Understanding Ideology
Hall (1990) summed up his study of ideology through three main points:
- Ideologies are not composed of separate concepts
Instead, an ideology is rather a combination of different elements falling into a chain; different ideologies have different employments for the same words. For example, the word freedom has a different meaning in liberal ideology than in socialist ideology. (Hall, 1990)
2. Ideological statements are not the product of individual intention.
It is true that such statements are made by individuals, but one must note that ideologies come prior to individuals. Most of the time, we are born into ideologies that already exist in our community. Hence, we feel obliged to adopt these ideologies in order not to feel alienated.
3. Ideologies operate when positions are constructed for their subjects.
This means that people feel entitlement to produce ideological statements and call them facts simply because those statements have a certain meaning in their ideologies, which is in fact most likely to differ from the meaning of the same statements in different ideologies, and it is likely for them to even differ from the truth.
Ideology & Hollywood’s Representation of Arabs
Only 12 percent of the world’s Muslims are Arab. Yet, moviemakers ignore this reality, depicting Arabs and Muslims as one and the same people.
Shaheen, 2003.
Just like many other realities. According to Hall’s third point (1990), people tend to take for granted the depictions made by themselves or by those who share the same ideology. And this is the case with American cinema; it seems as though all American filmmakers are using repetition to brainwash their audiences to think of Arabs in a certain way.
In Hollywood films, Arabs are always portrayed in a stereotypical manner whereby they are rich, abusive, and threatening Muslims. And since film is a medium I believe Herman and Chomsky’s study can be applied here to say that Arabs are represented as the “common enemy” (1998). Going back to Shaheen (2003), this shows that taking Arabs as the subject, they are always given the position of the bad guy.
Moreover, by repeatedly misrepresenting Arabs in their films, American audiences will have no reason but to also follow this dominant ideology -coming in line with Shaheens’s second point (2003).
Reference List
Hall S., (1990). The Whites of Their Eyes.
Shaheen, J. G., (2003). Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.
Herman E. S., Chomsky N. (1998). Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. United States: Pantheon Books.
Mira's Trail of Thoughts 