vilify a whole race. When I heard the opening song of Aladdin, I didn't recognize it, so I searched it up, and apparently, Disney deleted it to not get backlash. I hope Disney learned their lesson and do more research to represent all kinds of races. 

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