Waiting for our moment

Ahmed Soliman
The Record

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Last Updated Thursday January 31, 2008, PST 5:30 AM
One thing I never saw growing up was a positive portrayal of Arab-Americans.

IN TYPICAL Generation X form, I grew up watching a lot of television. In fact, it's common for the people of my generation to have grown up spending more time listening to and watching television than even our own parents, who both often worked full time while the children were home alone in the afternoons and summers.

Also true to the Generation X tendency, my perceptions of life and people were largely shaped by the television programs I was watching: syndicated reruns of various programs going back 60 years.

When I was a kid back in the Eighties, the program that Americans of all ages looked forward to was "The Cosby Show." Every Thursday at 8 p.m., millions of Americans would tune in and watch the funniest show on television at the time: a show about an African-American doctor and his family.

Looking back at it, Bill Cosby did a great service for African-Americans. Without making his ethnicity a focal point or an "in-your-face" aspect of the show, he managed to change the perception many Americans had of their African-American countrymen. He and his fellow actors provided a television image of an educated and likable family that was very relatable to the people watching. It was a long cry from the images of African-Americans that used to dominate television, such as servants with poor grammar.

Positive portrayals

Likewise, there have been television programs that provide positive portrayals of other American ethnicities, including Latinos ("Chico and the Man" and the more recent "George Lopez Show") and Jews ("Rhoda" and "Seinfeld").

But one thing I never saw growing up was a positive portrayal of Arab-Americans. The fact is that, once the Cold War ended, the Soviets were no longer being portrayed as the bad guys; Arabs filled the roles of antagonists of films and television ("True Lies" and "Iron Eagle").

Perhaps that's one of the reasons why a recent Gallup Poll shows that half of Americans do not like Arabs: they haven't been shown how good, funny and likable so many Arab-Americans actually are. Due in part to the watershed event that was the Sept. 11 attack, the dialogue concerning Arab-Americans has peaked, and prompted more Arab-Americans to attempt a change in their image.

"These days, the word Arab isn't the friendliest term to American ears," said Abe Kasbo, president of Zeitoune FilmWorks in Little Falls. "The Arab-American story has not been told. Arab-Americans don't run around saying that we're contributing; they don't do a good job of telling their own story."

Kasbo is trying to change the portrayal of Arab-Americans by producing a documentary film for television titled "The Arab-American Experience." The documentary will feature Arab-American contributions to the American fabric over the last 300 years.

Among those contributions to be explored include those of Dr. Michael DeBakey, an Arab-American who invented the MASH unit and is the most celebrated pioneer of open-heart surgery in the world; Arab immigrants in the creation of Paterson as the "Silk City"; and young comedians who are rising on the ladder of comic fame, including Dean Obeidallah of Lodi and Maysoon Zayid of Rochelle Park.

"People say to me, 'Can Arabs be funny? Can an Arab tell a joke?' Somehow they think we lack the ability to be funny," said Obeidallah. "We're just now getting a chance to work in a national platform."

Comedy festival

Both Obeidallah and Zayid participated in the Arab-American Comedy Festival in New York last week. Obeidallah has also gotten air time on Comedy Central, co-producing comedy shows with Max Brooks, son of comic legend Mel Brooks.

Just as history has proven that Hollywood eventually changed its portrayals of African-Americans, it's clearly just a matter of time before it changes its portrayals of Arabs in movies and television.

And as the children of today grow up watching that new picture of Arab-Americans, I doubt they will be telling the good people at Gallup that they don't like Arabs.

Ahmed Soliman's column appears Thursdays. Send comments about this column to The Record at oped@northjersey.com.

One thing I never saw growing up was a positive portrayal of Arab-Americans.

IN TYPICAL Generation X form, I grew up watching a lot of television. In fact, it's common for the people of my generation to have grown up spending more time listening to and watching television than even our own parents, who both often worked full time while the children were home alone in the afternoons and summers.