CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF AMERICAN FILMS ON ARAB MUSLIMS: A HEGEMONIC DISCOURSE OR CLASH OF CULTURES?

The Middle East in general and the Muslim world in particular has been 
plagued by cultural ravaging, imperial interests, and unequal partnership 
with the West, especially with the United States. However, since 2001, the 
Arab world has moved to the centre of cultural debates and received the 
major number of cultural misrepresentations in American films. This study 
explores the significant role of movies in presenting distorted information 
and creating irrefutable images of the Arab world, its people, its religion, 
its culture, and its way of life. Analysis in this study investigates the 
assumption implicit in the conception that American films is in solidarity 
with the States ignoring its hegemony and imperial ambitions in the region 
and its saturation with imperial practices. In response to the terrorist attacks 
of 9/11, 2001, films have been one of the most effective mediums to 
represent the feelings of the American nation and the concern of the state. 
Therefore, this study will offer a different approach to the study of films, 
a semantic and semiotic analysis, in which cultural attitudes and political 
orientations of film directors allow movies to follow the mainstream 
politics and do not grapple with the hegemonic interests. Moreover, 
analysis in this study will contribute, in a good way, to suggesting a 
systematic approach to the study of post-9/11 American films in order to 
evaluate the communicative and aesthetic impact as a powerful cultural 
medium.