In article <[log in to unmask]>, [log in to unmask] (Tania Kamal-Eldin) wrote: > I am doing research on how Middle Easter/Arab women are depicted in > Hollywood films.... > Can anyone make suggestions.... One obvious area would be Biblical Epics (for example, Ben Hur, where Jewish women struggle with Roman men for the possession of Charlton Heston's body). Another would be political thrillers, where Arab women occasionally crop up as terrorists. An image springs to mind, but I can't match it with a film. But certainly the Chuck Norris vehicle "Delta Force" was set in the Middle East. And there were a couple of Raid on Entebbe movies, as I recall. These rather vague recollections prompt a broad generalisation, that Hollywood's depiction of contemporary Middle Eastern women (like its depiction of women in general) is probably pathologically stereotyped and fiercely dichotomised. The only difference being that for the 2nd term of the traditional Madonna/whore opposition, Hollywood tends to substitute a (probably sexually voracious) terrorist, dressed in black, with cropped hair and waving a submachine gun. Of course, I may just letting my prejudices show... (You might also check out the fringes of Raiders of the Lost Ark; and didn't one of the Tom Clancy adaptations spend some time wandering around a Saharan terrorist training camp?) ---- To sign off SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]