Representations of Arabs and Jews in Cinema: A Comparative Analysis of Discourse

Abstract

This study examines how Muslim/Arab and Jewish representations were constructed in oppositional yet simultaneous ways in Hollywood cinema in the period following the Second World Warthrough a comparative discourse analysis. The article demonstrates that early exoticized and romanticized portrayals of Arabs gradually gave way to a systematic demonization structured around codes of irrationalityviolenceand security threat. In contrastJewish representation is shown to be articulated through Holocaust memorydiaspora narrativesand nation-state formationtransforming Jewish identity into a subject endowed with moral and political legitimacy. Drawing on Stuart Hall’s theory of representation and Edward Said’s approach to Orientalismthe study analyzes these portrayals within the broader framework of discourse–power relations. It argues that these two representational trajectories do not operate independently; ratherthey function within a coherent representational regime in which each identity is mutually constituted through the other. Analyses of Exodus (1960)Cast a Giant Shadow (1966)and Munich (2005) reveal that Hollywood consistently positions Jewish identity as a modernrationaland defensive political subjectwhile constructing Arab/Muslim identity as its symbolic and political counterpart. Within this contextcinema functions not merely as a site of cultural image production but as a powerful ideological apparatus that circulates collective memoryreligious symbolismand forms of political legitimacy on a global scale. The study ultimately aims to show that religious identity in modern visual culture is not confined to the domain of beliefbut is continuously reproduced as a category of power through collective memorypolitical authorityand the construction of social boundaries.