I found 5 wildly anti-Arab moments in 80s movies.

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:00]Welcome to my new series called Awful Arabs. I'm going through cinema history to find the offensive jabs, the blink and you'll miss it stereotypes, and the casual demonization of my people, all served up in the name of orientalism.

[00:00:14]These moments have nothing to do with the plot. They're just thrown in to remind the audience who the bad guy is supposed to be. I'm cataloging all my findings into a public Google Sheets database so you can search through them yourself. Think of this as the digital spiritual successor to Dr. Jack Shaheen's legendary book, Real Bad Arabs. Today, we're looking at five8s movies that went out of their way to make Arabs look bad. Back to the Future, 1985. The Libyans.

[00:00:41]>> Everybody remembers that scene from one of the biggest movies from the 1980s.

[00:00:45]Doc Brown tells Marty McFly he stole plutonium from quote unquote Libyan nationals. And as he's setting up the Delorean to time travel, the bad guys show up in a van yelling in Arabic and sprayfiring AK-47s in a mall parking lot. The film treats Libyan and terrorist as interchangeable. The quote unquote Arabs are just a plot device to get Doc Shot and Marty into the past.

[00:01:10]Look at the driver. He's wearing a Gulf Arab headdress known as the Kutra. But here's the thing. Libyans don't typically wear. Traditional Libyan men's headdress is the shashia, a felt hat that is similar to a fezz, but it's uniquely different. It can be red, white, or black. Hollywood uses a red and white because it's the universal scary Arab accessory for American audiences. This scene reinforces the three V's. Arabs are violent, vindictive, and crave vengeance. And don't forget the nuclear layer here. Doc says the Libyans wanted to build them a bomb for them using the stolen plutonium because there's this stereotype in the media that Arabs are always trying to get their hands on nuclear weapons.

[00:01:51]Here's the historical context for this scene. In the mid80s, US Libya relations were at an all-time low following the 1981 Gulf of Sidra incident. It also reflects the 1980s political climate, specifically Libya's reputation under Muar Gaddafi as a state sponsor of terrorism. That's likely why the movie uses Libya as a default villain, because it was an easy, recognizable Arab boogeyman for American audiences at the time. Baby Boom, 1987. Diane Katon discovers that a longlost cousin has died, leaving her a 14-month-old baby girl as inheritance. She needs help with the baby and starts interviewing nannies. One of them is a Muslim.

[00:02:31]>> I will teach your daughter to properly respect a man. I speak only when spoken to. I do not need a bed. I prefer to sleep on the floor.

[00:02:38]>> This is straight up character assassination. It frames Muslim women as subservient, oppressed, and uncivilized.

[00:02:46]The line, I will teach your daughter to properly respect a man, is a classic dog whistle, suggesting Islamic culture is a direct threat to Western values. They put the on this woman intentionally. The way she's hunched over is intentional.

[00:03:01]The scene is worse when you look at the rest of it. The other nannies are rejected for being too religious, having wild families, or being too passive. But the Muslim woman is the only one who says three negative stereotypes in less than 8 seconds. It's a disgusting scene that exists purely to make the audience think, "Phew, glad we aren't like them."

[00:03:22]St. Elmo's Fire, 1985. This is a bizarre but classic '8s brat pack movie about recent college graduates. What do Arabs have to do with it? Glad you asked.

[00:03:33]Jules calls Alec from a party claiming, >> "I'm with these Arabs and they've been forcing me to do coke all night because I don't understand very much Arabic, but I'm sure I think I heard the words for Kangpang."

[00:03:43]>> There it is. The Arabs are hypersexual stereotype. It paints Arab men as predators who use wealth and drugs to trap Western women. It goes one step further because it's not only going to be one Arab, but four all at the same time. They don't even bother to make them look right. Look at theras. None of them are being worn properly and are thrown on sloppily, indicating whoever put them on has no clue how to do it the right way. It's strange that there's such a wide variety because these styles are from all over Arabia. So, they're not part of the same group. Why are they wearing at all in America? And why are they wearing them indoors in their hotel room when they're lounging around? It would be like seeing American men casually lounging around in custommade suits. Who does that? None of them are wearing the gafia, the skull cap that goes on under the because the cords are pressed way too far down onto the head.

[00:04:34]You're not supposed to push them down on your head like that. Look at the guy second to the left. His akal is crooked, which means he doesn't know how to put it on or has never worn one before this very moment. Finally, look at the on the guy all the way on the right. It's a tablecloth that looks like it has a flower design on it, not an actual. My guess is they threw it on 5 minutes before they started filming because Hollywood doesn't care about being accurate or they put that one on his head as an offensive joke to mock Arabs.

[00:05:03]This is insulting, lazy, and inaccurate.

[00:05:06]Most of all, it's completely unnecessary. Blood Sport 1988, the legendary movie that put JeanClaude Vanam on the map. I remember watching it when I was a kid and got excited during the scene where they're playing the game on an arcade cabinet. But we're not here for video games. We're here to see how they represent Arabs. A fighter wearing a is trying to force a journalist Janice to go upstairs for sex. When she refuses and calls him an he raises his hand to strike her but is stopped by Jeanclaude. The stereotype here, Arab men are violent womanizers, quick to anger, and can't handle a woman saying no. Then there's the inaccuracies. Hisra is completely wrong. It's just checkered squares like a table napkin. The red and white has a specific pattern to it, like the one I'm wearing. And it's definitely not this. Look at the way he's wearing it. It's sloppy. And he's not wearing the gaffy. He's supposed to be Arab, but he's obviously of Asian descent with a bizarre Russian sounding accent.

[00:06:04]>> You lose American >> His friend has the same problems. He looks South Asian and his thrown on without a care. Why, John Claude? Why?

[00:06:12]Well, one answer is because this is a Canon Productions film. Canon was a well-known movie production company that has made many full-on Zionist propaganda movies. Even in their non-propaganda movies like this one, they love throwing in digs at Arabs or Muslims to demonize them. Airplane 2, the sequel, 1982. The first Airplane movie is hilarious, but this sequel isn't as good. How does this movie handle Middle Easterns? Middle Easterners. When the movie starts, a bus labeled Iran Air Courtesy Bus pulls up to the airport. Two men wearing climb out, open the door, and drop off blindfolded hostages. What's wrong here?

[00:06:52]It's mixing up cultures, which is orientalist. Iranis typically don't wear or if they do, they don't wear these types of. There's a red and white one, which is typically associated with Arabs, and then there's a blue one, which is I don't know where that's from.

[00:07:07]Some Iranis wear the black and white. As an Arab, they don't read as Irani, but to Hollywood, Middle Eastern means one big blurry bucket of people. So, whatever. Throw on them and it's enough.

[00:07:20]Here's the historical context. This movie came out in 1982, 2 years after the Iran hostage crisis ended. The courtesy bus was a direct mean-spirited jab at a national trauma using the Arab aesthetic as the visual punchline.

[00:07:34]Later, a character gives a history lesson saying, "Arabs only exist because dinosaurs turned into oil."

[00:07:41]>> And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big in fat. So, they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes-Benzes.

[00:07:49]>> This one isn't really offensive. It's just a stereotype. The stereotype being all Arab men have oil or all Arab men are rich. The only oil I have is in my Volkswagen GTI, so I guess I'm not on that list. Finally, there's a character on the plane wearing a it's worn incorrectly and he's not wearing the gaffy or skull cap underneath it. The golden agal is typically associated with Saudi royalty, but his is from the Leavant or Iraq region. Mixing those two styles together is confusing to me and is clear orientalism. Let's be fair about this movie. Airplane 2 is an absurd comedy that roasts many people from a variety of cultures and religious backgrounds. There's even a character with a bomb on the plane played by Sunny Bono. So, wow, a terrorist on a plane that's not an Arab. The depictions are poorly researched and relies on easy jabs, but in the context of this movie, it's more of a seat at the table type of ridicule than a targeted attack. Five movies, five quick jabs that have little to nothing to do with the plot. This is how stereotypes become common sense, by being repeated over and over again until it's normalized. even as throwaway jokes in movies. I want the awful Arabs database to be a community project. If you've seen a movie with a random out of nowhere Arab punchline that isn't part of the plot, drop the title in the scene in the comments. I'm checking them all and adding them to the Google sheet, which I'll link in the description.