Cliché fishing in the cinema

Christina/ May 18, 2012/ Culture

Stereotypes are often made within public discourse and are even more often intensified in it. Witnessed just yesterday in the cinema. The movie Salmon fishing in Jemen is a classical example for this argumentation. Even though the film is quite diverting and the plot definitely charming, the contents is full of clichés. What can be gathered out of it, seems to be the perfect description à la Hollywood of an eccentric, yet amiable Arab:

  1. If the Arab does not appear as terrorist but as Sheikh he is as a rule unbelievable rich.
  2. He is rather quiet unsure what to do with all his money, after he had already bought several manorial estates in Europa.
  3. Everything he does happens in the name of Allah and miraculously.
  4. It goes without saying that he has a lot of wives and none of them is shown to the audience.
  5. The “West” considers the Sheikh as eccentric but likes to take his money.
  6. As there is only bad news from the Arab World the West desperately needs some positive stories from that area.
  7. Nobody from the Sheikh’s home country can make us of his progressive ideas – of course not, as everybody is backwardly over there as we know.
  8. Therefore the Arab is allowed to take his second role as a terrorist and assaults the Sheikh.
  9. The believe in Allah, hoever, turns the Sheikh into a winner in the end.

PS: Auch die Frauenwelt kommt nicht ganz ungeschoren davon. Auch wenn sie mittlerweile nicht mehr hinterm Herd ihren “Mann” stehen muss sondern dies jetzt immerhin in der Finanzwelt tun darf, muss sie doch zumindest schön, ziemlich dünn und makellos sein und das nicht nur äußerlich. Ladies, es gibt viel zu tun, packen wir es an:-)


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