The Early Puritan Tradition Of The American Cinematography’s Animosity Toward Muslim

Abstract

The American film industry has hugely contributed to build up a cruel picture of Islam and its followers. Numerous Hollywood films depict Muslim characters as primitives and extremists kidnapping, raping, terrorizing, and killing innocents, often Americans or Europeans. It is, however, a mistake to think that this hostility toward Islam is resulted from the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Historical evidences show that the tension between Americans and Muslims could be traced back to a long historical tradition. Muslims have been caricatured by many Americans, fundamental American Christians in particular, since the first colonies of Puritans in New England. Countless early Americans excoriated Muslims as savage, ignorant, and monsters. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that the postmodern American cinematography’s animosity toward Muslim is actually echoing the discourse of the early American Puritan literature.