Welcome to the third week of Arab American Heritage Month! I’m your host, Amira Ferjani taking over for Jackie McGriff. We’re continuing our conversation about Arab representation using the framework of the late Dr. Jack Shaheen’s, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. If you missed the first 2 parts of our series talking about Orientalism and covering the first half of Reel Bad Arabs, go back and watch and/or listen to those episodes!

If you haven’t already seen Reel Bad Arabs, we HIGHLY recommend that you watch. It’s less than an hour and you can watch it for FREE on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPxak6lFd-I

Muna Najib is a first-generation Palestinian social justice activist, writer, speaker and educator. She has been advocating and teaching about Palestine and other marginalized communities for well over a decade. She is a graduate of University at Buffalo with a degree in English, Third world literature and African American studies. She believes in fighting for full land back for all indigenous peoples which includes Palestine’s full liberation and sovereignty from the river to the sea.

Reach out to her at mntaha@gmail.com. You can also follow her on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/mnnajib7.

Returning to the podcast is Laith Ali, a computer science major, Class of 2026. He’s a Palestinian American whose family is from Jenin and Abu Qash.

Follow Students for Justice in Palestine on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/sjp.urand donate to their group and efforts to helping the people of Palestine here: https://linktr.ee/UR.SJP

Lastly, but certainly not least, is Ryan Shrime. Ryan Shrime is of Lebanese and Palestinian descent and is an actor, voiceover artist, writer, and producer in Los Angeles. Since having been a producer for the Arab-American Comedy Festival in New York and the co-founder and producer of the Middle Eastern Comedy Festival in Los Angeles, Ryan has been using his platform to help combat stereotypes and misrepresentation of Arabs in Hollywood and the media at large.

Ryan can be found on most socials at @ryanshrime. To support him, you can hire him as an actor, get him into the writer’s room, and rewatch episodes of Sam and Kat so that he can collect royalties. We need to support our actors!

Amira Ferjani is a Tunisian American and Marketing and Communications Specialist uses her platform to educate others on anti-SWANA discrimination and the often-erased diversity of the South West Asia and North Africa region. She draws on her lived experience and cultural heritage to challenge the erasure and misrepresentation of SWANA peoples in media, policy, and everyday language. Amira centers clarity, accountability, and the belief that education is the first step towards solidarity and, ultimately, liberation for all.

Subscribe to her Substack, Amira Out Loud here: http://amiraoutloud.substack.com. She’s also on most social media platforms as @amiraoutloud.

As promised here are some other resources:

Books – Orientalism by Edward Said; Reel Bad Arabs by Dr. Jack Shaheen

Articles - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1priV6Ew23wYz1Vm0tefsERqVCz-a4UCP77UdWWrAqbY/edit?usp=drive_link

Wherever you’re listening from, hit that subscribe button and if you liked tonight’s episode, please give us a 5-star rating, share this episode and leave a comment to let us know what you liked the most! Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok & Threads.

Visit ourvoicesproject.com and sign up for our newsletter for more information about what we do. In our next episode, we’re going to talk about decolonizing your consumption and what authentic Arab representation really looks like.

Chapters:

00:00 - Intro

08:22 - Exploring Stereotypes in Media

15:53 - The Impact of Hollywood on Perceptions of Arabs

20:24 - Advocacy and Representation in Hollywood

21:37 - The Need for Authentic Representation

24:46 - Colorism and Stereotypes in Media

25:32 - Modern Depictions and Cultural Erasure

28:26 - The Impact of Hollywood on Arab Identity

29:59 - Personal Experiences in Acting

38:27 - Recent Portrayals and Cultural Misrepresentation

44:33 - Shifts in Representation and Future Outlook

48:35 - The Role of Social Media in Documenting Genocide

49:29 - Shifts in Hollywood's Narrative

51:56 - The Impact of Boycotting Films

54:47 - Creating Alternative Narratives

01:01:25 - The Power of Representation in Storytelling

01:09:41 - Boycotting Roles: A New Approach for Actors

Mentioned in this episode:

Getting Real with Bossy: For Women Who Own Business

Check out Getting Real with Bossy: For Women Who Own Business on Lunchador! https://feeds.captivate.fm/gettingrealwithbossy/

Joe Bean Roasters

Visit joebeanroasters.com to get fresh roasted specialty coffee either by the bag or with a Perpetual Joy subscription!

Our Voices Project - Land Acknowledgement

Mind of Magnus

Artist Magnus Champlin Interviews guests sharing the stories and life adventures with the goal of expanding minds.

Hello pod.

Welcome to the third week of Arab American Heritage Month.

I'm your host Amir Farjani, taking over for Jackie McGriff.

This is representation in Cinema, a podcast where we talk about films that center Black, Brown and Indigenous voices as well as the film industry itself.

Representation in Cinema is also a podcast started by Our Voices Project, a production company committed to sharing the stories and lived experiences of Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples through visual storytelling and truth telling.

Their community engaged filmmakers who firmly believe that you can't center films on these communities without being in community and in solidarity with them.

If you're watching this on YouTube, hit that subscribe button and hit the little bell to get notified about new episodes.

If you're listening on your preferred podcast platform, hit that follow button.

If you like this episode, please rate us five stars and leave a comment to share your thoughts about any of the things that we bring up tonight.

We're continuing our conversation today about Arab representation using the framework of the late Dr. Jack Shaheen's real bad how Hollywood Vilifies a People A People.

If you missed the first two parts of our series, the talking about Orientalism and covering the first half of Real Bad Arabs, go back and watch and or listen to those episodes if you're unfamiliar with the film based off of the book by Dr. Shaheen.

It's available on YouTube for free.

We'll have the link for you in the show notes and or in the description if you're watching on YouTube.

Before we get into the discussion, let's introduce our guests, starting with my co host Muna.

Muna is a first generation Palestinian social justice activist, writer, speaker and educator.

She's been advocating and teaching about Palestine and other marginalized communities for well over a decade.

She's a graduate of the University at Buffalo with a degree in English, Third World Literature and African American Studies.

She believes in fighting for full land back for all indigenous peoples which includes Palestine's full liberation and sovereignty from the river to the sea.

Welcome back Muna.

Pleasure to be back.

Thank you.

He's a Palestinian American whose family is from Jenin and Abu Kash.

Welcome back Laith.

It's good to be back.

Thank you.

And then joining us for the first time is Ryan Schreim.

Ryan Schreim is of Lebanese and Palestinian descent and is an actor, voiceover artist, writer and producer in Los Angeles.

Since having been a producer for the Arab American Comedy Festival in New York and the co Founder and producer of the Middle Eastern Comedy Festival in Los Angeles, Ryan has been using his platform to help combat stereotypes and misrepresentations of Arabs in Hollywood and the media at large.

Ryan can be found on most socials at.

Ryan Shrime.

Welcome to the podcast, Ryan.

Hello.

Thanks for having me.

Super excited to have you here today.

So, Ryan, you're the first joining us for the first time, so just to get things kind of kicked off, and we all answered this last time.

What were the films that you grew up loving as a kid and that has really stuck with you throughout the years?

Well, just in general.

Yeah.

God.

ET Was actually the first movie that made me.

I was four and I saw.

It was the first movie that actually made me want to be an actor and involved in Hollywood.

That and Pinocchio.

I remember seeing that with my mom and just maybe a little embarrassing movie.

I was obsessed with Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves for, like, a really long time.

So I think I wore out one VHS tape watching it.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, God, my entire life has been dominated by movies, so.

Yeah.

Okay.

And last time, we also discussed what comes to mind for you as far as there being a month where Arab cultures, identities, and lived experiences are acknowledged in America.

How do you feel about Arab American Heritage Month?

And feel free to be honest.

We were very honest last time.

Um, gosh, I mean, in a way, it feels a little bit like lip service.

I love that it's a thing, and, you know, we have to start somewhere.

But it's a little bit ironic, to say the least, to be happening right now as our country actively participates in genocide.

To be like, oh, yeah, but, you know, but pretend we like Arabs.

So, you know, it's.

I don't know.

I've.

To be honest, I never knew there was an Arab American Heritage Month.

This is the first year I've ever actually.

I don't know, has there been one before, or is this our first year?

Yeah.

So we discussed this a little bit on the last episode, kind of the history and the making of this month, because I felt the same way.

I was like, when did this come about?

Yeah, you know, it kind of snuck up on us.

And then.

Yeah.

Two short years later.

Yeah.

Just in the nick of time.

And apparently the month of April was open.

I don't know.

Okay, so there you go.

A little bit of, you know, context for that, because I think, yeah, many of us felt that way.

Too.

Yeah.

All right.

I mean, it's a little ironic.

Yeah, sorry, go ahead.

No, I was just gonna say the final question putting you on the spot, Ryan, is just, what was your initial reaction when you saw or maybe read Real Bad Arabs?

So funny.

I actually.

I told Jackie this.

So I come from being a producer on the New York Arab American Comedy Festival, and I was discussing with a friend of mine, comedian friend of mine, Ronnie, whether we should continue doing a festival in Los Angeles.

And we went.

I don't remember who was hosting it, but we went to an event where they were hosting Real Bad Arabs and then doing a Q and A afterwards, and we watched a video, and we were like, you know what?

We've come a long way since this.

You know, we've come a long way from the fat Arab sheik collecting white virgins wielding a scimitar.

And then literally, we went and saw Taken the next day, and the, like, final bad guy in Taken is a fat Arab sheik with a scimitar collecting white virgins.

And we were like, okay, maybe we haven't advanced at all.

And, you know, I just rewatched it again yesterday just in preparation for this.

And, like, it gets me.

This is, like, the third time I've seen it.

It gets me every time of, like, you know, not to drone on too long.

Also, just how you manufacture an enemy, how you create an enemy of an entire people, how you create a, you know, as he says, untermenschen of an entire people.

I remember it was in college or high school, actually.

No, it was post college.

It was during Iraq or Afghanistan, shortly after September 11th.

There was this army commercial.

And the commercial starts on, like, a Army Marine, I don't know, some soldier.

And they're like, you know, you only have food for seven days.

It's now day 21, whatever.

And your mission is to target the enemy.

And immediately they show on screen an Arab dude with a target on his face, you know, and, you know, in jeeps.

And I was like, that was the first time it hit me.

I'm like, oh, I'm the enemy.

They just.

I'm the enemy.

Like, they.

They manufactured an enemy for us.

And so it's interesting, you know, being part of Hollywood and confronting this day in and day out with the auditions that come in and the stories that I say yes or no to that.

Like, it's just really is, I don't know, maybe.

I'm sure a lot, a lot of it is intentional.

I'm sure a lot of it isn't intentional.

But still playing on the same stereotypes of Arabs are the bad guy.

Arabs are dangerous and if they're not, they're ridiculous.

You know, we're.

It's really like pure Orientalism in its, you know, most basic form.

So, yeah, I have a lot to say about that doc, but that's my thoughts.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And for those unfamiliar, I'm going to kind of go through some of the stereotypes that are covered in the documentary right now.

A little bit of a recap of what we talked about last week, but also with, because I'm currently reading Covering Islam by Edward Said and he says in there we are pretty much reduced Arabs, that is in media to be the oil supplier or the terrorist, except for, I guess, those fun bits where we're both right.

So a lot of the times.

And that's actually why I've been wearing my keffiyeh, especially recently because, yeah, I was just watching, you know, a movie that I was hoping, you know, the guy was a veteran in it and I was hoping it wouldn't play too much on that because I knew that it would cut to him getting a medal of honor for killing Arabs.

And that's exactly what happened.

It cuts to him in the battlefield shooting people in keffiyeh's.

And so that's always a really big one.

They're always shouting in harsh Arabic.

Not always Arabic, in fact, because a lot of times they'll be played by people who are Israelis or otherwise unfamiliar with the language.

So a lot of times it's gibberish that they're yelling.

Of course, there's the Al Akbar that comes out and so in Real Bad Arabs.

And part of what you were saying is something that I said last week of like, oh, we're always the villains.

And what I love about Dr. Jack Shaheen's work is how he's not only showing these stereotypes, he's talking about why they're so persistent.

And something he highlights is, of course, the links to U.S. foreign policy and U.S. israeli interests.

For those of y' all that don't know, Golan and Globus as well as canon pictures have ties to Israel.

Golan and Globus was founded by two Israelis and they within the time period that Real Bad arabs covers had 30 films depicting Palestinians in a negative light.

There have also been films done in direct partnership with the Department of Defense here in the U.S. now, the Department of War, including one called Rules of Engagement, written by former Secretary of the Navy James Webb, which the whole movie is.

It starts with a massacre of a crowd of Yemeni people.

And the whole movie is basically walking the audience through justifying why they had to shoot children and women which were in that crowd.

And by the end of it, you.

It continues this thread of having to kill Arabs before they kill us, which is a bit of an Israeli proverb.

You could say they use that to justify assassinations.

But we see this play out in movies as they're manufacturing consent, like you were saying, and dehumanizing us.

So at the end of the movie, you're supposed to come to this conclusion that even the children were terrorists.

Even this amputee girl that he meets at the beginning of the movie, by the end of it, she's holding a gun.

And so it's supposed to be justified.

He says more than 300.

This is from Dr. Jack Shaheen.

More than 300 movies contain slurs or portray Arabs as a butt of a joke.

And that's really what we are.

I think it's very interesting.

As much as we're seen as a threat, a lot of times that threat is also painted as laughable.

Paints us in a very defeatist light that we just simply.

Like in Indiana Jones where there's a.

He's confronting an Arab man with a sword and he pulls out his gun and shoots him.

And it's supposed to be a comedic moment.

So just wanted to walk us through some of the stereotypes, but I know that you all have a lot of thoughts as well.

I wonder, Muna or Leith, if you two have anything you wanted to touch on, maybe from last week or just thinking back on real bad Arabs before we kind of move.

I think then we'll move the conversation into like the more modern day movies.

But was there anything else you wanted to wrap up from last week?

I, I enjoyed the documentary a lot.

I think he did a great job and I'm pretty grateful that someone was able to cover it at the extent that he did.

I mean, the things that like really like popped out at me is how much we don't really realize when it comes to anti Arab sentiment into a lot of these films.

Like for example, like accents, like a pretty big thing like in Aladdin, like with the accents, the good guys in the film, they have like a very like American accent.

And then the villains in the film have this, you know, like really harsh, deep broken English in an Arab accent.

And it's, it's Just that, like, depiction of Arabs are not as intelligent and they mess up their English a lot and they have these thick accents.

So I thought that was, like, a pretty big part, too.

And then, you know, touching on rules of Engagement.

It's just.

I thought that film was disgusting.

I watched it when I was younger with my siblings and my.

My parents, my whole family.

And it was just like, my dad threw on a movie and, like, you know, just didn't think much of it.

And my brother got really angry at it.

You know, at the end of it, I didn't understand why after, like, watching Real Bad Arabs, you know, you really understand they justified killing a little kid, you know, and it's supposed to make you be like, oh, wow, that little kid had a gun and it was pointing at him.

I understand why she died.

And it's just.

It was very shocking and it was disgusting.

And you see that reasoning in a lot of these movies and in real life where they will justify killing innocent Arabs and they'll be like, oh, well, this Arab boy and an American sniper picked up a gun after he saw his father die.

It's just like.

And they parade it around like it's a. Oh, wow, this poor soldier had to shoot this boy.

So it really does tie to, like, how it's allowed in, like, real life, too.

Like, it's.

It's not seen as much.

I'm rambling on a little bit too much.

But I just want to end it at.

This is a big thing after October 7th happened was there was that false headline of 40 beheaded babies, and that promoted so much outrage in the media.

And it's because there was these 40 Israeli babies.

They weren't Arab, they were Israeli babies, and they were beheaded, apparently, and it turned out to be fake.

And now you have videos of little kids holding their little brother in a body in, like, a plastic bag with his limbs.

You don't get as much outrage.

Why?

Because of some extremists in Israel, which is, you know, a lot of people will be like, these could, like, turn into, like, a soldier to, like, fight against us someday.

And that's how they're justifying it.

So these.

These media portrayals, like, how errors are portrayed in the media, it reflects on how real life people see them.

I rambled for a bit too much there.

I'm sorry, can I just jump in piggyback on what you were saying?

I think part of, like, again, what I said, maybe intentional, maybe it's not.

I'm sure it's a combination of both, but it is manufacturing consent for the time that it does happen.

You know, like, see Rules of Engagement, where, you know, this young girl picks up a gun and therefore they had to shoot her.

So we're conditioned as Americans to then think, okay, well, when they shot the kids over there, they must have deserved it somehow.

They must have done something to deserve it, or they were going to grow up to deserve it, or some, some reason to justify it that is directly fed by our media.

Again, intentionally or not.

Or intentionally.

And not intentionally.

You know, there are people that just aren't very creative and they're like, oh, easy to make Arab terrorists.

You know, so let's just do that, because I don't think they, they don't have a whole geopolitical intention in their mind.

But, like, it really, it's unconscious.

It's unconscious for a lot of writers.

And, you know, and I've, listen, I've, I've read some of my friends scripts that I'm, I have to go back and say, do you realize what you've done?

You know, and it just, it's so easy.

But it really does affect how we vote, how we, it affects how we turn a blind eye.

It affects, you know, who we donate to it.

These have, like, real world effects.

And there's nothing really more powerful than entertainment.

You know, since the dawn of time, entertainment was always a political medium.

And so, you know, they're using it to manufacture consent to kill us.

Yeah, if I could, if I could jump in.

No, absolutely, I agree with, I, I agree with a lot of the sentiment that, and I think the feeling that Leith was trying to convey, Right.

And watching a film.

What was the film that was mentioned?

It was the Rules of Engagement.

I don't think I, I, I've seen enough films, I think, growing up where, and I had to learn, right, that maybe at times it wasn't conscious.

However, it was happening enough in many of the films, in many of the mainstream blockbuster movies that were being put out there.

I mean, literally, I remember in high school, it was like, I don't know, I had seen like the movie 300, and then I went to see the movie Transformers, and then I went to see another Marvel movie, and it was literally just this repetitive, you know, the Boogeyman, the Evil terrorist, the.

They either there was absolutely the whole notion of having the thick accents, or sometimes they didn't even speak at all.

They were just like wrapped like some kind of scarf.

And, but it was known like, these are the bad guys and the good guys, you know, are the Complete opposite of these people.

I. I will say absolutely the entertainment industry.

And Jack Shaheen, I wish he was still with us.

I really do.

It would be wonderful to have him live in really difficult times.

Things have progressed in many ways and, you know, I want to talk about, you know, get into that more, especially with you, Ryan, being in the industry as an actor, as an actor of Arab descent and, you know, you being able to.

To play different roles and, you know, other roles that maybe you weren't willing to play.

But American people are the most propaganda propagandized people in the world, and Hollywood is very much part of that propaganda.

So there is like the.

The imperial industrial complex, the media and the way that it has been, you know, systemically formed when it comes to Islamophobia, when it comes to, you know, creating the ongoing villain arc, this very, you know, late blatant notion of what these bad guys are supposed to be, who and what a terrorist is supposed to look like.

Right.

Whereas for our own people, especially back home, dealing with the brunt of our, you know, government and our policies and everything that they're dealing with, they don't get to write and tell their own stories.

So everything that's kind of being put out there to the mainstream public is like, I just.

I can't reconcile, like, for how long it's been going on and how often, on top of the fact that when.

So with every marginalized group in a Hollywood movie, no one's safe, right?

Every marginalized group has to deal with being typecasted or stereotyped in some way in Hollywood films.

Like, this is a fact.

But when it comes to people of the Swana or Mena region or diasporas, I do think there's a lot more acceptance of it and not as much pushback, especially in Hollywood.

And I do think that's where a lot of writers fall into the traps without even a second thought of, this is.

This is pretty racist.

You know, this is.

This isn't right.

But there's never, like a second thought about it.

So I think, like, that's the main difference of how our own peoples have been portrayed for so long versus even, you know, any.

Any other marginalized groups where it's like, whoa, hold on a second.

This is not good.

We got, you know, you're not going to.

You can't get away with this.

But for some reason, with our people's, it's always okay, you know.

Well, there is.

Is, you know, one of the things in Hollywood is there are advocacy groups for, you know, black Americans, indigenous Americans, you know, Hispanic, Latino, Asian Americans.

There are.

There are more powerful advocacy groups than for Arabs.

There is MPAC in Hollywood, which is the Muslim Public Affairs Council, and they definitely advocate for Islamic representation in Hollywood, and they've done some really good work in progressing that narrative.

But for Arabs in general, we don't really have one.

It's.

There's.

There's not really a very strong advocacy group to say, hey, this is misrepresentation, you know, so luckily, MPAC has definitely taken up some of the brunt of that.

For sure.

They've done a great job.

But as an ethnic group there, we lack that advocacy in Hollywood.

And whatever there is, it's not.

It's not very powerful.

And so that was one of the things we had tried to start with this comedy festival, and we definitely have a community of people, but coming together and creating, like an advocacy group hasn't happened yet at all.

Like, you feel like it's not even with the Mo's and the Ramis of today that it hasn't.

I mean, listen, there might be one that I'm not aware of, so, you know, I'm not the be all, end all on this, but, like, you know, Mo and Rami have done amazing things in their own right of just progressing, you know, Arab American stories that are just beautiful stories.

But to actually create an outside group that, like, for example, when there's Native American representation in a movie, there's a group that is, you know, are these actual Cherokee?

Are, you know, are these.

Are they being represented accurately?

You know, there are groups checking and Hollywood is a little more.

A little more careful maybe because of these groups or not, I don't know.

But when it comes to us, it's like, close enough, you know, and say.

The American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee is the only one I've seen that has said things.

And yeah, they definitely don't have a lot of pull I've seen.

They managed to get, and I wish I remembered which movie it was, but there was some movie replaying in, like, Michigan that they were able to get them to stop airing it on a local channel.

But, yeah, definitely nowhere near as much power.

Yeah.

You know, and then.

And a lot of this work comes, you know, in that time between script and screen.

Like, that's where a lot of that work comes.

But it also requires producers and networks and studios to be on board and to really care about that.

And, you know, I'm not.

Again, there are some people who do, but you're right, when it comes to Arabs the care is a lot less.

Yeah, I did want to touch on something Laith was saying about Aladdin because in addition to the accents, I was just.

Because I was just looking at the photos of these characters literally last week.

They, the main characters are much more anglicized than the villains.

Like, they have straight noses, they don't have super thick hair.

Meanwhile, the villains have thick hair, the goatee, bigger noses, they have dark circles around their eyes.

And I think a few of them, like their teeth are missing and stuff like that.

So that was.

It's so like if you were making a movie about anybody else and you.

And it's supposed to be all those people and you were doing that to the villains, like, yeah, you think that there would be something that clicks in your head, but it just isn't there for Arabs.

And it's very.

No, I don't know whether it's just because it's like literally profitable right now and has been to do that or if it's.

It's just something that is easy for them to fall into.

But unfortunately, when that's all you're really seeing of your representation, you fall into this trap of that's all, you know.

And so what else do Americans know Arabs from?

But being the villain on tv, there.

Is also, you know, to speak to, you know, and Amira, you and I have chatted about this a little bit, you know, about colorism in general.

You know, they do have lighter skin.

The heroes, the villains have darker skin.

You know, and this, you know, colorism is not just a thing for Arabs.

It's a thing within every ethnic community.

But it is very much.

You're right.

When, when they want to show, for example, in the movies where they try to have a good Arab to offset all the bad Arabs, you know, the good Arab is a little more Western looking and Western dressing and Western speaking and, you know, has a British or an American accent as opposed to an Arab accent.

So, yeah, there is this idea that west is best in Hollywood.

And so moving into more modern depictions.

Something that I think really exemplifies that is the erasure we also face sometimes in things that we should be featured in.

And so I just want to bring up Dune because I didn't even know Dune.

The book series is based on Bedouin North African Mena cultures.

And in the movie they said, no, thank you.

And they have.

I mean, it's.

It's a very diverse cast, but there are no Arabs.

I think there was one French actor that had Tunisian descent in one of the Movies, wasn't invited to any of the press tours, didn't get to do anything.

But also in the books, they have.

The language that they speak is mixed with Arabic.

And so they say words like jihad.

And they also took that out of Descript, which was very interesting to me because the con layer, which is the person who, like, makes languages in movies, said that since it's set 3,000 years in the future, that Arabic wouldn't have survived.

Yet they still speak English, they speak modern day English.

And yet Arabic, which is one of the oldest countries in the world, oldest languages in the world all of a sudden apparently wouldn't have survived.

So I just, I started watching it and it was originally supposed to be a metaphor for oil and theft from, like a rock.

That's what the spice.

If anyone has watched the movie, what they're like, harvesting is a metaphor for.

But it's just so interesting to me when you watch it.

Like, I remember seeing the promo for it and being like, oh, it kind of looks like us.

Like, it's set in the desert and they're swathed in, you know, veils and things like that.

But I just assumed that it was like Mad Max, which is set in the desert, and obviously it's sandy, so you kind of COVID your face, but.

And that's not about Arabs at all.

So when I found out that, like, it really was supposed to be more about us.

And the book series had its own faults, but that in the movie they really, like, removed us, I. I don't know.

It was very shocking because that's a very mainstream series, I'd say, and has, of course, very big names tied to it.

And they were doing the rollout of the promotion while the genocide was going on.

And so it's all of these non Arab celebrities that were, you know, appropriating our culture to a certain extent, swathed in veils, showing up to the premiere while Muslim mothers in Palestine are crying over their children in shrouds.

And some of them, I mean, there was a little bit of outcry for it from other Arabs, but, like, I found all of this out just on my own.

Searching it wasn't something that was served to me.

So I just, Yeah, I wanted to kind of pitch that back to y'.

All.

Like, are there things that you felt like, you know, you've seen us be erased from or that you thought was a nod to our culture but is still not really painting us?

Well, I mean, also just a quick producer interrupting the desert planet in Dune is called Arrakis.

Like is.

I'm reading is like deriving from an Arabic word.

The dancer and the Fremen are a.

Essentially a Bedouin, you know, Nomad.

Like it's, it couldn't be more unveiled usage of that and then all that at the same time.

So.

Producer out.

Yeah, well, it.

And we got Timothy Chalamet as well.

So that's, that's, that's what we got.

I mean, the thing, you know, the interesting thing is it's because they are the good guys in the story that the Arabic was erased.

I can, I can probably guess if they were the bad guys, then maybe there would have received a different treatment.

But because they're the good guys and because it is very clear metaphor of Western imperialism, you know, siphoning resources from desert people, they had to make it as non Arab as possible because they don't want you to side with the Arabs when they literally go do it.

You know, Iranians aren't Arabs, but, you know, they're doing it to Iran.

We're doing it to Iran right now.

You know, we want their oil.

We want.

Yeah.

As for other things though, I, I was, I was trying to think about other projects that I was finding that we were erased from and I was having a little bit of a difficult time.

It's funny because, like, I'm always so acutely aware of it and then when I have to think of it, I'm.

Like, I mean, yeah, go for it.

I just.

Because I know you've.

I don't know how long you've been acting, Ryan, and I don't know how you sort of got started, you know, what, what prompted you.

You said, you know, sounds like a pretty young age, that.

Yeah.

That the dream.

Always wanted to.

Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead.

No, no, I was just saying, you know, up at this point in your career, you know, what are your feelings as far as all of your experiences?

You have quite a resume, by the way.

So Ryan is.

I wasn't really.

I'll be on.

I wasn't really familiar with a lot of your work.

You've been on everything from Grays to like, were you on cs?

I don't know, CSI or something?

No, I've actually never done one of the csis or Law and Order or anything like that.

Yeah, you have.

Probably SWAT was probably what you're thinking of.

Okay.

You have an extensive resume and I know that you also have done like a little.

You've, you've played anything from sort of like your average like American person in a role and you've also played, like, certain roles where you are the Arab speaking, you know, individual, or you.

Or you're.

Or you're the guy with the accent.

Right.

And it was either for comedic, whatever, relief or, I mean, like, talk a little bit about that and your own experience and sort of how you feel these days about still being an actor and pursuing that.

It's very.

It's very interesting.

So, like, I. I always wanted to be an actor.

I started acting just, you know, in high school.

Just obviously not professionally from.

I was in Texas.

So, you know, there wasn't much opportunity for that.

Not completely changed, but kicked into high gear and its representation of Arabs.

And from the onset of my career, it's been high gear into Arabs are the bad guys Now.

We kind of.

We had a little bit of a respite, but we're very much back there.

I can.

Maybe 10 years ago, I don't know, something like that.

I did.

Or not even I did one.

I've done one terrorist role.

I mean, I've done a couple for, like, funny skits that I was okay with because I thought they were silly, they were funny, they were addressing topics that I cared about.

So.

But, you know, my sort of rule for myself has never been to play a terrorist because the last thing I want to do is contribute to the demonization of my people.

And I did one.

It's at the same time I was up for, like, this really salacious, like, fully nude role.

And I felt so much worse auditioning for this terrorist role than I ever did.

I was like, oh, God, that'd be terrifying to be naked on tv.

But, like, auditioning for this terrorist role felt so gross to me.

And I've done one terrorist role in my life, and I. I did not enjoy how it made me feel.

It was like I felt like I was selling out my people because of, you know, everything we've talked about recently.

I.

When.

When that was that role.

Yeah, that was about, like, I said, 10.

I think it's probably more like seven, eight years ago.

Okay, so not too long ago.

Yeah, it was not too long ago, and I did it.

And I just, you know, part of the thing as being an actor is at some point, you know, you're just, like, desperate for work.

You just want to work, even if it's not for money, because I had side jobs and stuff like that.

It's just, you know, this thing that you love to do that you feel is a calling is gate kept by people who want to portray you a very specific way.

And so either you create your own material, which everybody says you got to create your own material, but it's, you know, it's not always easy.

Not all of us are great writers.

And, I mean, I do write.

I wouldn't consider myself a great writer.

I felt I'm a good writer.

But, you know, it's just.

They also need money to create.

You can create little sketches, you know, little films here and there, but there is a certain element of money attached to.

So, you know, I took it full well, knowing I was not gonna like it, and it felt awful.

It really felt like.

I mean, I. I wept for days.

I just felt so gross about it.

And I was like, never again.

I would imagine, because I. I feel like it's.

Because it feels a betrayal to yourself, you know, Whereas doing something of a nude, you know, that's not really a betrayal of.

No, it's just risky.

It's.

It's just a risky, scary thing for me.

But, like, you know, I don't want to.

My family to have to see my butt on television, but, you know, like.

But fine, whatever.

So.

But lately, I will tell you, I have been turning down a lot of terrorist roles.

I mean, auditions.

Has there been an uptick?

It's hard to say.

You know, it's really hard as an actor.

It's.

In general, it's hard as an actor.

Like, life for an actor is difficult.

You know, you spend a lot of time just waiting for someone to let you do what you've spent your life training to do.

So, but particularly, you know, I have had casting directors come to me and be like, oh, my God, you're so good.

I'm looking for the right role for you.

Three years go by, and then they send a terrorist rollover.

And I'm like, is this really what you were waiting on?

You know, I mean, this is what you think that is the pinnacle of what I can do is, you know, say Allahu Akbar and blow myself up.

So.

And honestly, recently, I mean, I'm very outspoken on social media politically, and there are quite a lot of offices that have closed their doors to me, and I know it.

I'm very fully aware of the names of a lot of these people that I will in all likelihood, never work with again.

So.

Partly because I really just wanted to make acting harder for me.

I wanted to make the career just that much, that much more difficult.

Yeah, I don't know if there's been an uptick, but like, there's been an uptick of like, you know, my manager, bless her, I love, I adore my manager.

She's great and she sends me these roles and she's like, I ha.

It's, you know, it's her duty to send me the roles that come in for me.

But you know, she, I am really blessed to have a manager that like gets me, that I don't have to explain myself to.

She understands where I'm coming from.

She understands why I say no to something.

So.

But it is a lot.

Listen, I mean like Arabic's not my first language and you know, I grew up in Texas and I get a lot of like, people see Arab roll are like, oh, finally we can bring Ryan in.

As though like I can't do other things.

And you know, I mean, I know a lot of my Arab actor friends have the same, you know, once somebody knows you're Arab, that's you get the Arab roles.

Not always, you know, sometimes you get lucky.

But there's a lot of, there's a lot of which I don't love.

But you know, work is work, as long as it's like dignified, I guess.

You know, there was an actor, Robert Townsend, black actor, who just, you know, he could complain about like all he got offered were, you know, gang banger, criminal, you know, crack addict.

It's just like every ethnic group in Hollywood has to deal with.

Hollywood loves to portray itself as this forward thinking industry, but really, you know, it's still run by suits who, you know, have a bottom line that they respond to, that they market to.

And there's a very narrow window of imagination a lot of times about actors in the roles they come can play.

Interruption from a producer.

Again, make sure to check out a prior episode of Representation in Cinema featuring Robert Townsend and all of his movies.

Really glad you mentioned that was a tremendous episode.

Okay, awesome.

I want to move into some of, you know, the more recent portrayals as we've been talking about.

One big one that I just want to mention, Dr. Jack Shaheen and it will be in the show notes.

But I don't.

There's a lack of Arab culture in the rooms as well.

In the script writing rooms, in the producer rooms, in the editing rooms, in the directing rooms.

And so they at one point hired artists to do some spray paint in the background.

And they spray painted Homeland is racist in Arabic.

And nobody caught it because there were no Arabs in any of these rooms, like I said.

And it fully went out to air.

And I think the director was asked about it and he just said something like, oh, it adds to the art or whatever.

But I just wanted to use that as an example.

And Laith, I know you have mentioned American Sniper a few times.

I just wondered if you had anything you wanted to speak more about that on.

I mean, like a big portrayal of Arabs in movies is like we've said the whole time, it's this terrorist, it's this not too intelligent person.

They don't really focus on the culture.

And I think that Palestinians have a beautiful culture.

And I love my culture and I'm proud of my culture.

But it's.

It's so difficult to.

I'd say for like younger Palestinians or younger Arabs in general, it's harder for them to be proud of their culture when all they're portrayed as is a terrorist or a stupid rich man or somebody who will over sexualize women.

And that's just what's missing in a lot of these Hollywood films.

Every time an Arab is portrayed, it's, oh, he's either this big money guy or oh, he is the terrorist or.

Or he's just like a farmer.

And it's just, you know, I think they're really missing out on our culture.

There's not like a lot of things in America that focus on Arab culture.

And especially after 9, 11, there was this whole entire feeling across the US where Arabs are the bad guy.

If they speak Arabic, you get looked at different.

And it just really pushed everyone away from embracing that culture.

And it really sucks.

As a kid who grew up in America, I wasn't able to embrace my culture.

I wasn't able to embrace my food.

I wasn't able to embrace my language.

And it really just.

It drives a big divide.

I mean, what I'm trying to say is it just really puts in like this horrible situation for Arabs growing up in America.

And it's, it's going to be like a large effect.

It's going to be seen throughout the years.

That's my big issue with American films.

You know, there Is a.

This isn't entertainment related, but there was a.

It was in a hospital, Children's hospital in London, I believe.

There was a.

They had a.

What's the word?

Gosh.

When they put up works of artists, a display.

I don't forgetting my language, but they were displaying ceramic plates made by Palestinian children.

And there was an advocacy group that got it taken down, a pro Israel advocacy group that got it taken down because they said it was insensitive and it was literally nothing more than just children who happen to be Palestinians.

And I say that because it's almost like there is this idea that if you dare humanize Arabs and in particular Palestinians, it's danger.

It's like, how dare you do this?

You know, and it's a lot of times as an actor reading new playwrights works in New York, when we would get up and do a stage reading of.

Of a new playwright's work who happened to be Palestinian, there was always the.

What is the Israeli view?

Well, what about the Israeli viewpoint?

As if Arabs only exist in particular, particularly Palestinians only exist in.

In contrast to.

As, you know, as a counterpoint to, you know, we don't have our own culture and our own identities, except in relation to the west or to Israel or to, you know, if it's Muslims, to Christianity.

Like, we don't have our own identity, and particularly not one that's worth celebrating.

And I think Hollywood has lagged very far behind in, you know, we can celebrate, you know, in the heights of, like, you know, New York, Latino culture.

You know, we can celebrate different ethnicities and different cultures very easily.

But when it comes to celebrating Arab culture in Hollywood, it's.

It's not a.

It's not a thing.

There always has to be some political reference about why this is okay or why it's not okay or whatever.

You know, it's just, luckily I say this, you have Rami, you have Mo, you have these creators that are now coming out and telling their stories.

And we're starting to see this, and it's taken a long time, but we're like, we're finally getting to see this, like, really beautiful, rich tapestry of Arabic life and culture.

And I just.

I feels like we're taking a bit of a step back right now because of what's going on, but I really hope that we're not.

I really hope that, you know, the Ramis and the Mos of the world are opening the doors to more fair, accurate and celebratory representation.

Yeah, I mean, that's.

It's really Great seeing Mo.

I like that.

It was pretty nice.

It was a nice show, and it did show that culture I've been, like, yearning for.

I want to touch back on what you said about.

You mentioned, like, in Hollywood, like, Arab culture cannot be celebrated.

Me and Muna were just talking about it on the way here.

I don't know if you guys saw, but in Sesame street, they had, like, Elmo like, saying some Arabic phrases.

He said, salaam alaikum.

And you would think, like, oh, like a phrase that means peace be upon you.

That'll be pretty received.

Well, he's just speaking from Arabic.

Yeah.

Now that.

That's.

That's a really good point.

Yeah.

And they're gonna go.

These, like, Republican.

They're gonna go crazy, and they're like, wow.

Like, we don't want our kids learning Arabic.

And it's just.

Can I jump in?

So, like, yeah, that's.

I did want to mention the.

The recent happenings of, you know, Rami being on Sesame Street.

I don't know if you caught that.

Now I've literally been saying how Elmo goes.

Happy Arab American Heritage Month, habibi.

Like, I've literally.

It was so cute, and it's the cutest thing, right?

So, like, how can you get mad at Sesame Street?

Right.

They are known to be the perfect.

You know, I guess, like, television programming that has always tried to be inclusive, and I guess maybe in a way, finally we're seeing a little bit of, you know, that representation in a way.

But Rami did.

It's still.

It's extremely frustrating.

And it's also.

There's always this back and forth because we're.

We're kind of like, okay, there's progress.

But then, you know, Rami will be invited to, like, talk on the View.

And.

Which is.

Yeah.

Which I'm like, well, okay, at least he's on the View talking about it.

I don't know a handful of years ago, if we would have been having this discussion on a show like that.

But the backlash just over that small Sesame street clip has been, you know, like, he said, it's been more than anything that he's ever done.

Like, the backlash that he's received for just.

For that.

For saying salaam alaikum.

And how funny, because, like, I was.

I think I watched probably the same clip of the View that you did, and seeing, you know, their response was like, what's next?

The next Sesame street character is going to be praying facing east five times a day.

You know, like, creeping sharia.

Like, it's you know, you can't even say an Arabic word on Sesame street without alarm bells going off and launching another crusade.

You know, I mean it's.

But these are the old dinosaurs.

Like these talking heads on Fox News are losing, they're losing their momentum.

You know, I mean like the Gen Z, Gen Alpha.

Like there's a shift, there is a shift and eventually these people will be in positions of creative control of power.

You know, unfortunately, like money talks and who knows, you know, how wealthy these folks will be.

But like, I do think there's a shift.

There is a shift away from Arabs having to be the bad guy.

I hope I'm.

Yeah, no, there is a shift.

I think that shift.

It's, it's an important thing to note.

A big part of that shift, right?

These syndications kind of had to keep catch up because in the beginning of, you know, right after October 7th, what did we see?

We saw the media having a field day.

But what about Hamas?

But what about this?

But what about that?

It was really social media that changed everything.

It was social media at the hands of those right in Palestine that really changed everything.

Because for so long, I mean, and, and it, it, it does kind of go back.

Like, I guess maybe in a way we're coming in like it's a full circle moment, I guess.

But we're still, we still have to go through like these hard things to, to really see change come about.

But I think that that's really what it is.

It was the, the Palestinians themselves who you know, showcase.

I mean the reason why the genocide is the most documented genocide to, to date in history is literally because of their phones and because of social media.

So I think that's really what has like forced the mainstream media to.

They had to shift because people were waking up, they were seeing, they're like, there's no way, you know, we're going to believe everything that we've been forced fed for so long now that we're seeing exactly what's happening.

And then we saw the mainstream pundit, pundits who always, you know exactly what you were saying because of money, because this is a narrative.

You follow this narrative, otherwise you're going to lose, you know, viewership, you're going to lose sponsorship, all of these things.

But they then had to go with.

That shift, I will say, since, I mean as somebody who has been speaking out on social media since Friendster Amir, that might be older than you, I don't know, I don't know if you ever had Friendster, but like Friendster and MySpace and, you know, then early Facebook.

Like I will say there has been a market shift these last couple years.

I mean, it has been tremendous.

And so there's this organization called Creative Coalition for Peace in Hollywood, which is a very ironically named group because they're a very pro Israel.

When, like, for example, when Jonathan Glaser won his Oscar and he spoke, you know, a very benign, hey, Palestinians are humans too, they sign an open letter to denounce him.

So those voices used to be the mainstream in Hollywood.

Now they, I think they have come together and found each other because they are an ever shrinking community of people trying to uphold this old order.

And I think they see it slipping from their grasp and they see a new paradigm arising.

And, you know, as cynical as I am, I'm hopeful.

Yeah, I think I would be remiss, of course, not to mention Watermelon pictures, which we had on last episode, and they'll be back for the fourth episode.

So I'm excited for that.

But of course, like you were saying, money talks and hopefully seeing a production company seeing the demand for these types of movies for not only Palestinian stories, but Arab stories.

And I know they've come out with a Sudanese film as well, showing these stories with their full depth and not just reducing us to stereotypes.

So I want to mention that.

And I have one last question I'm going to pitch to you all before we get to wrapping up.

Do you think that we could ever tip the scales as far as boycotting the kind of films that Hollywood makes with this anti Arab and Islamophobic propaganda?

Or do you think the focus should be more on carefully choosing the films that we vote for at the box office or both?

How do y' all feel about that?

Have you participated in any of the boycotts or have you tried to support films specifically like Voice of Henry Job was shown at one of my local theaters, so I made sure to go see it and I brought my sisters and stuff because no Other Land didn't come to a theater near me.

So as soon as I saw Voice of Henry Job, I was like, I gotta go support that.

Laith Muna.

What, do y' all want to go first?

Yeah, I could go first.

I think boycotting it works.

And the only way that boycotting doesn't work is if one person is going to go around and say, oh, boycotting does nothing.

And we've seen it work.

And it's just.

It has to be like a collective group effort, though.

One person cannot be like, oh, if I don't boycott, nothing will happen.

Right.

Like, it's not going to change that much.

I'm just one person.

And unfortunately, in America, you have a bunch of these people.

They're going to have that collective mind and idea set of, oh, I'm just one person.

I can't do it.

So I do think a boycott would work, but do I think it's feasible in America?

No, I don't think a lot of these people have that much backbone, unfortunately.

I really did like the optimism that Ryan showed for the new generations.

But from what I've seen on my college campus, I try to lead protests.

I try to show them that what's happening isn't the normal and we should be fighting against it.

But so many of these people are just not standing up against it.

I don't think it's fear because a good amount of my campus is white citizens of America, and they're not at the protests.

They're not standing there with their fellow humans.

So a boycott, it would work, but I don't think it's feasible, which I really wish it does because I. I boycott films that I would think are portraying Arabs in a negative way.

I don't like watching war films.

Like, not only is it just the.

The immense just throwing in my face that every Arab is a terrorist, it's just this.

I don't really want to profit off of war.

I don't want to celebrate war.

And that had happened.

I think it's disgusting.

So that's where I'm currently at right now.

But yeah, no, boycotting would mean a lot.

I mean, like, I wrote this down when I was watching, like, real bad Arabs and, like, think something that, like, stuck with me when I was thinking of it is if this is all people see in these films, and these films continue to make enormous amounts of money, they're going to keep bringing people back.

They're going to keep making the same films.

That's all they're going to see for Palestinians in these, like, random places in America, like upstate Wisconsin, upstate New York, where there's not that many air representation, let alone Palestinian representation.

They're just going to see Palestinians in films or Arabs in films on top of, like, Fox News propaganda and Israeli propaganda.

And that's how they're going to view, like, all of these actual Palestinians.

So, I mean, I repeat it like three times, but the boycott would be extremely important and I wish it happens, but I don't have that much optimism for it, unfortunately.

So.

So are we talking specific films?

Because I think.

Right, we've definitely been trying.

I think people have, I've been trying to boycott specifically, like media outlets.

Right.

People know now or have cut out, cut out their Hulus and their Disney subscriptions and you know, you know, if Marvel comes out with a new film, I don't know how well Marvel blockbusters have been doing in the past handful of years.

One specific film actually that comes to mind that I think there's a couple.

And then even like the Scream franchise, I think they caught some heat when they.

Right.

They fired which actress was it?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so word gets around.

And when these famous people, these popular people are getting fired from work because of their stances on Twitter, et cetera, people do take notice of that.

Same thing happened with the film, the remake of the movie Snow White, right.

Which we all know starred Gagadote.

And I think Gagadote definitely people know who she is and what she represents versus the actress who played Snow White.

She's a relatively newer known actress, but she doubled down on her pro Palestine stances.

And Disney, I think with the push from Gal Gadot, really wanted her to, you know, take down all of her posts, take it all back and to just do it willingly.

And she, she wasn't willing to do that.

And she knew, she knew that it was going to hurt the, I guess like the earnings at the end of the day and viewership and everything, that it was going to happen inevitably.

And she's just like, it is what it is.

I'm not going to do that.

So I think that, you know, people there, there boycotts are happening and in certain ways they are working.

They're definitely having an effect, you know, to, to a degree.

And I think like, certain, again, certain individuals, I don't think celebrities are, you know, are liberators, but there is this ripple effect that's happening.

There's like cracks in the wall, you know, that that's happening.

Do I think that we should only boycott, like, it starts and ends there, especially living here in the West?

No, not necessarily.

I think.

I mean, we mentioned Watermelon Pictures.

We need to have our own sort of alternative production companies and spaces and these things where we can authentically tell our stories without being punished for it.

I think you hit the nail on the head, Ryan, when you said as soon as we even try to humanize our people in any way, like we're punished for it.

And I think it's because those who have been doing it for so long because they're getting exposed, you know, then that is not something that they're willing to.

They're not going to allow that to happen.

So.

No, I definitely.

Whenever in any ways that like there's boycotting campaigns or anything, they should happen.

But more, A lot more can be done.

Sorry.

The Snow White actresses.

Rachel Zegler.

Rachel Zegler, yeah, she's.

She's like, she's a badass, man.

I.

A lot of respect.

I think she really only posted Free Palestine, like during that.

She's done more otherwise.

But I think the like one tweet that they wanted her to take down, she just ended it with like a. Oh, and Free Palestine.

You know, there.

Well, you know, you also have like, you know, Hannah Einbender who goes on an award stage and says free Palestine.

You know, Vanessa Redgrave got booed off of the Oscar stage decades ago for talking about Palestine.

And now, you know, not that the Oscars are the be all end all of everything, but, you know, now there's ovations, you know, for saying that.

So there is a change as far as boycotts.

I'm a little bit like, look, I will, I will participate in boycotts.

I don't believe in entertainment.

Boycotts actually move the needle.

You know, you take a look at Scream 7, for example.

With the firing of Melissa, there was a massive like boycott.

Scream 7.

Scream 7 made a hell of a lot of money.

And so I'm going to take part in the boycotts.

I will boycott platforms, I will boycott films.

I think everybody should do.

I think they're actually going to be the thing that moves the needle.

No, I don't.

What I do think is going to move the needle is on continued advocacy online.

People see.

See a shift changing and you can see the writers already incorporating these changes.

You have a film like Superman where I don't know what James Gunn was thinking.

I'm not going to say I have any idea what his intention was, but it seemed very Palestinian coded.

You know, I mean, like the, the, you know, pro Palestinian.

Like there have been.

I mean, you look at what's it called Andor.

I don't know if you guys watched Andor.

There was a genocide in Andor.

A massacre in Andor.

And you know, people are coming online saying feels really specific, you know.

And so I think what is going to actually move the needle and in everything is good art that has a positive message and a message that Arabs are human, even if it's not specifically explicitly Arab.

You know, people saw Superman and they were like, yes, we like this.

We like this representation of people who appear to be metaphors of The Arabs, you know, and so I think that is what's going to move the needle, that movies like these that start making money and producers and networks and studios seeing these movies that portray Arabs well are making money.

I think that's the way to really move the needle.

I don't think people boycott with their pocketbooks at cinemas very much.

I just think a lot of people frankly just don't care and, you know, aren't aware even.

I'm not even speaking maliciously, they just aren't aware.

You know, it's important to us because this is us.

But for a lot of people that, you know, they just like scream and they want to go see a horror film and so they're not going to participate in a boycott, not in any meaningful way.

But you start giving them projects that portray Arabs well and those projects start making money, then people are going to be less afraid to do those projects.

So I think that's really where the focus should be, is like, you know, supporting projects that do portray Arabs well, creating these projects, championing these projects, talking about these projects.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think like really good art is the way to move forward.

So can I ask really quickly, can I ask quickly what is sort of a dream project for you?

Like it could like.

I think it would be amazing.

I keep saying you're, you're not much of a writer, but I do know you've written.

Yes.

You know, some material I like, encourage.

I think all of us should be writing to some capacity.

But I definitely encourage you to think about doing some sort of screenplay or one man show or something, you know,.

Where I've written quite a few screenplays.

Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt.

Go ahead.

No, it's okay.

Where it's us really.

This is about like reclaiming our narratives, you know, because again, we have not been able to.

Because our narratives always do get hijacked again.

Yeah.

By, by those with money and more power.

But we still have to, I guess, find ways to still reclaim our narratives and to speak our truths and yeah, I think art is a very powerful medium to do that and we understand that the media is a very powerful medium to do that as well.

Is there, I guess like a project that you have ever thought about or have in mind that where we, you know, that's the case where you feel as though like you have more agency given your background in a role.

You mean as far as creating a project?

Yeah, yeah, there's, you know, there.

I mean, I am currently in the process of writing Seven different projects.

So like, yeah, there's a lot.

A true artist.

What's.

Well, true ad.

ADHD artist.

What.

You know, like, unfortunately when I write, I tend to be like, oh, you know what this project needs are like seven dragons.

Like, that's like, I tend to go big fantasy type.

That's just my, you know, I don't like writing political stuff or.

But I do try when I write specifically just to create Arab characters.

And you know, a lot of this is not even in the.

Because I don't want to create necessarily just Arab characters only.

I, I want Hollywood also to be like, here's this hero.

Why couldn't they be Arab?

And also why does their ethnicity have to matter?

Like, you know, why can't they just cast an Arab actor?

And that's cool, you know, like Rami Malek, you know, he, he's played.

And listen, like, playing bad guys is great.

I'd love to play bad guys, but not bad guys because of their ethnicity.

Just bad guys who happen to be really cool bad guys.

And, you know, I just happen to be who I am.

That would be fun.

Yeah.

The one thing I will add though, I think part of the, the whole notion of like writing these stories and having that representation.

So I can only speak for myself, right.

Growing up there was really no, you know, especially as, as a woman, you know, when I was a young girl, I didn't.

I would look at maybe certain Latina artists or, you know, or actors or I really love Janet Jackson and you know, so I would find these other people of color, women of color that I could relate to in some ways.

And maybe, I don't know at what point I guess came to the realization that, oh, you know, like, if I were to, to want to pursue really anything in the Hollywood realm, I.

One, I don't know if I would be able to.

But also two, there hasn't been really any concrete representation of, of.

At least in the mainstream.

We're talking in the mainstream of, you know, a strong willed girl or woman who happens to identify as such.

She doesn't have to have an accent, whatever, you know, whatever the case, I do think it makes a difference.

I think that sort of being able to see yourself, especially for kids, for younger people in these films that they enjoy and certain series, you know, whatever superhero series and things we had, like Ms. Marvel, she's like one of the first, I think Muslims, you know what I mean?

So I think, I think that's kind of like where it is.

Everything we've been saying absolutely is 100% true when we're talking about the power and the money and where that's coming from and where it's going.

But it's also about where do we.

We see ourselves and how this affects us, you know, from macro.

A micro level to a macro level.

You know, May Calamaui, who was in Moon Knight, she played the.

The.

The female lead in Moon Knight.

I know a lot of people were super excited to see an Egyptian actress, like, in this, like, great role.

I will say I'm a big fantasy novel reader.

I love, you know, fantasy novels.

A lot of these novels are written by straight white men.

And I read a.

There was a.

There's this trilogy called the Broken Earth Trilogy by this fantastic writer, N.K.

Jemisin, who's a black woman.

And although there was nothing really about, you know, it takes place 10, 20.

I don't remember.

It's been a long time, 20,000 years in the future, you know, and although there's nothing like really racially explicit in that or gender explicit in that, just the fact that this was a black woman who was writing this story gave it an entirely different energy.

And you could feel it.

It was palpable.

And, you know, some of my greatest.

My favorite authors in this genre are, you know, straight white men.

They're great.

I love it.

But reading this amazing trilogy written by a black woman was eye opening just because it just had an entirely different ethos.

And I do think, like, as writers, as creators in Hollywood, even if we're not writing or creating explicitly Arab material, I think just having our voices, we will.

We will write things that still support that modality and that.

That conversation.

The modality was the right word.

That conversation again.

And, I mean, James Gunn's not an Arab male, but, like, everybody knew.

And even if that wasn't his attention, that's what everybody took from that.

And so, like, I think we can even have these stories, even if we're not explicitly talking about them.

But I do.

To your point, I do think it is important to see representation like Aladdin with its problems.

I still have the version of, you know, chop off your hand version.

That was the first movie I really saw with someone that looked like me.

And I was so excited to see it with all of its.

All of it was still like, oh, look, there's me.

I wasn't aware enough at the time to really recognize all the problems.

And it was only as I got older, I'm like, oh, God, this is.

You know, but still, the soundtrack is still great, though.

It Is.

It's wonderful.

It's wonderful.

And.

But I. I do.

To your point, I do think it is, like, you know, I have a lot of stories.

Sorry, no, but, like, we're saying about the.

The but that's why we know phrases like black girl magic.

You know what I mean?

That's everything.

Exactly.

You know, it goes back to, you know, reclaiming that narrative and tapping into our own power.

And we, we definitely.

We talked a lot about Aladdin last time, but I think Aladdin was that sort of, you know, that Disney magic.

And I mean, it was the first time for me going to a movie theater and watching that film.

And it was, again, it was the only thing that we had.

Yeah, yeah.

You know.

Yeah.

So.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, I'm sorry.

No, go for it.

Laith, if you have a final comment.

Yeah.

I want to ask you, like, one quick question, Ryan.

So the moving the needle.

And you said that boycotting wouldn't move the needle that much where.

I understand what you're saying, but I was wondering what would it be like if actors were to boycott, like, roles instead?

Like, I, I motivated it from this question because I'm, like, studying soccer history right now.

I took it as a fun class.

And these players rejected to play for France and they moved to play for the Algerian team that was led by the independence.

The independence fighters.

So I'm saying that as in, you know, I don't want actors to go and join, like, an independence fighter, you know, team and tour around the world.

But if these actors are to boycott certain films, like, you know, if I had, like, Ryan Gosling in a film, and I like Ryan Gosling, I think he's cool, and he sees a film where it's, like, depicting Arabs in a bad way and he boycotts it.

What effect do you think that would have?

I mean, look, there are, you know, we have those.

We're starting to have bigger name actors who are taking a stand.

You know, you have Javier Radem.

You have, like, a bunch of people who signed that.

They would, you know, they'd never work with any company that was complicit in the genocide.

I do think that that does have an effect.

Again, not to sound too cynical, I'm a nobody in Hollywood.

Like, I don't.

I don't have any power in Hollywood.

If I turn down a role, somebody else is going to take the role.

And even with these bigger actors, if Javier, if Javier Bardem turns down a role, somebody else is going to take the role.

So I do think it, you know, when you get somebody of his level starting to turn stuff down, there's a conversation that happens.

And I do think that is important.

I, a hundred percent, you know, I don't want to discount how important that is that these bigger name actors with their platforms say no to things because it does start a conversation.

I do think the project will still get made.

There's a lot of money behind these projects now.

If you start getting a lot of actors being like no, then I do.

I, I think there will be a conversation about shelving that project.

Maybe, I don't know.

It really depends.

I get the sense though that like there's a sea change and people see it and the writers see it and the producers see it and the publicists see it, which is very interesting.

I think that's a, that's something we haven't really touched upon.

But the publicists are starting to pull their clients to speak differently.

And I, I think the change is going to happen not quickly enough for my taste, and maybe not dramatic dramatically or drastically enough for my taste, but I think it will.

So, yeah, to your point, could you.

Elaborate on, could you elaborate just on the publicist part?

Like speak differently?

How exactly like are they.

I don't like naming names of people, but I have seen people who have, for example, very pro Israel publicists who have recently or not too long ago said things that were a little more anti Palestinian than they are now saying.

And their clients are, you see who these publicists clients are.

And they're all kind of changing their messaging, which I do think is coming from the publicist as well.

So, you know, I get the sense that like the days of bullying people for speaking out in defense of Arabs and in particular Palestinians, I do think those days are numbered.

They still happen, but they're happening a little more secretly now.

Like for example, I know I'm just not going into certain offices and that's, that is what it is.

So that sort of thing is still happening.

The gatekeepers are still gatekeeping, but the voices are changing, you know, so anyway, sorry, Laith, to speak to your point, I do think there is an importance in like bigger name actors saying no to things.

Someone like myself, I say no to things all the time and somebody else does it.

It's not like Hollywood will move on fine without me.

You know, I'm unfortunately not indispensable yet.

So.

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, well, we do need to wrap up.

So Leif, let's go to you.

Where can folks find you and how can they support you?

Um, I would say the best way to support me and my organization of SJP is follow us on Instagram at sjp Ur.

We post a lot of our like, A lot of our, you know, like work there and a lot of our like needs for support there.

So please go follow SJP Ur and try and help in any way you can.

Muna you want to go?

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram.

Trying to be a little bit better with social media these days, but my handle is MN Najeeb7.

My email is amentaha mail.com I think, like I mentioned in the last episode, the best way to support any of us really is to continue having these conversations and, you know, creating safe spaces and inviting folks to continue to do that and in the most authentic way possible.

So, yeah, thank you.

And Ryan, I mean socials.

I'm Ryan Schreim on all my socials.

God, the best way to support me other than just like hiring me, I don't know, get me into a room, get me into a writing room with other people.

Follow me on socials.

Yeah, I don't.

Are there any episodes of Gray's or anything we should be looping.

So you get the royalties.

You can watch some old episodes of Sam and Cat.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah,.

Yeah, yeah.

I play a very intentionally non specific ethnic deli owner.

I saw that.

It was very.

Yeah, no, if you know, other than like casting me in your movies or putting me in your writing room, just follow on social and you know, be part of the conversation.

Awesome, thank you.

And I'm Amira.

Amira outloud on all socials as well as definitely you can go support me on my substack where I'm constantly referencing Edward Said and continuing to talk about this.

I think part of like, like you were saying, in addition to the boycotts, just having an education around these misrepresentations is helpful because they are just so commonplace to so many Americans that they kind of need somebody to point it out to them.

So thank you to all of our guests for joining the podcast tonight.

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We're going to be talking about decolonizing your consumption and what authentic Arab representation really looks like.

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This has been a mirror for Janney, your host, for tonight's episode, and as always, thank you again for listening.

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