Narrated by Mike Farrell, Valentino’s Ghost exposes the way America’s foreign policy agenda in the Middle East influences Hollywood and mainstream corporate media portrayals of Arabs and Muslims. Premiering at the Venice Film Festival, Italy, to a standing ovation, Valentino’s Ghost tracks the transition from the Arab as Romantic Hero to the Arab today as the embodiment of evil.
Why do supremely talented artists and intellectuals in America consider it perfectly “realistic” to depict Arabs and Muslims in a fashion that would be described as bigoted, if applied to blacks, Jews, gays, Native Americans, et al?
The 100-minute film features fresh, riveting and often stunning perspectives from the legendary late American writer Gore Vidal; John Mearsheimer, author of “The Israel Lobby”,celebrated British war correspondent Robert Fisk, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Anthony Shadid, Harvard and Oxford historian Niall Ferguson, historian Melani McAlister, TV star Tony Shalhoub, media expert Jack Shaheen, and Hollywood writer Alan Sharp,
They take viewers into wild, uncharted waters, analyzing Hollywood as a hotbed of ethnic bigotry and an obedient servant of Washington; the Charlie Hebdo cartoons as hate speech; Israel’s deadly invasion of Gaza in 2014 as a war crime; ISIS as less brutal than The American Armed Forces; and American Sniper as foremost a vehicle of ethnic hatred towards Arabs and Muslims.
Biting social commentary by comics Maz Jobrani, Aron Kader and Ahmed Ahmed ensure that the documentary maintains a constant flow of astonishing and eye-opening revelations.
