Arab-Americans call for boycott of 'Rules of Engagement'

April 25, 2000
Web posted at: 12:55 p.m. EST (1655 GMT)

NEW YORK (CNN) -- "Rules of Engagement" may have ruled the box office for two weekends, earning about $8 million, but that's not all it's raised.

It's also raised the ire of some Arab-Americans who call the film racist. In protests, statements and accusations, they have called for the movie's boycott in the United States and abroad.

"We want people to avoid these racist movies," says one demonstrator in Washington. "It's time we end racism in all its forms, including movies."

"The movie was sending a clear message that every Arab deserves being killed because he is or she is intrinsically against Americans," adds another.

In the film, the U.S. Embassy in Yemen is surrounded by angry demonstrators. A Marine colonel, played by Samuel L. Jackson, is ordered to bolster security and evacuate the American ambassador and his family.

Fearing the civilians are armed, the colonel orders his troops to open fire. More than 80 Yemeni men, woman and children are killed.

Reaction home and abroad

The Yemeni government is urging Arab states to boycott the film.

All Arab countries require overseas films to be authorized by censors. "Rules of Engagement" is scheduled to be reviewed in the United Arab Emirates next month and in other Arab states later.

The head of the film's Arab distribution company, which bought rights to the movie before it was completed, says he expects to make little money because "Rules of Engagement" is unlikely to attract a big audience -- even if it passes censors.

"It shows Arabs in a bad image," says Selim el-Azar, executive manager of al-Massa Film Distribution, an Abu Dhabi-based company. "It shows them as terrorists."

Hussein Ibish, communications director of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee, is asking Americans to boycott the film. "The whole society is condemned as fanatical, murderous anti-American terrorists," he says.

That sentiment hasn't been lost on many critics, who argue that the filmmakers have made Arabs synonymous with terrorists.

The Los Angeles Times writes: "The angry mob is, for the umpteenth time, serving as convenient and cliched villains."

"Little attempt is made to humanize the Yemeni people," says a Toronto Sun critic. "They are stock villains, human cattle ready for herding."

Putting up a defense

Paramount Pictures responded quickly. "'Rules of Engagement' is a dramatization and a fictional account of the consequences of extremism in all its forms," it says in a prepared statement. "The film is not an indictment of any government, culture, or people."

Some critics also are upset with the U.S. Defense Department, which cooperated with producers.

"(It) indicates that this stereotype of Muslim Arabs in our society has reached a point where even members of our government have come to embrace it as well as audiences," says media critic Jack Shaheen.

Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon defends his department's involvement. "They (Paramount Pictures) have a right to make the movies any way they want to make them," he says. "We pay attention to how they portray the military."

Arab-Americans say they're expecting more trouble in the future from the film's director, William Friedkin. He reportedly is negotiating for the rights to make the movie version of the novel "O Jerusalem!," about the 1948 war between Jews and Arabs that led to the creation of Israel.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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Rules of Engagement official site
Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee
U.S. Defense Department

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