Pervasive Anxieties about Islam and Muslims in Post-9/11 Hollywood and Bollywood Film Industries

Popular media since 9/11, particularly films, have played an important role in the conception and circulation of provocative views about Muslims. Following 9/11, disturbing images of Arabs and Muslims became predominant in Hollywood and Bollywood cinema. The Muslim community worldwide was highly affected by the way films portrayed them in a constant demeaning manner. This thesis investigates the stereotyped Muslim depictions in the Hollywood and Bollywood film industries and reveals how the 9/11 attacks shaped these portrayals on the screen in selected movies: The Kingdom (2007) and Kurbaan (2009). It traces the history of Muslim representations pre- and post-9/11 and highlights the major stereotypes that were associated with Muslims. Scholars have investigated the nature of these portrayals, but little research on how these representations affected audiences was conducted in the area of reception studies. The thesis will examine how Muslims are portrayed in these films in order to identify representational trends that promote deteriorating images of Muslims and how these images shaped audiences’ perceptions. It explores the social, historical, and political contexts to understand the way the process of representation began and how images and meanings about Muslims were interpreted by audiences. This thesis contends that post-9/11 Hollywood and Bollywood representations of Muslims were highly stereotyped, with Muslim characters being portrayed as terrorists. Topics of Islamophobia, terrorism, and Western perceptions of Muslim women, particularly within the context of the war on terror, are discussed to provide a better understanding of how misconceptions about Muslims gained prominence in the film industry. The research comprises two case studies, each of which analyses a film produced post-9/11. These films have in common the fact that they both evoke the context of the war on terror and illustrate the way both film industries cast Muslims in a degrading manner. For this, the research uses a reception study to trace audiences’ interpretation and engagement with representations in films. The study combines critics’ and users’ reviews collected on Metacritic and IMDB, respectively, to identify how films frame audiences’ opinions about Muslims. This thesis demonstrates that both the Hollywood and Bollywood film industries contributed to the conception, promotion and circulation of stereotypes and misconceptions about Muslims. In the post-9/11 context, the industries’ depictions have Othered this group and shaped audiences’ perceptions of Muslims as terrorists. This research has attempted to identify and challenge the existing and recurring generalisations in two of the world’s biggest cinematic industries and reveals that Muslim depictions are mostly unbalanced despite the industries’ efforts to enhance these portrayals.