{"id":17465,"date":"2012-04-04T09:05:45","date_gmt":"2012-04-04T05:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/?p=17465"},"modified":"2012-04-04T09:05:54","modified_gmt":"2012-04-04T05:05:54","slug":"picture-an-arab-man-see-what-google-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/middle-east-society\/picture-an-arab-man-see-what-google-says\/","title":{"rendered":"“Picture an Arab Man”: See What Google Says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Picture an Arab man. Better yet . . . run a quick search on Google Images in English. You\u2019ll find the fighter, the flag-waving protester and the religious sheikh. You\u2019ll find the Arab man in subjective folkloric representation, framed by a loaded message; you\u2019ll find clich\u00e9s and stereotypes that seem to be stuck in the 19th century. Each picture might be worth the proverbial thousand words and you might decide that there isn\u2019t much to say beyond that story.<\/p>\n

\u201cPicture an Arab Man\u201d is the title of Iraqi Canadian photojournalist Tamara Abdul Hadi\u2019s series of portraits. Her goal is to show a new image of the contemporary Arab man. We\u2019ll look at her photos in a moment; first let\u2019s take on the challenge of the topic itself.<\/p>\n

Both in academia and mass media, gender-centric narratives of Arabic societies focus on the Arab woman. And while she is the one under constant scrutiny, very little attention has been paid to her masculine counterpart. At best, he is ignored. Too often, he\u2019s just the nameless oppressor, part of the patriarchal system in which women struggle for emancipation. Sometimes he\u2019s just one of many in a faceless crowd; his personal identity disappears in the group picture as he becomes part of a social phenomenon, a statistic on the evening news. Too often, we forget that he is also subjected to gendered stereotypes.<\/p>\n

According to Abdul Hadi, \u201cAs far back as the 1920s [Arab men] were stereotyped as sheikhs with harems because that was what was brought back through Orientalist depictions [a discourse about the East created by the West, constellated with false assumptions and stereotypes and based on Western attitudes towards the East]. More recently, the misrepresentation turned to \u2018terrorist\u2019 and after 9\/11 the stereotype became even more common.\u201d In addition to Western stereotypes, she also denounces \u201csocially-imposed ideals regarding Arab masculinity within Arab societies\u201d.<\/p>\n

In recent years, new approaches to Middle Eastern masculinities are helping adjust the distortion of gendered representation. In the midst of this much-needed reform of gender discourse, Tamara Abdul Hadi\u2019s work to update the image of today\u2019s Arab man is an essential reality check.<\/p>\n

The photographer chose a subject from each country as she travelled the Arab world with fate as a guide and her intuition the only criteria in selecting different men from many backgrounds.<\/p>\n

Started in 2009, the portrait series “Picture an Arab Man” is part of a large body of work capturing semi-nude Arab men of diverse backgrounds. Essentially the photographer shows us individual portraits of a bunch of guys \u2013 rather good-looking young men with an undeniable air of sensuality about them as they pose candidly for a camera held by a female photographer. This alone is an interesting reversal of roles in the apparently international stereotype of women subjected to the lens of man. Yet this is not quite the point here.<\/p>\n

Picturing an Arab man becomes a refreshingly active exercise. The black and white minimalistic approach allows us to let go of capital letters. These are just men whose portraits offer no indication of religious affiliation, political aspirations, professional profile, sexual orientation or social status.<\/p>\n

Abdul Hadi explains, \u201cThe reason I choose to portray the men as semi-nude is because my portraits mainly focus on the face, and having no distinguishing clothing, jewellery or accessories helps keep the focus on that.\u201d Stripped of their usual attire, they are unburdened of prevalent hyper-masculine clich\u00e9s. Observers are free to ask, \u201cWhat is an Arab man anyway?\u201d Deconstructing stereotypes, those portraits are a call to action, raising questions of how identity \u2013 gender, cultural belonging and religion \u2013 affects each one of us: Arab men, Latino women, Egyptian architects or Japanese foodies. Labelling people denies them the right to be complex and unique individuals.<\/p>\n

Picture an Arab man now. Looks at those portraits and think. Is this one a scientist or a musician? Is that one a vegetarian? Was his heart ever broken? Is he a dreamer? Is he a hero? Could he tell a good joke?<\/p>\n

A flag, a Qur\u2019an, a suit or a keffiyeh<\/em> would perhaps help you know more, but in Abdul Hadi\u2019s portraits, these guys could be anything. They\u2019re dreaming, laughing and pouting \u2013 and you only get to know their first name and nationality. To know more you would need to chat with these men. And maybe you\u2019d talk about paragliding . . .<\/p>\n

Nada Akl is a freelance journalist based in Beirut. Tamara Abdul Hadi is now raising funds for her project on the crowd-funding website www.emphas.is<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NADA AKL, CGNEWS: A project by an Iraqi Canadian photojournalist confronts cliche and stereotype <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":17466,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53,154,5],"tags":[4299,114,688,100,2395,7767,485,12384,12385],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mideastposts.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}