Flying While Muslim
Why this preoccupation with the fact that the imams had prayed? Whether their praying had truly caused enough alarm among the crew to alert the police, or it had only been a contributing factor, the fact remains that in the eight aforementioned news reports of the incident, their act of praying is highlighted. In all seven reports the story headlines and the introductory sentences identify the men as imams, Muslim religious leaders, Muslim clerics, or Muslim imams. The imams’ Muslim identity is more important in these stories than their ethnic or national identity. Their Muslim-ness is what caught the attention of the other passengers and the flight crew, and their Muslim-ness is what reporters chose to highlight in their stories.
The discriminatory treatment of the six imams was not an isolated incident. Targeting Muslims for behaving or appearing “Muslim” on or around airplanes has become so prevalent since 9/11 that the phenomenon has been named “Flying while Muslim,” and been given its own Wikipedia page.[8] The circumstances surrounding the many incidences vary, but they all have one overarching factor in common: the fear of the perceived Muslim identity of the passengers targeted, based on cues that the American public has been conditioned to associate with Muslim-ness. Those involved in apprehending the six imams expressed fear elicited by the imams’ prayers. A YouTube personality, Adam Saleh, was kicked off a Delta flight when passengers became “uncomfortable” after he spoke in Arabic.[9] Similarly, Anas Ayyad and Maher Khalil were prevented from boarding a Southwest flight after a fellow passenger claimed to be too frightened to fly with them after hearing them speak Arabic.[10] Nazia and Faisal Ali were removed from a Delta flight when a flight attendant told the pilot that the Muslim couple had made her feel “uneasy.” Her unease was caused by Faisal’s sweating, Nazia’s hijab, and the couple’s utterance of the word “Allah,” which is Arabic for God.[11] In all of these cases the targets of suspicion are described in news reports as Muslims, whether or not they are, and whether or not those who reported them explicitly articulated a fear of their Muslim-ness. When Adam Saleh, Anas Ayyad and Maher Khalil spoke Arabic that was enough to mark them in their fellow passengers’ eyes as not only Muslim, but potential terrorists. When Italian economist Guido Menzio was removed from an American Airlines flight for scribbling what his seatmate took to be a terrorist plot written in Arabic, but turned out to be a mathematical equation, just the fear that he had been writing in Arabic was enough to convince his seatmate that he must therefore be Middle Eastern, and therefore be Muslim, and therefore be a terrorist. These incidences are indicative of the standardization of a conflation of Middle Eastern with Muslim with terrorist.
The preoccupation with Islam, with Muslim-ness—communicated via language and dress—as a suspicious characteristic is not unique to profiling or news reporting. It is also expressed in Hollywood film via imagery, dialogue, character profiles, and context. Imagery and stereotypical characters confront an audience directly with obvious messages. The focus on Islam is also expressed via sound design, or the sound track, comprised of the human voice, sound effects, and music.[12] Unlike imagery, sound communicates in a much more indirect and subtle way. Sound works in the background as the audience pays full attention to the images of the foreground. Sound works subliminally, communicating with unaware audiences who are nevertheless susceptible to the powers of sound to condition beliefs and responses. Through the use of sound in post-9/11 Hollywood film a powerful connection between Islam and violence has been made audible.
Hollywood films produced after September 11, 2001 that depict the Middle East and its peoples are particularly guilty of sonically expressing a connection between Islam and violence, terrorism, torture, destruction and moral and physical decay. This connection is expressed through the use of Islamic sounds including the adhan, (the Muslim call to prayer), delivered by the muezzin, (the Muslim man whose job it is to recite the adhan from the minaret five times a day), and Islamic language, including Islamic prayers spoken in Middle Eastern languages—usually Arabic—and phrases like “Allahu akbar,” which is Arabic for God is great. The repetitious association of these Islamic sounds coupled with ominous, dramatic music, and sounds of violence, torture, civil unrest, and war creates sonic connections between Islam and violence, Islam and terrorism, and Islam and physical, emotional and moral destruction. The sounds of Orientalist music, or Middle Eastern-sounding music, and Middle Eastern languages are used in similar ways to create sonic links between Middle Easterners and violence, or the threat of violence. It is no wonder then that the passengers and gate attendants connected the sounds of the six imams’ prayers with a threat of violence, troubled as they were by how loudly the imams had prayed, and by their shouting of the Arabic word Allah.
This pattern of use has not always been standard practice in Hollywood film design, as it is today. In the 1950s-1960s most films dealing with the Middle East were fantasy adventures that boasted colorful sets, rakish “Arab” heroes, scantily clad “Arab” women, and Orientalist imagery and sound. Orientalist music—by which is meant music that features the sounds of typical Middle Eastern instruments and quarter tone scales, but by no means represents the breadth of musical traditions found in the Middle East—is a hallmark of Hollywood film. The degree to which films’ sound designers make use of Orientalist music however, has changed over time. In the 1950s-1960s Orientalist music was featured prominently. Most of these films relied heavily on Orientalist musical scores to sonically accompany the visual action and create atmospheres of adventure and sensuality. Beginning in the 1970s the use of Orientalist music began to change, as the popularity of fantasy adventures declined and the popularity of terrorism thrillers increased. Orientalist music took on new ideological tasks of communicating otherness rather than exoticness, creating suspenseful atmosphere, and sonically indicating imminent danger. The difference in the atmospheric mood created by the Orientalist music from The Magic Carpet (1951), The Next Man (1976), Black Hawk Down (2001) and Body of Lies (2008) represents the evolution of the use of Orientalist music in Hollywood film.[13]
Islamic sounds went through a similar evolutionary journey between 1950 and the present. In films produced between the 1950s-1970s the adhan was used diegetically—meaning the source of the sound of the adhan was either seen on screen, or implied to exist somewhere within or just outside the frame—to sonically locate the scene in geographic space. The adhan was unaccompanied by music or other meaning-laden sounds, and did not serve any particular communicative purpose. In the late 1980s-2001 the adhan was sparingly used during scenes in which Middle Eastern villains committed or discussed committing violence, thus performing the ideological tasks of communicating associations between Islam and violence. Islamic language, particularly the phrase, Allahu akbar, was also used sparingly and as a means to link Islam with violence.
After 9/11 the adhan and Islamic language both transcended their natural practical purposes and have been put to persistent use as a means of sonically communicating Islamophobic messages. The adhan has come to sonically symbolize Islam, and is thus used strategically as sonic reference to Islam or the Muslim identity of a film’s characters during scenes in which Muslims are engaged in terrorism and torture, or are otherwise involved in violence against the U.S. It is often accompanied by ominous or sinister music, and the typical sounds of war, including gunfire, explosions, and screaming. In some films it is broken into melodic phrases, which are then inserted at key moments into the film’s score to create tension and suspense. In these instances, it is used non-diegetically, meaning its source is neither visible nor implied. In this way the adhan totally transcends its practical purpose and meaning (a call to Muslims to pray), and is used purely as a means of evoking emotion and creating sonic links between Islam and violence, war, and terrorism. Islamic language including prayers and phrases—again most often the phrase Allahu akbar—are more often than not spoken by Muslim villains while they make or detonate bombs, engage in torture or violence, or discuss violence against Americans. Rarely do Muslim characters who are not terrorists, or suspected of terrorism, utter such language. Muslim identity then, as it has come to be represented sonically after 9/11, is inextricably tied not just to violence, but to terroristic violence against the U.S.
On Image
By focusing on the use of sound in Hollywood film, this study identifies previously unexamined modes of communication and a shift in the nature of representation of Middle Easterners and Muslims, which a focus on imagery, character tropes, and narrative structures alone has not yet yielded. Films that have been lauded by some as balanced portrayals of Middle Easterners and Muslims fall short of “balanced” when their sound design is considered. Syriana (2005) for example, may present some of the most complex Muslim characters found in Hollywood film to date, as argued by Jack Shaheen, perhaps the most influential scholar of media representations of Middle Easterners and Muslims, who placed it on the “Recommended Films” list in his analysis of Hollywood representations of Arabs since 9/11.[14] However, the film’s repetitious association of the sounds of praying in Arabic and the adhan with ominous music and torture negate the film’s seemingly well-balanced treatment of Muslims. Melanie McAlister argues that The Siege (1998) is one of few films that does not demonize Arabs and Muslims, and in fact portrays them as ordinary people who contribute to American society, but the persistent sonic representation of Islam as an inherently violent religion, and Muslims as a pernicious foreign Other, communicates significantly negative messages about Muslims and Islam, that lay outside the field of McAlister’s focus on imagery and character profiles.[15]Shaheen and McAlister are most likely responding to what Evelyn Alsultany describes as a “simplified complex representation,” (SCR) a representation that seems complex but actually perpetuates reductive stereotypes.[16] Syriana and The Siege both make use of the “good Muslim/bad Muslim” SCR. The films contain “good” Muslim characters who are not villains, and who either aid the non-Muslim American protagonists in some way or at least denounce the evil deeds of the “bad” Muslim villains. This and other SCRs create the illusion of having moved beyond patterns of stereotypical representations of Middle Easterners and Muslims, Alsultany argues, but in truth they create restrictive binaries in which Middle Easterners and Muslims are consistently represented in relation to terrorism, and can only be understood in terms of their “goodness” or “badness,” measured in part by how well they assist the non-Muslim American protagonists. A truly effective analysis of such patterns of representation is achieved not by determining if a representation is “good” or “bad,” but by deconstructing the ideological work a representation performs.[17]
Much work has been done by noted scholars such as Jack Shaheen and Edward Said to illuminate the ways that popular film has disparaged Middle Easterners and Muslims. Both scholars shed light on the gross and gratuitous use of harmful stereotypes to perpetuate Islamophobic and xenophobic messages. In Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, Jack Shaheen presents an exhaustive list of over 1,000 films that represent Arabs negatively. In his follow-up study, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11, he adds over 100 post-9/11 films to the list. Lina Khatib and Tim Jon Semmerling write more focused reports on the narrative structures of such films in Filming the Modern Middle East: Politics in the Cinemas of Hollywood and the Arab World, and “Evil” Arabs in American Popular Film. Edward Said, Peter Morey and Amina Yaqin focus their research on representations of Muslims and Islam in Western intellectual discourse in general. Other scholars study representations of Muslims and Middle Easterners as they pertain to the War on Terror. For example in Pop Culture Goes to War: Enlisting and Resisting Militarism in the War on Terror, Geoff Martin and Erin Steuter discuss stereotypical depictions of Arabs and Muslims through their exploration of the relationship between Hollywood and the military after 9/11.
All these scholars, regardless of their approach, identify the same collection of stock characters, stereotypes, harmful imagery and tired narrative structures: Arab/Middle Easterner/Muslim as bloodthirsty villain; as uber wealthy sheik; as goofy, ignorant sidekick; as veiled, subservient wife, sister or daughter; as seductive belly dancer; as nameless, faceless, chattering crowd or band of shouting hostiles. These character tropes have become all too familiar to scholars of representation. Arab/Middle Easterner/Muslim as violent, as stupid, as barbaric, as dirty, as absurdly wealthy, as absurdly poor, as dark-skinned, as terrorist, as fanatic, as seductive, as exotic, as mysterious, as submissive, are all common stereotypes expressed, in some combination, in virtually all culturally relevant films produced by Hollywood.[18] Granted, storylines change as historical contexts change, but one would be hard pressed to find popular romantic comedies, coming-of-age tales, or family values parables starring Middle Easterners or Muslims. On the contrary, these characters are relegated to 1950s-1960s fantasies, 1970s-1980s action thrillers, and, most prevalent today, post-9/11 War on Terror stories. Imagery, narrative and character structures are obviously critical elements of communication, but when sound is forgotten—or ignored--much is left unnoticed and uninvestigated.
On Sound
Sound is a powerful purveyor of ideas. Just as language and imagery can be appropriated and designed to evoke emotion and convey messages to an audience, so too can sound be appropriated and designed to communicate with listeners. Sound is used in film to help tell a story; it expresses and evokes emotion, invokes subliminal associations, and conveys messages.[19] The soundscape, or sonic environment, of each scene is just as critical in communicating with the audience, as musical scores and dialogue. In each scene throughout a film soundscapes complement the visual imagery, providing sonic context and interpolating the viewer in the on-screen environment.[20] Soundscapes include every sound element, from the barely audible sounds of rustling leaves and footsteps, to the roaring of engines and explosions of cars and buildings. The many unnoticed sounds comprising a soundscape, such as wind blowing, animal noises, or background chatter, have been just as carefully created by sound designers as the noticed sounds, collectively producing a relationship between the aural and visual environments, that represents the filmmakers’ constructed reality. A well-designed soundscape, according to sound designers Damian Candusso, Alex Joseph and David Sonnenschein should go largely unnoticed by the audience, but enrich listeners’ experience by acoustically representing the onscreen locations and immersing the audience in the sonic environment of the story being told.[21]Not only do effectively designed soundscapes help tell a story by providing sonic context, they help express the identity of the environment depicted in each scene.[22] As acoustic ecologist Kendall Wrightson explains, “The sound of a particular locality … can—like local architecture, customs and dress—express a community’s identity to the extent that settlements can be recognized and characterized by their soundscapes.”[23] If soundscapes express identity, then sound designers (and their directors and producers) are responsible for constructing those identities. The soundscapes found in Hollywood depictions of the Middle East then are American-produced constructs of Middle Eastern sonic identities. In other words, they are Orientalist constructs of “Other” identities, which express American prejudices, fears, and anxieties rather than Middle Eastern realities. What people see and hear in emotionally charged, politically relevant, and culturally significant films then, is the Orientalist constructions of visual and aural Other identities, in this case Middle Eastern/Muslim Others. Such constructed identities have consequences that reach far beyond the filmgoers' experiences and into their everyday lives—and the lives of the people they encounter. Indeed, as Jack Shaheen argues, “Filmmaking is political. Movies continuously transmit selected representations of reality to world citizens from Baghdad to Boston. Dehumanizing stereotypes emerging from the cinema, TV, and other media help support government policies, enabling producers to more easily advance and solidify stereotypes.”[24]
As the previously reviewed scholars of representation have revealed in their various examinations of Hollywood film and TV, the reality that is being constructed and transmitted to audiences is rife with Muslim and Middle Eastern violence, terrorism, barbarity, and religious fanaticism. They have made it clear how character tropes, narrative structures and imagery perpetuate negative stereotypes. What very few scholars have shown is how sound works to do the same, and how attending to sound can accentuate certain avenues of communication and reveal the American public’s shift in focus from culture to religion in its attempt to make sense of what many perceive as a clash of civilizations.
One short essay regarding the use of Islamic sounds in Hollywood film called, “The Sound of the ‘War on Terror’” can be found in an anthology of essays about the various effects of 9/11 on media.[25] Corey Creekmur has observed the same sonic phenomena discussed in this thesis, including the use of Islamic sounds and Middle Eastern languages, to sonically slander Middle Easterners and Muslims. Creekmur refers to the specific use of these sounds that emerged after 9/11 as “aural Orientalism.”[26] Creekmur’s attention to the role of sound in film is an incredibly valuable addition to the image-dominated discourse, but his categorization of sonic phenomena in post-9/11 film as aural Orientalism fails to fully articulate the ideological work performed by representations of Middle Easterners and Muslims. Essentially his analysis lacks breadth and depth. By tracing the evolution of the use of sound through almost seven decades, (1950-the present) and applying Alsultany’s method of deconstructing the ideological work performed by representations to the analysis of film sounds, shifts in representational norms that correspond to shifts in popular American attitudes toward and conceptualizations of the Middle East and its peoples are revealed. This study reveals a shift in patterns of representing Middle Easterners and Muslims from c.1950s Orientalist representations in which Middle Easterners are exoticized, their cultural practices are presented as the crux of what divides the “Orient” from the “Occident,” and which communicated anti-Arab racism, to post-9/11 representations in which Islam is presented as the crux of what divides a terroristic Muslim Other from a victimized U.S., and which communicate Islamophobic ideology. This shift, and its sonic expression, has not been addressed in the literature on representations of the Middle East and its peoples in American popular culture, or in the literature on cinematic sound design.
This study attends to the ideological role sound plays in film to interpret the changing nature of Hollywood representations, what they communicate to an audience, and what they communicate about an audience. This thesis reviews Hollywood films produced between 1950 to the present that depict Middle Easterners and Muslims. It is based on a compiled film list, composed of recommendations analyzed by previous scholars, particularly Jack Shaheen, whose list is the most exhaustive, and my own research. I have reviewed at least ten films from each decade in order to gain a firm grasp on contemporary patterns of representation. Chapter one deals with films produced between 1950-1969, chapter two with films from 1970-1989, and chapter three with films from 1990 to the present. Each chapter contends with relevant historical events and their influence on popular American beliefs about the Middle East and Hollywood’s representations of Middle Easterners. Sound lies at the heart of this thesis. The study is of course intended to be read but, in order to appreciate the full impact of the argument, the evidence presented is intended to be heard.
[1] Amy Goodman, “High-Flying Profiling: Six Muslim Leaders Removed in Handcuffs From US Airways Plane After Praying in Airport,” Democracy Now, Nov. 29, 2006, http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/29/high_flying_profiling_six_muslim_leaders.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Martiga Loan, “6 Imams Removed From Twin Cities Flight,” The Washington Post, Nov. 21, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112100336.html.
[4] Leslie Miller, “Imams Stage Airport ‘Pray-In’ As Protest,” The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2006, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/27/AR2006112700362.html.
[5] Associated Press, “Six Muslim Imams Removed From U.S. Airliner,” ABC News, Nov. 21, 2006, http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15824096/ns/us_news-security/t/six-muslim-imams-removed-us-airliner/#.VtX0c5MrJo6.
[6] Libby Sander, “6 Imams Removed From Flight For Behavior Deemed Suspicious,” The New York Times, Nov. 22, 2006, http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/22/us/22muslim.html?bl&ex=1164517200&en=24531ca1fa7314e1&ei=5087%0A&_r=0.
[7] “How The Imams Terrorized an Airliner,” The Washington Times, Nov. 28, 2006, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2006/nov/28/20061128-122902-7522r/.
[8] “Flying While Muslim,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_while_Muslim.
[9] M.R., “Flying While Muslim: A Youtube Star Says He Was Forced Off a Flight For Speaking Arabic,” The Economist, Dec. 21, 2016, http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2016/12/flying-while-muslim-0.
[10] B.R., “Nothing To Fear Except Fear Itself: Southwest Airlines Accused of Profiling Muslims,” The Economist, Nov. 23, 2015, http://www.economist.com/blogs/gulliver/2015/11/nothing-fear-except-fear-itself.
[11] Peter Holley, “Morning Mix: Muslim Couple Says They Were Kicked Off Delta Flight For Using Phone, Saying ‘Allah,’” The Washington Post, Aug. 7, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2016/08/07/muslim-couple-says-they-were-kicked-off-delta-flight-for-using-phone-saying-allah/?utm_term=.b1e405b37562.
[12] The sound track, sometimes referred to as a film’s sound design, consists of three kinds of sound: the human voice, or dialogue, sound effects, which includes sounds like the wind blowing, gravel crunching underfoot, explosions, car motors, and the like, and music, which includes songs that were licensed for the film, and music that was written for a specific film.
[13] Please see Scalar for corresponding sound clips.
[14] Jack Shaheen, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11, (Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008). 169.
[15] Melanie McAlister, Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, & U.S. Interests in the Middle East Since 1945, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 260.
[16] Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation After 9/11, (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 14.
[17] Ibid., 13.
[18] Jack Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies A People, (Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2009), 7.
[19] Damian Candusso, “Aural Landscapes: Designing a Sound Environment for Screen,” Screen Sound, no 3. (2012): 122.
[20] David Sonnenschein, Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema. (Studio City: Michael Wiese Productions, 2001) xix.
[21] Kendall Wrightson, “An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology,” Soundscape, The Journal of Acoustic Ecology 1, no. 1 (2000), 10, David Sonnenschein, Sound Design: The Expressive Power of Music, Voice, and Sound Effects in Cinema (Studio City: Michael Weise Productions, 2001), xix, Damian Candusso, “Aural Landscapes: Designing a Sound Environment for Screen,” Screen Sound n0. 3 (2012): 132., and Alex Joseph, interview by Jake Riehle, Designing Sound: Art and Technique of Sound Design, April 22, 2010.
[22] Kendall Wrightson, “An Introduction to Acoustic Ecology,” Soundscape, The Journal of Acoustic Ecology 1, no. 1 (2000): 10.
[23] Ibid.
[24] Jack Shaheen, Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs After 9/11, (Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2008), xviii.
[25] Corey Creekmur, “The Sound of the ‘War on Terror,’” in Reframing 9/11: Film, Popular Culture and the ‘war on Terror,” eds. Jeff Birkenstein, Anna Froula, & Karen Randell, (New York: Continuum, 2010), 83-96.
[26] Ibid., 91.
