movies

Hollywood has never been kind to the colonized peoples of the Middle East (Arabs, Persians or Kurds). They have been portrayed as sexual predators (a stereotype most famously portrayed by silent film era heart-throb Rudolph Valentino in the 1921 film The Sheikh), terrorists (True Lies, The Siege, Rules of Engagement, Executive Decision, The Kingdom) and authoritarian parents (Towelhead, Babel).

Royalty has been portrayed many different ways in many different films. Royals have been variously presented as benevolent (Mufasa in the Lion King), mentally ill (King George the Third in the Madness of King George), polite (Jack Skellington in the Nightmare before Christmas) and, of course, completely evil and underhanded (Emperor Palpatine in Return of the Jedi, The Queen of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland). There are, however, very few films that portray Kings and Queens as ordinary people just as flawed and vulnerable as the rest of us.