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The re-mythologization of Islam and the Arab world in Adam Curtis's The Power of Nightmares

University of Hertfordshire, UK, m.khoury-machool{at}herts.ac.uk

This article presents a discursive analysis of Adam Curtis's series of documentary films, The Power of Nightmares, broadcast on the BBC in 2004. The series proposes that both Arab Islamist and American neoconservative groups have constructed, and appropriated, the illusion of a `global Islamist terror threat', in order to bolster their own respective ideologies. The analysis reveals that both groups examined in the documentary are misrepresented, and that the filmmaker omits critical historical information that is relevant, and essential, to a broader understanding of the issues he explores. Moreover, ideas and events are communicated from a predominantly Western perspective. Consequently, such partial representations and omissions serve only to reinforce Western misconceptions of the causal factors behind the recent emergence of political Islam and the so-called `War on Terror'. Through close textual analysis, this article demonstrates that, in spite of Curtis's stated aim of undermining the mythical perceptions of Muslims and Arabs, the documentary in fact restates and reinforces the very ethno-religious stereotypes which Curtis claims to deconstruct.

Key Words: Arab-Islamic world • documentary film • Islamists • media representation • neoconservatives • Orientalist discourse • textual analysis • War on Terror

Global Media and Communication, Vol. 5, No. 1, 35-55 (2009)
DOI: 10.1177/1742766508101313


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