"What if I like the Middle East?" Indeed. Such a question was posed in the film Body of Lies, which in addition to being a great thriller refreshingly seems to shy away from Orientalist portraits of this mysterious and largely despised land. The world-weary CIA head finds it hard to believe any Westerner would actually want to live in the "god-forsaken" (his words, not mine) land, filled with stone caves and fiery fundamentalists. What if I like the Middle East? DiCaprio calmly replies. "No one likes the Middle East" responds the CIA president, with a knowing smirk. The film avoids the unfortunate tendency of Western media to portray all Arabs as terrorists, and for that matter all terrorists as Muslims. It was interesting watching Arab foreign intelligence in this film combat terrorists effectively and passionately, while the US CIA bungled operations and acted with impatience. Portrayals like this should be the standard, not the exception. It's odd to me that this even stuck out to me as being different: am I wrong, or is 90% of the coverage of those in the middle east, or even Muslims wordwide just showing that same portrayal of warlords in caves, or fundamentalists who despise the West and burn American flags? This is ridiculous. It is the equivalent of equating all Christians with the tiny percentage of Evangelicals who bomb abortion clinics--really, these percentages are not that different. The vast, vast majority of Muslims are moderate and share religious and cultural ideas and values with the rest of us.
