When living in the United States, it's sometimes hard to remember that we citizens are often given only one side of the story. For example, if you're a young, suburban, white Michigander, you've probably heard that Detroit is overrun by thieving African Americans who will do anything to get your car stereo. Or, for a more general example, our nation's media seems for the most part to be slanted towards the idea that every Middle Eastern nation (with the exception of Israel) is filled with the craziest people on the planet. Footage that comes from the Middle East is often that of bombings and people yelling in Arabic. Americans rarely get to see the entire essence of the Middle Eastern experience; but with her short films and politically active website, Dearborn-based conceptual artist Jackie Salloum seeks to give a full perspective to those who normally would not get one.
The most striking parts of Salloum's site are her short films, especially Planet of the Arabs: a collage of scenes featuring heinous depictions of Arabs from readily-available Hollywood films, arranged in the style of a Michael Bay-style blockbuster movie trailer. Planet of the Arabs was featured at Sundance Film Festival in 2005, and it demonstrates clearly how villainized people of Arab descent have been in the American media, even before the events of September 11th. It left this viewer horrified at our tolerance for racism; if one film in the last thirty years had demonized African Americans or Caucasians on such a scale as Salloum depicts, there would have been a large-scale outcry and controversy against that film. Today people are protesting against the use of Chinese women in Rob Marshall's Memoirs of a Geisha, yet not once (until I viewed Salloum's website) have I heard someone complain about the distastefulness of Chuck Norris' character in The Delta Force. Perhaps this is just because nothing Norris has touched is really all that culturally important outside the realm of ironic kitsch. But at the same time, never in Memoirs of a Geisha is a culture brutally assaulted like Arab culture is within Delta Force and the other film and TV segments excerpted in Planet of the Arabs.
Meanwhile, Salloum's short film Meen Erhabe (Who's the Terrorist), set to the music of Palestinian rap group DAM, features a fully Palestinian view of the conflict between Israel and Palestine. It will most likely offend those who believe that Israel is all that is pure and good, but for those who are willing to acknowledge the fact that there is simply no way that Israel is just a hopeless victim in this dispute, then it will give some general insight into the mind and life of a Palestinian person. Next to all of the heavy issues of Meen Erhabe and Planet of the Arabs lies the cute and playful Arabs A-Go-Go, which light-heartedly gives another perspective of Middle Eastern people without leaving the bitter taste of culturally insensitive depression upon a viewer's lips.
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