WASHINGTON, 13 March 2004 — “Al tikrar biallem il hmar.” So says the Arab proverb quoted in Jack Shaheen’s revealing book, “Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People.” “By repetition, even the donkey learns,” says the proverb in English. The new movie “Hidalgo” which is sure to be repetitively seen by millions has already raised protests from many different American organizations. And this action thriller, billed as based on a “true story” by Disney, its parent company, might have a lot more meaning to the public than meets the eye.
In Shaheen’s book, William Greider writes in the foreword, “ Hollywood is our great national entertainer and also the most effective teacher of our young.” He goes on to say, “ The power to depict certain ‘others’ as innately strange and dangerous — as foul creatures not like the rest of us — is surely as devastating as the physical force of weaponry.” Greider finishes the foreword by saying, “Why does our desire to experience a good story induce us to swallow the defamation so passively? Do we always need someone or other as villain to dread and despise?” Hidalgo is certainly a “good story”, and it has plenty of villains to dread and despise. However, according to most authentic scholars, it is not based on a true story and it is full of fraud and racist undertones which makes it even more ominous, particularly with respect to popular perceptions of the Middle East, Arabs and Islam.
Much has already been written about Hidalgo. The official website has an educators guide for use in schools that states, “Meet legendary horseman Frank T. Hopkins and his stallion Hidalgo. Their inspirational story will transport students to another time and place and give free reign to young imaginations. Set in 1890 and encompassing an adventure that gallops from the American West to the Middle East, Touchstone Pictures’ (a Disney affiliate) Hidalgo celebrates the power of the human spirit.” It goes on, “Frank and Hidalgo race across 3,000 miles of Arabian desert in a breathtaking bid for honor and redemption. Their grueling quest parallels the archetypical model of a hero’s journey seen in myth, legend, literature and film.”
For over a year, there have been protests by various disparate groups about this movie which debuted in early March. One of the main complaints about the film was that it had little or no basis of truth, although Disney claimed it was based on a true story. Various horse-related groups were some of the first protesters stating that, although Frank Hopkins was a real person, he made up most of these stories himself and they had almost no basis of fact. The horse-related groups’ protests were led by the Long Riders Guild which is headed by CuChullaine and Basha O’Reilly, a husband and wife team who are currently on a “long ride” with their horses across Europe. CuChullaine O’Reilly is a Muslim convert, and the writer of the movie, John Fusco, now claims that this has influenced O’Reilly’s decision to question the authenticity of the movie’s story.
Another group to join the protests were academics in both the US and the Arab world. Scholars such as Dr. Awad Al— Badi, director of research at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies, and Prof. David Dary, former head of the School of Journalism at the University of Oklahoma have pointed numerous misrepresentations and misstatements of fact in the story and movie. They assert that no record of any horse race of this kind in the Arabian Peninsula exists and that races in the US that Hopkins claimed to be part of never happened.
Finally, Native Americans and Muslim and Arab American groups also have been part of the ongoing protests over the movie. Native American author and scholar Vine Deloria who is a member of the tribal group depicted in the movie, the tribe in which Hopkins claims to be a member, says Hopkins is a “pathological liar.” Deloria points out that Hopkins got his Native American history all wrong in his writings and says, “Each generation faces these kinds of frauds and each generation should get up and howl and scream until the appropriation of Indian culture and history stops.” Kevin Abourezk, a Native American and a journalist with the Lincoln Star Journal in Lincoln, Nebraska, is particularly disappointed with Fusco, the screenwriter author of the story for Disney. Abourezk says that, prior to this movie, Native American opinion of Fusco had been very good, as Fusco had previously written sensitive and relevant movie scripts about Native Americans. But Abourezk states that Fusco has written “historical lies” with this movie that perpetuate the mass American culture’s ongoing perception that “it is okay to lie about American Indian heritage and events.”
Arab American and Muslim American groups also have been very critical of the film. Ibrahim Hooper, National Communications Director for the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), has pointed out numerous racist and stereotypical statements about Arabs and Muslims in the movie, including the refusal of an Arab “sheikh” to extend a hand of friendship to the cowboy hero of the story who is an “infidel”. Hussein Ibish of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) has a slightly different take on the movie although he shows equal concern for the stereotyping in the movie. “The film is not egregious,” says Ibish “The point is that it is a suggestive story about a lone American from the frontier conquering the desert and beating the Arabs at their own game.” And therein lies the potential greater damage that this movie can help to perpetuate. As writer Anuj Desai stated in a review of the film,” It’s unclear why Disney felt the need to gussy up its timely epic — the movie is a tale of American triumph on the Arabian Peninsula after all — with the ‘true story’ moniker.”
Here you have it — a lone American cowboy, having reformed from his earlier drunken ways, going to the Arab world and, not only conquering the Arabs at their own game and on their own turf, but also freeing the mustangs in the end to symbolize freedom and justice for the oppressed. Did Disney intend that message? As Ibish says, “It doesn’t really make any difference if that’s the message that is finally conveyed.” And as horse enthusiast Linda Merims, who has done extensive research and pointed out many falsities in the Hopkins story says, “The overwhelming damage of a story like this, which is billed as being true, is that Americans will rely on lies more and more for their sense of self.”
What does the Spanish word “Hidalgo” mean and how was it originally used? It is a contraction of the Spanish words “hijo” and “de algo” and literally means the “son of something” which referred to the lowest grade of Spanish nobility. The term was first used in the 12th century when prolonged warfare to reconquer Spain from the Moors necessitated expansion of the knightly class. Hidalgo rides again!
— Dr. Michael Saba is the author of “The Armageddon Network” and is an international relations consultant.
