The Siege Movie Analysis

4.3.1. The Siege (1998)

The Siege is a 1998 American action film. It is about a fictional situation in which Islamic terrorists carry out attacks in New York City. The main character is an FBI agent Anthony Hubbard, the head of the FBI Counter-Terrorism Task Force who has to catch Arab terrorists.

After the release of The Siege, many Arab Americans protested against it, saying that this film depicts Arabs stereotypically and helps to create prejudicial attitudes towards them (Vanhala.Civil 1). The film depicts Arabs as terrorists and crazy fanatics. Arab terrorists blow up theatres and vehicles full of people, American citizens. These attacks can be seen as the attack on the Western culture and way of living. It is emphasized that once busy

Evelyn Alsultany says that the Bush administration introduced the „they hate us for our freedom“ discourse after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 (Arabs 17). These attacks marked the beginning of War on Terror, the war between the „civilized and good“ West and the „primitive and aggressive East“, the war that has changed the picture of the world we live in. This discourse provided the justification needed to pass racist foreign and domestic policies (Alsultany Arabs 17). Americans were now ready to tolerate the discrimination of Arabs, with no evidence needed.

A lot of films are now dealing with a threat of ISIS militants. Arab men are usually portrayed as irrational terrorists, yelling “Allah Akbar” and killing innocents in the name of God. They are wearing traditional Arabic clothing, speaking unintelligible languages and committing suicides. They use knives, guns, bombs and even gas in the attacks on Americans. In addition to that, the importance of female Arab characters is on the rise. Nowadays, they are also, very often, depicted as ruthless terrorists. They often put suicide vests on their own children and are the masterminds standing behind the

There are many films in which the antagonists are Arabs who get killed by main protagonists, who are almost every time white Americans. Arabs are usually aggressive terrorists who represent a threat to the West and are eventually killed by a Western hero. In a 2014 biographical war drama American Sniper, the main character is a soldier protecting his country against the threat of Islamic terrorism. However, this film is said to be a propaganda film that misleads the audience and rewrites history. American Sniper portrays Arabs stereotypically as heartless lunatics and barbarians without considering any of their motives. While Arabs are represented as the ultimate evil, Americans are the ultimate