rient made in Hollywood, Paris, or Rome, would perhaps be less offensive if it was not peopled by rascally and barbaric Arabs, recognizable by their shifty looks and dissolute manner. They are hot-tempered and always seem on the point of whipping out a dagger. Lustful and polygamous, they like to kidnap young Western girls and sequestrate them in their harems (Fahdel 23).
These film depictions are a reflection of widespread prejudices held in the West, some of which date back to the Crusades. The Arab world seen in these films is very limited and often no more than a backdrop for Western actors who seem to be upholding their prized Western values against the possible threat of the Arab outside:
If some films such as Morocco, Casablanca, Un de la L?gion, and The Lost Patrol purport to be set on Arab soil yet contrive to show not a single Arab, in others Arabs have walk-on parts and provide a splash of local color, along with the minarets, palm trees, and camels (Fahdel 23).
The presentation of the Arab in films has undergone changes over time, with ea
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