The Racialization of the Muslim Body and Space in Hollywood

Abstract

Using 11 high-grossing post-9/11 Hollywood films on terrorism and the Middle East, the author analyzes how films racialize Muslim identities in service to Islamophobia. This research brings together racialization theory with analysis of political ideologies that illustrate visualized racialized meanings on Muslim identities. The racialized portrayals of Muslim bodies inscribed in the political rhetoric of the War on Terror follow a systemic process of ethnoracial cultural othering that objectifies, vilifies, and dehumanizes Muslim identities. The author demonstrates how films engage in the political processes of racial construction of Muslim identities by criminalizing their gendered identity, dehumanizing their body, and devaluing their territorial and physical space in the context of the War on Terror.