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 War

through 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 irrationality

violence

and security threat. In contrast

Jewish representation is shown to be articulated through Holocaust memory

diaspora narratives

and nation-state formation

transforming 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 Orientalism

the study analyzes these portrayals within the broader framework of discourse–power relations. It argues that these two representational trajectories do not operate independently; rather

they 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 modern

rational

and defensive political subject

while constructing Arab/Muslim identity as its symbolic and political counterpart. Within this context

cinema functions not merely as a site of cultural image production but as a powerful ideological apparatus that circulates collective memory

religious symbolism

and 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 belief

but is continuously reproduced as a category of power through collective memory

political authority

and the construction of social boundaries.