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Re-Configuring the American Other: Representations of the Iraq War in two Egyptian Black Comedies, "The Night Baghdad Fell" and "Excuse Us"
Abstract
In the last five years, the current Iraq war has gradually become one of the central themes in the American cinematographic discourse. Films like "In the Valley of Elah," "Iraq in Fragments," "Redacted," and the recent multiple award winner "The Hurt Locker" offered an array of ideological perspectives on this most recent military confrontation between the U.S. and the Arab world. However, Arab cinematic representations of the Iraq war remain largely unexplored. In my paper, I will examine two Egyptian black comedies, "The Night Baghdad Fell" and "Excuse Us," which depict a newly emerged image of the American other, resulting from fundamental changes in the U.S. policies in the Middle East post-9/11 and post-invasion. Both films were released around the same time in 2005, and remarkably, they belong to the same genre of farce, or black comedy. "Excuse Us" is a story of a cafe owner Armouty whose son Wahid goes to Iraq on business and gets trapped there when U.S. military invades the country. When Americans take Wahid into custody and then put him in jail, the father travels to Iraq with the intention to free his son. The film illustrates a complete departure from the familiar pattern of economic prosperity and the American Dream as the two principal representations of Americanness in Egyptian film. In "Excuse Us," the United States is demonized as a powerful military aggressor, and the Bush administration is mercilessly mocked. "The Night Baghdad Fell" goes even further and imagines the U.S. invasion of Egypt. The film's main character, Shakar, is a school teacher who becomes obsessed with the idea that Americans are planning to attack Egypt, and he recruits one of his students to help him with developing a powerful weapon to be used against the invaders. "The Night Baghdad Fell" portrays the American Other as a mysterious enemy, an almost supernatural evil who can be stopped only by means of creating a supranational weapon. The paper will analyze narrative and cinematic techniques utilized in creating a new prototype of the American Other defined through military and aggressive foreign politics. These films illustrate the emergence of a new discourse on Occidentalism, informed by recent crucial changes in Arab political, ideological and cultural life, and by Arab reactions to globalization.
Discipline
Media Arts
Geographic Area
Egypt
Sub Area
Cinema/Film