Synaptic

This assignment asks students to analyze and critique a Hollywood film that perpetuates, in their eyes, stereotypes about Arabs or the Arab World. This essay does a particularly good job thinking about how Said’s critique of western “orientalist” attitudes resonates with the 2004 blockbuster, Hidalgo.

-Dr. Kate Nesbit

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At face value, the 2004 film Hidalgo features all the qualities Americans look for in a good Western movie: competition, violence, a cowboy hero overcoming his enemies, and a little bit of romance. What lingers beneath the surface, however, are harmful cultural stereotypes surrounding Arabs. In the film, American cowboy Frank Hopkins accepts an invitation to compete in a treacherous 3,000-mile race through the Arabian desert in response to Arab claims that his mustang, Hidalgo, could never beat the region’s purebred Arabian horses. Right off the bat, this challenge pits American “Wild West” culture against Arab society. Frank emerges victorious, but at what cost? The Arabs he encounters during the race reflect many of the generalizations that Americans project onto Arab culture today. Overall, Hidalgo portrays Arabs as a cruel, greedy, incompetent people group meant to be conquered and saved by Americans.

One of the most questionable elements of the movie is Frank’s true motive for competing in the desert race. At the beginning of the film, he longs to absolve his guilt over participating in the bloody Wounded Knee Massacre of Lakota Sioux. He finds his opportunity for redemption when a Lakota chief asks him to save his tribe’s mustangs from euthanasia at the hand of the American government. If Frank wins the race overseas, he’ll win enough money to save the Lakota mustangs and, in turn, ease his own conscience. In other words, he and his horse, Hidalgo, must conquer Arab horses in order to save Lakota mustangs. This dynamic elevates Frank, a white cowboy, to the roles of both conqueror and savior over two nonwhite cultures. The diverse people who make up both cultures thus serve as nothing more than the backdrop for Frank to embark on his own personal journey of redemption. Along the way, Arabs in particular are depicted in grotesque ways.

First, the Arabs that Frank encounters in the Arabian desert are portrayed as unsentimental and heartless, especially toward women. A few days into the race, Frank learns that Jazira, the daughter of the Arab sheikh who sponsors the race, has been promised in marriage to Prince Bin Al Reeh if the prince wins. Bin Al Reeh already has four other wives. Knowing she won’t be able to change her wealthy father’s mind, Jazira concludes that Frank winning the race is her best bet at escaping Bin Al Reeh’s harem. She sneaks into Frank’s tent and counsels him for the course ahead. The scene culminates with a close-up shot of Jazira’s face, which is mysteriously enshrouded in a veil (1:01.30). Frank asks why she “hides” behind the veil, indicating that her culture must force her to suppress her individuality. He is inexplicably drawn to this “hidden” identity. Whereas the Arab men in Jazira’s life treat her as little more than a commodity, Frank wants to get to know the “real” her— or so we think.

Palestinian-American author Edward Said identifies this Western fascination with the “the mysterious Orient” as the consequence of “standardization and cultural stereotyping” in Western academia (91). Since us Westerners have little exposure to Arab culture, we fill in the cracks of our knowledge with the Arab stereotypes that have pervaded Hollywood for decades. Indeed, the rest of Frank’s interactions with Jazira throughout the film are colored with intrigue and attraction, though he never really gets to know her before he returns to America. All these elements contribute to the idea that Frank must swoop in and save Jazira from her own culture in the short amount of time that he knows her. He becomes Jazira’s rescuer since the Arab men in her world behave disdainfully toward women, reinforcing cultural stereotypes that have existed for years.

Another recurring stereotype throughout Hidalgo is the Arab tendency for greed and betrayal. Frank confronts these issues head-on when Katib, the estranged nephew of the sheikh, tries to steal the sheikh’s prized Arabian racehorse. After Katib fails to secure the horse, he kidnaps Jazira for ransom instead. The deputy of the sheikh, Aziz, also betrays the sheikh when he accepts a bribe from Katib to steal the carefully guarded book tracing the racehorse’s lineage. The sense of betrayal in this scene culminates with a long shot of Katib nonchalantly reading the stolen book while Jazira is chained to the wall in the background (1:13.36). Katib reclines in a chair at the forefront of the shot while Jazira silently suffers in the background, showing that Jazira is just another pawn in Katib’s game. Blinded by his desire to obtain the sheikh’s prized racehorse, Katib is willing to use even his own cousin as ransom.

Why are Katib and Aziz so willing to betray their familial and professional relationships for the sake of personal gain? In the documentary Reel Bad Arabs, author Jack Shaheen argues that these kinds of one-dimensional portrayals of Arabs in American films stem from the U.S.’s political interactions with the Middle East. He asserts that “[p]olitics and Hollywood’s images are linked,” going so far as to claim that while “[p]olicy enforces mythical images, mythical images help enforce policy” (6). In other words, our understanding of Arabs and our interactions with Arabs fuel each other in a never-ending cycle. So, what events took place between the U.S. and the Middle East to generate this stereotype of Arab greed and betrayal?

Shaheen pinpoints the 1973 Arab oil embargo as one of the key political events that shapes American portrayals of Arab greed in movies. In retaliation to U.S. interference in the Arab-Israeli War, Arab policymakers imposed an oil embargo on the U.S., which had become heavily dependent on foreign oil (“Oil Embargo”). The embargo caused gas prices in the U.S. to skyrocket, and Americans had only one enemy to blame: Arabs. This crisis led to an onslaught of stereotypes that portrayed Arabs as greedy, selfish, and two-faced. Unfortunately, Katib and Aziz represent the many Arabs in American films who are depicted in such a fashion. Their character flaws are even more exacerbated by the fact that they betray their relationships with the sheikh and Jazira along the way.

Frank’s response to Aziz’s betrayal highlights his ability to deal with such criminal behavior—and the Arabs’ incompetence to do the same. Aziz’s traitorous actions only come to the sheikh’s attention when Frank accuses Aziz of accepting the bribe from Katib. The sheikh then orders soldiers to drag Aziz outside so he can behead him. Frank, recognizing the rashness of such a move, pushes the sheikh out of the way right before he brings the sword down on Aziz’s neck. The camera cuts to a long shot of the scene to capture the drama of the moment, which emphasizes Frank’s boldness to interfere in the sheikh’s attempts for justice (1:11.06). Mise-en-scène also becomes important when we see that one of the characters who stands at the sheikh’s side is Jeffa, an African slave. Jeffa’s presence depicts the Arab slave system as the backdrop to the sheikh’s violent treatment of Aziz. These layers of violence at the hands of Arabs reflect the perceived cruelty of their culture. And since the violence only ends when Frank steps in, the white American is portrayed as the only just man on the scene.

All these stereotypes of Arabs throughout Hidalgo culminate to prove Frank’s superiority, and in turn, promote the superiority of American culture over Arab culture. Although Frank sees himself as a failure in America, he manages to cross the ocean and resolve the sheikh’s problems while also freeing Jazira from her cultural constraints. On top of it all, he wins the race through the Arabian desert despite countless close calls and cutthroat Arab competition. In the end, he uses the prize money he won to save the Lakota horses and redeem his past mistakes, making the journey all about clearing his own guilty conscience. In other words, his self-seeking interactions with the Arab and Lakota cultures nonetheless paint him as the savior of both. Frank might seem like a hero on the surface, but whose hero is he? Certainly not the Arab population of today, nor the Lakota tribe that he helped eradicate at the beginning of the film. If Hidalgo is meant to celebrate the diversity of the three different cultures depicted throughout the movie, the film succeeds at emphasizing the superiority of American “Wild West” culture more than anything.

Works Cited

Hidalgo. Directed by Joe Johnston, performances by Viggo Mortensen, Omar Sharif, and Zuleikha Robinson, Touchstone Pictures, 2004.

“Oil Embargo, 1973-1973.” Office of the Historian, United States Department of State, https://history.state.gov/milestones/1969-1976/oil-embargo#:~:text=During%20the%201973%20Arab%2DIsraeli,the%20post%2Dwar%20peace%20negotiations. Accessed 15 Sep. 2024.

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. Directed by Sut Jhally, performances by Jack Shaheen, Media Education Foundation, 2006.

Said, Edward. “Orientalism.” The Edward Said Reader, edited by Moustafa Bayoumi and Andrew Rubin, Vintage Press, 2000, pp. 67-93.