Representing the War on Terror in TV Dramas
Evelyn Alsultany∗
Forthcoming in International Connections,
Center for International and Comparative Studies, University of Michigan, Fall 2009
After September 11, 2001, a slew of TV dramas were created with the War on Terror as
their central theme. Dramas such as 24, Threat Matrix, The Grid, Sleeper Cell, and The
Wanted depict U.S. government agencies and officials heroically working to make the
nation safe by battling terrorism. A prominent feature of these television shows are Arab
and Muslim characters, most of whom are portrayed as grave threats to U.S. national
security. But in response to increased popular awareness of ethnic stereotyping, and the
active monitoring of Arab and Muslim watchdog groups, television writers have had to
adjust their storylines to avoid blatant, crude stereotyping.
This article surveys the strategies writers and producers of TV dramas have
utilized when representing Arab and Muslim characters. Some of these representational
strategies have their roots before September 11, when a few films contained noticeably
more complex portrayals of Arabs and Muslims; for example, giving the terrorist
character a backstory, or including a “good” Arab in the storyline.1 These films, produced
in the late 1990s, were exceptions in a history of representing Arabs and Muslims as belly
Evelyn Alsultany is Assistant Professor of American Culture at U-M, and is serving as the 20092010 CICS International Security and Development Fellow. Her research focuses on
representations of Arabs and Muslims in the U.S. media, its relationship to changing conceptions
of race, and its relationship to obstacles to international security and cooperation. She is currently
completing a book on the topic.
∗
She developed and is teaching an advanced seminar in international studies, “Why Do They Hate
Us? Perspectives on 9/11” and will deliver a public lecture in January 2010 based on this article.
dancers, oppressed veiled women, oil sheiks, and terrorists.2 But it was only after 9/11
that more diverse representations proliferated and became standardized. These new
representational strategies seek to make the point that not all Arabs are terrorists, and not
all terrorists are Arabs. But they remain wedded to a script that represents Arabs and
Muslims only in the context of terrorism.
Strategy 1: Inserting Patriotic Arab or Muslim Americans
Writers of television and film have increasingly inserted positive Arab and
Muslim characters to show that they are sensitive to negative stereotyping. This character
often takes the form of a patriotic Arab or Muslim American who assists the U.S.
government in their fight against Arab/Muslim terrorism, either as a government agent or
civilian. For example, on Threat Matrix, Mohammad “Mo” Hassain an Arab American
Muslim character who is part of the USA Homeland Security Force and on season 6 of
24, Nadia Yassir is part of the Counter Terrorist Unit.3 In Sleeper Cell, the “good”
Muslim is the lead African American character, Darwyn Al-Sayeed, who is an
undercover FBI agent and makes statements to his colleagues that the terrorists have
nothing to do with his faith and not to confuse the two.4 This strategy demonstrates that
not all Muslims advocate terrorism.
Strategy 2: Sympathizing with the Plight of Arab Americans Post-9/11
Some post-9/11 TV dramas have included a story about Arab Americans as unjust
victims of post-9/11 hate crimes. The audience is positioned to sympathize with their
plight. Often the victimized Arab American exerts characteristics of the “good” patriotic
character, as delineated in strategy 1. In an episode of 24, two Arab American brothers
express that they are tired of being unjustly blamed for the terrorist attacks and insist on
helping fight terrorism alongside Jack Bauer, the lead character who singlehandedly
saves the U.S. from danger each season.5 In an episode of The Practice, the government
detains an innocent Arab American without due process or explanation. The Arab
American detainee insists that he does not want a lawyer and wants to remain in custody
to help in any way he can. This strategy demonstrates sensitivity and concern for Arab
Americans.
Strategy #3: Challenging the Arab/Muslim Conflation
Sleeper Cell has been unique from other TV dramas that deal with the topic of
terrorism by including a diverse cast of Muslim terrorists, thereby challenging the
common conflation between Arab and Muslim identities. While the ringleader of the
sleeper cell, Faris al-Farik is an Arab, the other members of this Los Angeles sleeper cell
are not. They are Bosnian, French, white American, Western European, Latino, and a gay
Iraqi-Brit. The cell members challenge the Arab/Muslim
conflation by demonstrating that all Arabs are not
Muslim and all Muslims are not Arab. Furthermore,
“good” Arabs and Muslims are represented as a contrast
to the terrorist-Muslims. However, the notion that
Muslims have a monopoly on terrorism is not
challenged.
Strategy 4: Flipping the Enemy
While Sleeper Cell fails to challenge the popular assumption that Muslims have a
monopoly on terrorism, other TV dramas represent multiple terrorist identities. “Flipping
the enemy” involves leading the viewer to believe that Muslim terrorists are obviously
plotting to destroy the U.S. and later revealing that the Muslim terrorists are a pawn or
front for Euro-American or European terrorists. The identity of the enemy is flipped:
either viewers discover that the terrorist is not Arab or Muslim or that the Arab or
Muslim terrorist is part of a larger network of international terrorists. During season two
of 24, Bauer spends the first half of the season tracking down a Middle Eastern terrorist
cell, ultimately subverting a nuclear attack. The second half of the season exposes that
European American businessmen are behind the attack, plotting to benefit from the
increase in oil prices resulting from the United States declaring a war on the Middle East.
Furthermore, writers and producers make efforts not to glorify the U.S. in order to avoid
the impression that the U.S. is perfect and the rest of the world flawed. Therefore this
strategy also includes portraying FBI or CIA agents as incompetent or as conspiring with
the terrorists.
Strategy #5: Humanizing Terrorist Characters
Most representations of Arabs and Muslim terrorists before 9/11 were of stock
terrorist villains, one-dimensional bad guys who were presumably bad because of their
ethnic background or religious beliefs. In contrast, post-9/11 terrorist characters are
humanized by representing them in relation to their families, or by narrating a backstory
or motive. In season 4 of 24, audiences are introduced to the first Middle Eastern family
on U.S. network television (in a recurring role for the whole season as opposed to a one
time appearance). At first, they seem like an ordinary family preparing breakfast –
mother, father, and a teenage son. It is soon revealed, however, that they are a sleeper cell
family and each family member’s relationship to terrorism is explored. The father is
willing to kill his wife and son in order to complete his mission; the mother will
reconsider her involvement with terrorism only to protect her son; and the teenage son,
raised in the U.S., cares about humanity, preventing him from being a terrorist. This
strategy – humanizing the terrorists by focusing on their interpersonal relationships,
motives, and/or backstory – is also central to Sleeper Cell. Each sleeper cell member has
their own motivation for joining the cell: from rebelling against a leftist liberal parent to
seeking revenge on the U.S. for the death of family members.
Strategy 6: Projecting a Multicultural U.S. Society
Projecting a multicultural U.S. society is another strategy to circumvent
accusations of racism while representing Arabs and Muslims as terrorists. In Sleeper Cell,
the sleeper cell members are of diverse ethnic backgrounds and Darwyn, the African
American FBI agent, is in an
interracial relationship with
Gail, a white woman. For
several seasons of 24, the U.S.
president was African
American, his press secretary
Asian American, and Latinos work at the Counter Terrorist Unit. The projected society is
one in which people of different racial backgrounds work together and racism is socially
unacceptable. TV dramas construct an internal logic of racial sensitivity and diversity that
forecloses considering its own participation in logics that legitimize racism. Racism
becomes covert and difficult to detect.
Strategy #7: Fictionalizing the Middle Eastern or Muslim Country
It has become increasingly common for the country of the terrorist characters in
the storyline to go unnamed. This strategy rests on the assumption that leaving the
nationality of the villain nameless eliminates potential offensiveness; if no particular
country or ethnicity is named, then there is less reason for any particular group to be
offended by the portrayal. In season four of 24, the terrorist family is from an unnamed
Middle Eastern country. They are possibly from Turkey, but where they are from is never
stated; it is intentionally left ambiguous. In The West Wing, the fictional country,
“Qumar” is represented and in season 8 of 24, it is “Kamistan.”
These seven representational modes are not exhaustive. They collectively outline
some of the ways in which writers and producers of television (and film) have sought to
improve representations of Arabs (and other racial and ethnic groups). They also reflect
that stereotypical representations that were formerly socially acceptable, no longer are.
However, more diverse representations do not in themselves solve the problem of
stereotyping. As Ella Shohat, Robert Stam, Herman Gray, and other Media Studies
scholars have shown, focusing on whether or not a particular image is good or bad does
not necessarily solve the problem of a negative representation.6 Rather, it is important to
examine the ideological work performed by images and storylines. I do not intend to
negate the efforts of writers and producers who sought to create alternatives to
stereotypical representations. My intention here is to highlight these multiple strategies
and to ask: what ideological work do these representational strategies perform?
Under the guise of complexity, these representational strategies construct a binary
between “good” and “bad” Arabs and Muslims, reinforcing a narrow conception of what
constitutes a “good” Arab or Muslim. As Mahmood Mamdani has written, the public
debate post-9/11 has involved a discourse about “good” and “bad” Muslims, and all
Muslims are assumed to be bad until they perform and prove their allegiance to the U.S.
nation.7 In TV dramas, we see this framework playing out through defining “bad” Arabs
or Muslims as the terrorists and “good” Arabs or Muslims as those helping the U.S.
government fight terrorism. Despite the shift towards less stereotypical representations,
Arab and Muslim identities are still understood and evaluated only in relation to
terrorism. This context overpowers the strategies. Representations of Arab and Muslim
identities in contexts that have nothing to do with terrorism remain strikingly unusual in
the U.S. commercial media.8
Inserting a patriotic Arab American or fictionalizing Middle Eastern countries are
gratuitous devices if Arabs and Arab Americans continue to be portrayed through a
narrow lens of good or bad in the fight against terrorism. Casting multicultural actors to
give the impression of a “post-race” society propagates the comforting notion of an
enlightened society that has resolved all of its racial problems. While these
representational strategies that challenge the stereotyping of Arabs and Muslims were
being broadcast, circulated, and consumed, real Arabs and Muslims were being detained,
deported, held without due process, and tortured. Certainly not all Arabs and Muslims
were subject to post-9/11 harassment or profiling, but I am arguing that these
representational strategies contribute to a “post-race” illusion that has the potential to
minimize the persistence of institutionalized racism. These TV dramas produce
reassurance that racial sensitivity is the norm in U.S. society while perpetuating the
dominant perception of Arabs and Muslims as terrorists.
Above all, what is
depicted though these TV
dramas, is a nation in perpetual
danger. Audiences re-live the
War on Terror and the
Arab/Muslim threat despite a
few good Arabs or Muslims appearing in the storyline. As Melani McAlister has written,
“the continuing sense of threat provides support for the power of the state, but it also
provides the groundwork for securing “the nation” as a cultural and social entity. The
“imagined community” of the nation finds continuing rearticulation in the rhetoric of
danger.”9 A moment of “crisis” is used to cast Arabs, Arab Americans, Muslims, and
Muslim Americans as threats to the nation. Arabs and Muslims become the contemporary
racialized enemy through which the nation defines its identity and legitimizes the abuse
of state power. However, at this historical moment, this is accomplished not through
demonizing an entire people, but rather through projecting seemingly nuanced
representations of Arabs and Muslims, sympathy for the unjust treatment of Arab and
Muslim Americans post-9/11, and a diverse and inclusive U.S. society.
1
I a referring to The Siege (1998) and Three Kings (1999).
For a history of Arab stereotypes, see Jack G. Shaheen, Reel Bad Arabs: How
Hollywood Vilifies a People. Northampton, MA: Interlink Publishing Group, 2001.
3
Threat Matrix. ABC. September 18, 2003-January 29, 2004; 24, Season 6, FOX.
January 14-May 21, 2007.
4
Sleeper Cell, Season 1, Episode 1, “Al-Fatiha,” Showtime, December 4, 2005.
5
24, Season 4, 7pm-8pm, FOX, March 14, 2005.
6
See Ella Shohat and Robert Stam. Unthinking Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the
Media. New York: Routledge, 1994 and Herman Gray, Watching Race: Television and
the Struggle for Blackness. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995.
7
See Mahmood Mamdani, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the
Roots of Terror. New York: Pantheon Books, 2004.
8
Even recent films with positive representation of Arabs and Muslim characters, such as
The Visitor (2007) and Sorry, Haters (2005) are framed in the context of 9/11. Little
Mosque on the Prairie (2007-), a sit-com on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has
not crossed-over into the U.S.
9
Melani McAlister. Epic Encounters: Culture, Media, and U.S. Interests in the Middle
East, 1945-2000. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001, 6.
2

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