Bravely Stating the Obvious

Over slightly more than the past decade a number of mass mediated Egyptian comedies have depicted and criticized the United States. American. journalists report on these productions with regularity, usually labeling them as straightforward manifestations of anti-Americanism, and often conflating anti-American, anti-Israeli, and anti-Semitic speech of all types. Many of these reports argue that anti-Americanism is unrelated to American and Israeli actions, and is actually caused by mass media, or at least inflamed by it to the point that whatever actual objections Egyptians may have to American policies are irrelevant. This argument is particularly salient in American neoconservative publications over the past decade. American neoconservatism has in turn become closely allied with Zionist—particularly Likudist—political positions. Neoconservative/Zionist organizations actively seek to shape American perceptions of undifferentiated anti-Americanism in Middle Eastern media through well-funded media monitoring operations such as the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). A few years ago Egyptian media portrayals of the United States were a topic of great interest for many Americans and Europeans, or at least I thought so because I was often asked to comment on it. More recently requests for information or analysis on the topic of anti-Americanism in Egyptian media seem to have subsided. There are a number of possible reasons for this. One of these is that attributions of anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism in Egyptian media have become so normative for Americans that the issue has simply receded into the background as a form of received wisdom. In other words, the neoconservative/Zionist narrative of state-controlled media instilling anti-Americanism is so dominant that nobody thinks to question it. Hence it no longer qualifies as a "story" for journalists or political scientists. Another possibility is that perhaps the Iraq war has simply displaced all other issues raised by American relations with countries of the Middle East. Perhaps the question of "what do Egyptians (and Arabs) make of the United States" no longer seems pressing due to the intensity of American engagement in Iraq

History · Humor Studies and Applications · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies · Psychology · Race, History, and American Society