Get Ready for Winter Weather Funny Girl by Nick Hornby Funny Girl by Nick Hornby Books with Buzz Shop Valentine's Day Gifts for Him Shop Valentine's Day Gifts for Him Shop Men's Cloud Drive Photos nav_sap_disc_15_fly_beacon $5 Albums Amazon Fire Phone, now available unlocked Momentum Fire TV Shop Valentine's Day Gifts NFL Infrared Space Heater Oscar Nominees Oscar Nominees Oscar Nominees $15 Off Fire HD 6 Kindle Voyage Bob Congrats Champs Valentine's Day Gift Ideas in Toys & Games Valentine's Day Gift Ideas in Toys & Games Valentine's Day Gift Ideas Across Amazon
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
Facebook Twitter Pinterest
Qty:1
  • List Price: $30.00
  • Save: $10.05 (34%)
FREE Shipping on orders over $35.
Only 17 left in stock (more on the way).
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
Gift-wrap available.
Reel Bad Arabs: How Holly... has been added to your Cart
+ $3.99 shipping
Used: Good | Details
Sold by 1857
Condition: Used: Good
Comment: Acceptable - may have highlighting - may have stickers on covers
Sell yours for a Gift Card
We'll buy it for $5.99
Learn More
Trade in now
Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon
Flip to back Flip to front
Listen Playing... Paused   You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more
See all 3 images

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People Paperback – December 2, 2014

by Jack Shaheen (Author)
See all 5 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions
Amazon Price New from Used from
Kindle
"Please retry"
$9.99
— —
Hardcover
"Please retry"
—
— —
Paperback
"Please retry"
$19.95
$15.26 $17.50
Best Books of the Year
See the Best Books of 2014
Looking for something great to read? Browse our editors' picks for 2014's Best Books of the Year in fiction, nonfiction, mysteries, children's books, and much more.

Frequently Bought Together

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People + Arab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks Out for Freedom and Justice from North Africa to Iran + Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East, Third Edition (Indiana Series in Middle East Studies)
Price for all three: $58.68

Some of these items ship sooner than the others.

Buy the selected items together

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start over
  1. Arab Spring Dreams: The Next Generation Speaks…
    Nasser Weddady
    8
    Paperback
    $11.71 Prime
  2. Children of Jihad: A Young American's…
    Jared Cohen
    30
    Paperback
    $10.90 Prime
  3. The Middle East and North Africa: A Political…
    Joseph N. Weatherby
    5
    Paperback
    $79.82 Prime
  4. Guilty: Hollywood's Verdict on Arabs After…
    Jack G. Shaheen
    12
    Paperback
    $13.80 Prime
  5. Everyday Life in the Muslim Middle East,…
    Donna Lee Bowen
    2
    Paperback
    $27.02 Prime
  6. Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and…
    Evelyn Alsultany
    2
    Paperback
    $18.57 Prime
Back
Next
NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE
Image
Looking for the Audiobook Edition?
Tell us that you'd like this title to be produced as an audiobook, and we'll alert our colleagues at Audible.com. If you are the author or rights holder, let Audible help you produce the audiobook: Learn more at ACX.com.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 618 pages
  • Publisher: Olive Branch Pr; 3 edition (December 2, 2014)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 1566567521
  • ISBN-13: 978-1566567527
  • Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.5 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #282,279 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

    •  Would you like to update product info, give feedback on images, or tell us about a lower price?

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Shaheen (mass communication, Southern Illinois Univ.; Arab and Muslim Stereotypes in American Popular Culture) has written a meticulous, passionate, and very articulate description of the persistent and prolonged vilification of Arab peoples in mainstream Western movies. Offering primarily reviews of the 900 films he has seen or researched over 20 years, he documents a century of offensive stereotypes and shows how the image of the "dirty Arab" has reemerged over the last 30 years, even as other groups have more or less successfully fought to eliminate the use of racist stereotypes. The appendixes include lists of the best and worst depictions of Arabs in popular films, alternate titles, a list of epithets thrown at Arabs in films, and a list of the fictional locations used in films. Although the work is aimed at a college-level audience, the clear writing and lack of jargon make it accessible to a much wider readership. Highly recommended for academic and large public libraries, as well as for other libraries with collections dealing with racism or Arab culture. [For more on Islamic culture, see "A Misundersood Faith," p. 82-83. Ed.] Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, N.
- Andrea Slonosky, Long Island Univ., Brooklyn, NY
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

"Shaheen has written a meticulous, passionate, and very articulate description of the persistent and prolonged vilification of Arab peoples in mainstream Western movies... Although the work is aimed at a college-level audience, the clear writing and lack of jargon make it accessible to a much wider readership. Highly recommended..." --Library Journal

"

Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs. Rippling with smart insights, his book should be read by everyone who agrees that knowledge is society's greatest tool in battling all kinds of stereotypes. --Library Journal

" --Howard Rosenberg, Los Angeles Times TV Critic

"Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs. Rippling with smart insights, his book should be read by everyone who agrees that knowledge is society's greatest tool in battling all kinds of stereotypes." --Howard Rosenberg, Los Angeles Times TV Critic

"Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs. Rippling with smart insights, his book should be read by everyone who agrees that knowledge is society's greatest tool in battling all kinds of stereotypes." --.

"Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs. Rippling with smart insights, his book should be read by everyone who agrees that knowledge is society's greatest tool in battling all kinds of stereotypes." --.

"Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs. Rippling with smart insights, his book should be read by everyone who agrees that knowledge is society's greatest tool in battling all kinds of stereotypes." --.
See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
5 star
29
4 star
3
3 star
2
2 star
1
1 star
3
See all 38 customer reviews
We need more books like this one.
Mary Ann
In Reel Bad Arabs, Dr. Shaheen shows us how we, the West, have come to depict "Arabs" as different from us.
Olive Dove
There is a serious need for this book in modern film studies.
N. Farra

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

71 of 84 people found the following review helpful
Required Reading for Film and Communication Students
By S. MacDermid on July 11, 2001
Format: Paperback
Jack Shaheen's blockbuster book "REEL BAD ARABS: How Hollywood Vilifies a People" blows the cover on the film industry's century-long free ride in smearing Arab Muslims. What Shaheen spent the past 20 years researching should have been and can now become grist for where it's vital to plant the seeds of understanding and tolerance, namely, in the groves of academia.
Young Americans in film and communications courses need to face up to some pretty disturbing facts about how Hollywood has gotten away with defaming a people. The motion picture industry has made huge amounts of money by destroying the good name of nearly 300 million innocent men and women of the Arab world.
As Shaheen's REEL BAD ARABS documents the shameful vilification of an entire people, tests for college students should include questions like these:
1. How do you think Americans form their ideas about what is taking place in the Middle East?
2. How effective do you think movies are in shaping the way Americans think about the Arabs, especially Palestinians, and about the "peace process" in the region?
3. Do such perceptions impact public opinion and policy?
4. What movies can you name that presented Arabs in anything but a bad light as terrorists, oil monopolists, lechers and other villains?
5. How effective do you think movies are in manipulating the way we Americans see 'The Other,' namely Arabs, as The Enemy?
Besides the psychological and political side of his subject, Jack Shaheen has provided us with a wonderful guide to nearly 1,000 films. In spite of the bias this book lays out all too clearly, it nevertheless is guaranteed to provide much pleasure for the reader at the same time as it opens her eyes to the facts.
REEL BAD ARABS should be in every library in America and abroad, as well as on film-studio reference shelves to prick the conscience of every film producer and director and script-writer from Hollywood to Haifa.
1 Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
55 of 67 people found the following review helpful
Evidence of Discrimination
By Philip M. Kayal, Ph.D. on July 19, 2001
Format: Paperback
Reel Bad Arabs is an essential read for anyone concerned about fairness, objectivity and stereotyping. A brilliantly gathered documentation of a little known or appreciated history of how "Hollywood vilifies people," in this case, Arabs and Arab Americans. Jack Shaheen is a great scholar. How anyone would have the patience to review so many films, over such a long period of time, simply escapes me. And he is not terribly ideological or biased himself! What he does is simply point out a consistent pattern, film by film, on how Arabs are depicted in film. The book is long overdue, extremely well documented, and an easy read. The alphabetized entries give a plot summary and then focus on the presentation or role of "the Arab" in the story. Sometimes history is rewritten, facts ignored, and truths disregarded just for the sake of vilification or plot continuity. To counter this in general, the book opens with needed information on who Arabs and Arab-Americans really are and how these facticities differ from their depiction as sheikhs, harem owners, villains, bandits, mummies, and, for the women, maidens in distress.
While not a goal of the author, the book is a history of Hollywood and the development of American political positions on the Middle East. Shaheen identifies Exodus as the most effective movie in shaping American perceptions of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Hardly a balanced film, this Palestinian bashing movie and others that were filmed in Israel and/or produced by Israelis in cooperation with the Israeli government, illustrate how negative Arab mages impact our attitudes about Arab Muslims, Palestinians in particular, regardless of fact. If only Hollywood stopped there, but it didn't. like a runaway train, the defamation continues.Read more ›
5 Comments Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again
21 of 26 people found the following review helpful
A Common Cause
By A Customer on June 23, 2003
Format: Paperback
Shaheen's book is a fact-based, detailed example of how the media can negatively distort the personality of an ethnic group. For all those looking to fight bigotry and racism, read this book as a rallying point. Let's face it: there is good and bad in every eithnicity, gender and race. There is good and bad in all people regardless of religious choice. There is good and bad in families, communities, cities, states, etc.
The more we segregate through negative, subliminal messages about the color of our skin or the language we speak or the religion we practice, then the more we build walls between people that have more in common than they have different.
Shaheen's book should be a call to action for media moguls to change their mode of operations. Fine, depict arabs as villians, but also depict them as heroes....heroes fighting fires, hereos saving lives in an ER, heroes coaching a bunch of high school kids to a championship football game, heroes as police officers...or as senators, congressmen and cabinet members. All these types of heroes exist as Arab-Americans, Muslim-Americans, Irish-Catholic Americans, Jewish Americans, Hispanic Americans, African Americans, etc.. Not all Italian-Americans are mafia killers -- right? Not all Catholic priests are bad...the overwhelming majority are hard-working practicing Christians.
Seems ludicrous that these point shave to be made, but the reel bad ememies are those that generalize and throw a hate blanket over the masses. Read this book not only if you're an Arab, but also if you're looking to fight bigotry in general. You will gain confidence that there are a lot of examples to support your cause...a common cause.
Comment Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...
Thank you for your feedback. If this review is inappropriate, please let us know.
Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Most Recent Customer Reviews

This is a book to have. Buy it.

Wow this book had me seated for days. And I could not put this book down it simply just gave answers to how this Hollywood culture had given Arabs and Islam a evil face. Read more

Published 5 days ago by Intelligent2022
Excellent book for Hollywood history and today

An excellent book that goes into depth about the hundreds of depictions of Arabs and Muslims in Hollywood film. Read more

Published 15 days ago by J. Ferguson
a century of bigotry

Some Amazon users reviewing Jack Shaheen's Reel Bad Arabs have written that many
ethnic groups have been villains in Hollywood films. Read more

Published on August 4, 2012 by Michael Klossner
Full of Arabs

We all have good and bad within us.
But if you watch movies, you come away with the idea that Arabs are just bad. Read more

Published on July 31, 2012 by Mountain Momma
good intentions, but contains mistakes

This book, has good intentions, but some of the material in the book is inaccurate. Having watched a number of the films mentioned in I can document a number of mistakes in his... Read more

Published on March 1, 2012 by Ted
Hollywood Imagines the Middle East: Oppressed Arab/Muslim Women and...

I started to conduct research about the images of Arabs and Muslim women in Hollywood films in the late 1990's. Read more

Published on October 7, 2011 by Irum Shiekh
Everyone's a victim

This book is not an "exhaustive" study to reach a conclusion. The author already had his mind made up and went out to find movies to find his agenda. Read more

Published on August 31, 2011 by C. Monk
a much needed piece for film

Shaheen's book is an important addition in the arena of stereotyping in film and television. His work has been used in several of my graduate and undergraduate courses, and this... Read more

Published on October 19, 2009 by N. Farra
Even a little perspective would be helpful

A recent TIME/CNN survey found that caucasian men are the villains of Hollywood films 71% of the time. Caucasian women, 11%. Asian men, 5%. Everyone else (including Arabs) 13%. Read more

Published on July 25, 2009 by Bruce
A MUST HAVE!

I knew once I bought this book it would change my life, and it did. When a person learns to read she or he can never look at letters in the same way again. Read more

Published on July 22, 2007 by Stephanie Abraham

There's a problem loading this menu right now.

Learn more about Amazon Prime.

Items in your Cart
Prime Pantry Items

Your Shopping Cart is empty.

Give it purpose—fill it with books, DVDs, clothes, electronics, and more.

If you already have an account, sign in.

There's a problem previewing your cart right now.

Check your Internet connection and go to your cart, or try again.

    What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?

    › Explore similar items

    Customers Also Watched on Amazon Instant Video

    Page 1 of 1 Start over
    1. Reel Injun
      Adam Beach
      28
      $5.99 to buy
    2. The Godfather
      Marlon Brando
      871
      $2.99 to rent
    3. 5 Broken Cameras
      Emad Burnat
      107
      $3.99 to rent
    4. America the Beautiful
      Ted Casablanca
      22
      $3.99 to rent
    5. Moguls & Movie Stars: A History of Hollywood, Volume 4
      Christopher Plummer
      47
      $4.99 to buy
    6. Free Angela And All Political Prisoners [HD]
      Angela Davis
      50
      $3.99 to rent
    Back
    Next