The Current Tragedies

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Linganthers,

I've found myself, like others, just simply depressed and not interested
in doing anything in the last few days, but I had to face a class today
that I last met while the attacks were going on, and so we didn't know
about it until we came out of class.  This is a linganth course called
"Language and Popular Culture" which deals with linguistic stereotyping
etc. in the media especially, so I think we're going to be dealing with
that issue even more.  All I could think of was a movie I've run scenes
from, "Executive Decision," (1996)  which is an airplane disaster movie
with Islamic terrorists (starring Kurt Russell, Halle Berry, Steven Segal,
etc.)  that doesn't even begin to imagine what happened Tuesday. (The plot
involves crashing the plane in Washington DC, but with a load of nerve gas
that will kill millions...) Naturally the plot is foiled before the plane
can crash...

But it does give an opportunity to look at stereotypical uses of "foreign"
language, without at any time specifically identifying any language or
nationality.  In fact the mastermind head-hijacker doesn't ever even speak
the "foreign"  language being shrieked by the other hijackers (Arabic?
Persian?), but speaks with a nice British RP accent.

I heard on the news last night that somebody identified the hijackers
 who received the flight training at a school in Florida as being
"Arabic". Could the person being interviewed  know a word of
this language? Or was he identifying an "Arabic" nationality or social
identity?

I'd appreciate it if anybody on this list can identify any other movies
with middle-eastern terrorists as the bad guys?  I'd like to see what else
I can do with this business.

My website for this course:
http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/popcult/syllabus.html

Hal Schiffman