About
In 2001, media scholar Jack G. Shaheen published Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People - an encyclopedia documenting how nearly a century of Hollywood films caricatured Arabs. The updated 2009 edition reviews 963 films and catalogues hundreds more.
This site makes the shape of that research navigable: which films, which stereotypes, which lists - as a searchable factual index. And it extends the work the book couldn't finish: documenting anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racism wherever media goes - film, television, news, and games - in the community's own words, scene by scene, first-hand.
The name is a reply to the book's title. Shaheen documented the reel bad Arabs; this project documents the real bad media - because the problem was never just the reels. And the ambition runs one step further: a community that has spent a century being misrepresented, learning to stand watch - first for itself, and in time for others too.
What we publish - and what we don't
Copyright protects expression, not facts. This site publishes facts: that a film exists, who made it, what year, and how the book classifies it - always with attribution and page citations. It publishes original writing: our category explainers and the community's first-hand findings.
It never publishes the book's prose. No review text, no introduction, no paraphrases. If you want Shaheen's analysis of a film - and you do; it's sharp, funny, and meticulously sourced - buy the book.
Every finding is held to the same standard: original, first-hand, and sourced. Submissions that copy or closely paraphrase published work are rejected.
Attribution
Film index and category labels derived from facts reported in: Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, updated edition, Olive Branch Press / Interlink Publishing, 2009. Shaheen (1935–2017) spent his career on this work; this project exists in his debt and sends readers to his book at every turn.
Get involved
Contribute a finding - or just use the index and tell people about it.