News

Manipal International Media Research Conference (MIMRC - 2019)

  • April 26, 2019

Drawing examples from ever since the twenties till recent times, Mohammed Almezel underscored how Hollywood films never changed its gaze of the Arab world. Speaking at the Manipal International Media Research Conference (MIMRC), organized by the School of Media and Communication held at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai Campus, managing editor of The Gulf News drew example after example, from The Sheikh (1921) to Werner Herzog’s The Queen of Desert (2015) underscoring how Hollywood directors refused to stop stereotyping the Arab world, people, culture and identity. The opening session of the conference themed ‘Between the Local and Global: Representations of Mainstream and Marginal in Contemporary Cinema’ had six speakers including independent filmmakers, and academicians from the UAE and India.

Drawing examples from ever since the twenties till recent times, Mohammed Almezel underscored how Hollywood films never changed its gaze of the Arab world. Speaking at the Manipal International Media Research Conference (MIMRC), organized by the School of Media and Communication held at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai Campus, managing editor of The Gulf News drew example after example, from The Sheikh (1921) to Werner Herzog’s The Queen of Desert (2015) underscoring how Hollywood directors refused to stop stereotyping the Arab world, people, culture and identity. The opening session of the conference themed ‘Between the Local and Global: Representations of Mainstream and Marginal in Contemporary Cinema’ had six speakers including independent filmmakers, and academicians from the UAE and India.

Manipal International Media Research Conference (MIMRC - 2019) Drawing examples from ever since the twenties till recent times, Mohammed Almezel underscored how Hollywood films never changed its gaze of the Arab world. Speaking at the Manipal International Media Research Conference (MIMRC), organized by the School of Media and Communication held at Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Dubai Campus, managing editor of The Gulf News drew example after example, from The Sheikh (1921) to Werner Herzog’s The Queen of Desert (2015) underscoring how Hollywood directors refused to stop stereotyping the Arab world, people, culture and identity. The opening session of the conference themed ‘Between the Local and Global: Representations of Mainstream and Marginal in Contemporary Cinema’ had six speakers including independent filmmakers, and academicians from the UAE and India. When: — Where: Category:

Almezel underscored the stereotyping of Arabs in Hollywood and importantly, pointed out how the West, through cinema, concocted an iconography that portrayed Arabs as primitive and villainous.  He added cinema has the power and potential to bridge cultural gaps but Hollywood never seemed to have shed its ignorance on the Arab world. 

 

Professor of English at Ashoka University in India, Jonathan Gil Harris, argued that if Shakespeare were alive, he wouldn’t be writing for theatre and Hollywood but he would be writing for Bollywood. Quoting from countless films in Tamil, Malayalam, Hindi and Bengali, and notably Vishal Bharadwaj’s recent triology, Maqbool, Omkara and Haider, he dazzled the students by saying “We may think of the masala film as escapist, B-grade, escapist, random. But a masala film is exactly what it means. It is a mixture. It is tragic. It is comic. It is in Hindi and in Urdu, and in English and in Punjabi. It involves realistic scenes and involves complete fantasy. Just as Shakespeare wrote for a mix of audiences, so is the Indian masala that is directed at a diversity of audiences.  

 

Parthajit Baruah, a film scholar and award-winning documentary filmmaker, spoke as to how documentaries can be powerful, transformative and importantly pursue truth while Vikas Punjabi, founder of Loco’motion, stressed how cinema can lay a foundation in building communities that respect diversity and humanity.  While Bradley Freeman, professor of communication and information studies at American University in Dubai, presented several examples of stereotypes faced by westerners, David Tully, senior lecturer in media and film studies from Middlesex University, Dubai, drew special attention to the factors affecting the commercial and critical success of movies.