[Long Cut]

The last movie featuring crazed Arab terrorists was "True Lies", starring (who else?) Arnold Schwarzenegger. He and his producer were excoriated for it, too.

It made, however, a truckload of $$$.

"I remember reading an article about 15 years or more ago on the phenomenon of the "vanilla terrorist" in movies."

The phenomenon is widely discussed on movie-fan websites. It goes back to the early '90s, and affects ALL mediums' villains. Note that nowadays, even all street gangs are portrayed as "multiracial".

[jennyp]

"I remember reading an article about 15 years or more ago on the phenomenon of the "vanilla terrorist" in movies."

The phenomenon is widely discussed on movie-fan websites. It goes back to the early '90s, and affects ALL mediums' villains. Note that nowadays, even all street gangs are portrayed as "multiracial".

The last movie I've seen that dealt with Muslim terrorists honestly was The Siege, with Denzel Washington as an FBI agent leading the fight against a wave of bus bombings & worse. I thought it illustrated the Muslim terrorist mindset chillingly well, and for a while the movie is gripping.

Of course, for the grave sin of showing islamofascists as the bad guys, they had to pay penance by throwing in an utterly unbelievable Bruce Willis as a dictatorial general who heads up the ensuing martial law & torturing of suspects.

So half of the movie I thought was very effective & thought-provoking. I guess that's as much as anyone could hope for nowadays. >:-(