July 17, 2012

MPAC's Hollywood Bureau invites you to a special screening of “Valentino’s Ghost” on Tuesday, July 17, at the Islamic Center of Southern California at 6 p.m.

In the 95-minute feature documentary "Valentino’s Ghost," seasoned experts join three stand-up comics to show the way in which the changing image of Arabs and Muslims in the mainstream U.S. media, mirrors America’s foreign policy agenda in the Middle East.

Funded primarily by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, an affiliate Center for Asian American Media (CAAM), "Valentino’s Ghost" takes viewers on a chronological journey starting with the Arab as hero, played by Rudolph Valentino in his “Sheik” movies of the 1920s.

The film includes exploration of the Arab as “Redskin,” in the Legionnaire films of the '30s and '40s, and also delves into the forces that lie behind media imagery, such as geopolitics and Israel/Palestine. The film ends with the Arab/Muslim as the embodiment of evil, as exemplified in countless Hollywood films and other media, and it asks the question “What happened?  How did we arrive at this point?”

"Valentino’s Ghost" features Britain’s most honored international correspondent Robert Fisk; America’s legendary writer and historian Gore Vidal; University of Chicago scholar and author of “The Israel Lobby,” John Mearsheimer; Harvard and Oxford scholar and British TV host Niall Ferguson; Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times international reporter, the late Anthony Shadid; TV star Tony Shalhoub; Hollywood writer/director Alan Sharp; and Washington University professor and author Melani McAlister.

The event will conclude with a Q&A with producer/director Michael Singh and narrator of the documentary, political activist and actor Mike Farrell of "M*A*S*H."

“Brilliant.  Valentino’s Ghost is a crystal-clear distillation of voluminous evidence from movies, televangelism, and network news, documenting the subtle interplay of popular, religious, and political culture.” -- Tamara Sonn, Professor of Humanities at College of William and Mary

“Many U.S. citizens — even those who see themselves as open-minded and non-prejudiced — will come away from this film with a new realization of how badly they have been misled into genteel bigotry in their judgments about this part of the world." -- William Beeman, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Wisconsin