The Sublimination of Syriana

Last semester, I took a section of FYS that focused on filmic portrayals of minorities throughout history and how these representations affect the ways in which Americans respond to these different races. I wish I still had the textbook, because I would love to see the specific chapter on the portrayal of Arabs. However, since I don’t have access to that information, I want to use the trailer to Syriana to explore the presence of Orientalism throughout the clip. 

In my own viewing of the trailer, I found concepts of Orientalism throughout each and every clip. From the start of the clip, the narrator immediately distinguishes Americans as the victims, as they are “unable to heat their houses,” and must pay “twenty dollars a gallon” for gasoline. A clip of Matt Damon solidifies this issue: “[Oil] is running out and ninety percent of it is in the Middle East.” Viewers immediately correlate the two realities: Americans will be unable to heat their houses if the Middle East does not provide them their abundant share of oil. This correlation represents the Middle East as the enemy; how dare they expect Americans to pay twenty dollars a gallon for gasoline when they have all that oil! His line that follows—“This is a fight to the death”—distinguishes the Manichean “us versus them” concept; they are the enemy that America is fighting.

After portraying the protagonist and the antagonist—America and the Middle East, respectively—negative quotes accompany images of the Arab characters in the film: “His money is in a lot of dark corners,” a quote said while a picture of the son of the Emir appears on screen; “I want you to take him”—in this case, presumably the man shown on screen, the son of the Emir—“to a hotel, drug him, put him in the front of a car, and run a truck into him at fifty miles per hour,” a very violent quote in reference to an Arab; “You want to know what the business world thinks of you?”—in this case, the “you” refers, once again, to Arabs—“We think a hundred years ago you were living out here in tents in the desert chopping each others’ heads off,” a quote that portrays the Arabs as violent and barbaric; “It is illegal to offer gifts, money, or anything of value to influence foreign officials,” in this case, the foreign official refers to the new Emir, who apparently, through viewer correlation, would accept these gifts despite the corruptness and illegality of the act; additionally, a clip flashes across the screen of George Clooney while he gets kidnapped and tortured by Arabs.

The final image of the trailer lists a series of concepts in the film: oil, CIA, lie, Syriana, die, win, oil.” This list gives the viewer an indirect correlation between these negative concepts and the enemy from the beginning of the trailer—the Middle East.

While all of these thoughts may not rush through the viewer’s mind when they first see the trailer, these underlying concepts only reinforce the negative connotation associated with the Middle East. This trailer reaffirms the presence of Orientalism in post-9/11 filmic portrayals, a perpetuation of America as the good guy and the Middle East as the bad guy.