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The "evil" Arab has become a stock character in American popular films, playing the villain opposite American "good guys" who fight for "the American way." It's not surprising that this stereotype has entered American popular culture, given the real-world conflicts between the United States and Middle Eastern countries, particularly since the oil embargo of the 1970s and continuing through the Iranian hostage crisis, the first and second Gulf Wars, and the ongoing struggle against al-Qaeda. But when one compares the "evil" Arab of popular culture to real Arab people, the stereotype falls apart. In this thought-provoking book, Tim Jon Semmerling further dismantles the "evil" Arab stereotype by showing how American cultural fears, which stem from challenges to our national ideologies and myths, have driven us to create the "evil" Arab Other. Semmerling bases his argument on close readings of six films (The Exorcist, Rollover, Black Sunday, Three Kings, Rules of Engagement, and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut), as well as CNN's 9/11 documentary America Remembers. Looking at their narrative structures and visual tropes, he analyzes how the films portray Arabs as threatening to subvert American "truths" and mythic tales--and how the insecurity this engenders causes Americans to project evil character and intentions on Arab peoples, landscapes, and cultures. Semmerling also demonstrates how the "evil" Arab narrative has even crept into the documentary coverage of 9/11. Overall, Semmerling's probing analysis of America's Orientalist fears exposes how the "evil" Arab of American popular film is actually an illusion that reveals more about Americans than Arabs.

America Remembers (Film) --- America Remembers (motion picture) --- Arabes dans le cinéma --- Arabieren in de film --- Arabs in motion pictures --- Black Sunday (Film) --- Black Sunday (motion picture) --- CNN Tribute: American Remembers --- L'exorciste (Film) --- Rollover (Film) --- Rollover (motion picture) --- Rules of Engagement (Film) --- Rules of Engagement (motion picture) --- The Exorcist (Film) --- The Exorcist (motion picture) --- Three Kings (Film) --- Three Kings (motion picture) --- Arabs in motion pictures. --- Motion pictures --- History. --- United States --- History

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"Throughout history, the religious imagination has attempted to control nothing so much as our bodies: what they are and what they mean; what we do with them, with whom, and under what circumstances; how they may be displayed-or, more commonly, how they must be hidden. Religious belief and mandate affect how our bodies are used in ritual practice, as well as how we use them to identify and marginalize threatening religious Others. This book examines how horror culture treats religious bodies that have stepped (or been pushed) out of their 'proper' place. Unlike most books on religion and horror, This book explores the dark spaces where sex, sexual representation, and the sexual body come together with religious belief and scary stories. Because these intersections of sex, horror, and the religious imagination force us to question the nature of consensus reality, supernatural horror, especially as it concerns the body, often shows us the religious imagination at work in real time. It is important to note that the discussion in this book is not limited either to horror cinema or to popular fiction, but considers a wide range of material, including literary horror, weird fiction, graphic storytelling, visual arts, participative culture, and aspects of real-world religious fear. It is less concerned with horror as a genre (which is mainly a function of marketing) and more with the horror mode, a way of storytelling that finds expression across a number of genres, a variety of media, and even blurs the boundary between fiction and non-fiction. This expanded focus not only deepens the pool of potential examples, but invites a much broader readership in for a swim"--

Horror. --- Human body --- Popular culture --- Religious aspects. --- Alien invasion. --- Ambiguity. --- Anthropology. --- Anti-Catholic nativism. --- Anti-Pagan activism. --- B movies. --- Censorship. --- Clive Barker. --- Clovis Trouille. --- Cosmic horror. --- Cosmic indifference. --- Cthulhu Mythos. --- Devil. --- Dracula. --- Edward Lee. --- Enigma. --- Evolutionary psychology. --- Exploitation. --- Fear. --- Graphic novels. --- H. P. Lovecraft. --- Horror genre. --- Horror mode. --- Human sacrifice. --- Interpretive drift. --- King Kong. --- Legion of Decency. --- Lustmord. --- Margaret Brundage. --- Maria Monk. --- Marquis de Sade. --- Matthew Lewis. --- Monstering. --- Monstrous body. --- Morality. --- Motion Picture Association of America. --- Motion Picture Production Code. --- Nudity. --- Numinous. --- Nun fetish. --- Nunsploitation. --- Pulp fiction. --- Queer horror. --- Realization. --- Religion. --- Religious Imagination. --- Religious imagination. --- Religious questions. --- Riddle. --- Ritual rarity. --- Roger Corman. --- Rudolf Otto. --- Sadeian horror. --- Sex. --- Sexual bodies. --- Sexualized advertising. --- Sigmund Freud. --- Skepticism. --- Spatter horror. --- Stephen King. --- Tanya Luhrmann. --- The Exorcist. --- The Wicker Man. --- The Witch. --- Thomas Rowlandson. --- Weird Tales. --- Witchcraft. --- Wrath James White. --- Sex --- Horror --- Religious aspects