Arab-Americans Protest ‘Lazy Movie Cliche’ In ‘Condor’

Following in a long line of recent boycotts and protests against the Walt Disney Co., the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is protesting Dimension Films’ “Operation Condor.” Dimension is a division of Miramax Films, a wholly owned subsidiary of Disney.

The movie tells the story of an adventurer, played by Jackie Chan, who is hired to recover a cache of gold in North Africa that was stolen by Nazis at the end of World War II. ADC officials argue that “Condor” uses “the lazy movie cliche of violent, unscrupulous and irrational Arabs.”

Disney referred all questions on the film to Dimension, which issued this short statement: “‘Operation Condor’ is a classic action comedy, all done with humor, and no harm is intended.”

This is not the first time that the ADC, the largest Arab-American grass-roots group, has questioned Disney’s treatment of Arabs in its films.

In 1992, “Aladdin” angered the group when an Arab character in the film’s opening lyrics, sang: “Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place, where the caravan camels roam/Where they cut off your ear if they don’t like your face/It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.”

After meeting with ADC officials in 1993, Disney agreed to change the “cut-off-your-ear” lyric but chose not to change the word “barbaric.”

Although Disney allegedly promised to consult with the ADC whenever a Disney movie featured an Arab or Arab-American character, the studio has continued to represent Arabs in negative light, the group says.