Culture Clash

Perceptions of Arab & American Films

To some Americans who view High Noon, Gary Cooper epitomizes the lone hero standing up against injustice. To some audience members coming from Middle Eastern cultures, however, Marshall Will Kane stands not as a hero, but as a metaphor for how the current U.S. administration deals with international conflict.

The ways a group of 12 USC students – half from American and half from Middle Eastern backgrounds – view and understand the same films is focus of Projecting Culture: Perceptions of Arab and American Films, a 27-minute documentary just released by Cinema-Television faculty and staff.

“Through these students’ passionate debate, we learn how the same film heroes and storylines can be interpreted in radically different ways,” said Critical Studies Professor Ellen Seiter, who served as one of the film’s executive producers and is the principal investigator on the research project from which the documentary stems.

Directed by Carroll Hodge, a senior lecturer in the school’s Division of Film & Television Production, and produced by M.F.A. Jill Aske ’01, Projecting Culture chronicles the students’ reactions following screenings of two double features with similar storylines and characters.

The Egyptian film The Closed Door (Al Abwab al Moghlaka, 1999) was paired with the American film Pay It Forward (2000) and the classic Western High Noon (1952), starring Gary Cooper as Marshall Kane, was matched with the Egyptian political thriller A Man in Our House (1961), starring Omar Sharif as the resistance fighter Ibrahim. (Seiter chose titles from Egypt because the history of that nation’s film business closely resembles the American industry.)

On set of Projecting Cultures

Prior to being filmed for the documentary, the USC students were interviewed on topics including their community, their native city, their family history, and where their typical film viewing takes place. Each participant also made individual notes on how they would characterize their own media conversations as well as what types of communications most often stimulate debates among their friends and family members.

They were then brought together for the screenings and to speak about their reactions, which proved quite illuminating, according to Seiter.

“These young women and men were sharply divided on issues that ran the gamut; from what differentiates a ‘freedom fighter’ from a ‘terrorist,’ to questions about gender repression in the Islamic world versus the West,” Seiter noted.

Specifically, in the first set of movies, the Arab students said they could understand how the young boy in The Closed Door is swayed to take action against his mother by the imam in the local mosque, while the American students characterized him as an Islamic extremist. During the discussions of High Noon, those from the U.S. sympathized with Cooper’s famous marshal, yet some of the Arab students saw him as akin to George W. Bush—quick to engage in violence, even without the support of his community.

“We were really open with each other and personally, it was very valuable,” said Hala Mohammad, a junior at the time of the filming, who moved to California from Saudi Arabia when she was 15. Mohammad admitted she didn’t think much of her reactions to such images prior to getting involved in the study. “The essence of the acts themselves are the same in both countries, but you realize there so much more to it,” she said.

Likewise, Hodge was amazed at how each film’s subjects served as a catalyst to a conversation between two groups of students who rarely talk to one another on campus. “It’s a fantastic concept. I watched students really grapple not just with different points of view but also with how much they didn’t know,” she added.

As a follow-up to the screenings, the team also conducted exit interviews three months after the initial observations to explore both the young men and women’s satisfaction with the project and how being a part of the process changed their lives.

“None of us knew one another and we were all so incredibly different,” observed Monica Youssef who was a sophomore majoring in International Relations when the documentary was made. Born in Cairo, Youssef moved to the Golden State when she was eight. “I realized how much each of our perceptions varied.”

Projecting Culture, which had its first screening at the school on May 30 and is slated for a second showing this fall, is part of a larger project funded by a $350,000 grant from the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands. The object of the study, in which Seiter serves as the principal investigator, seeks to determine if something as simple as watching and talking about films can temper the clash between American and Arab culture, and promote mutual understanding and respect.

The results of Seiter’s study will be published as a scholarly article and the DVD release will feature the students’ diary material, interactions and exit interviews.

Hodge also notes that Projecting Culture’s running time of 27 minutes makes it the ideal element for classes across the country to utilize as a tool for education. “This film can provide a start to so many conversations,” she said. “It would be great to see whoever is watching it together turn around and ask a question,” Hodges added.


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Associated Person:

Ellen Seiter Carroll Hodge