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Ben Shapiro’s new film continues Hollywood’s long tradition of anti-Muslim stereotypes

Get you up to speed: Ben Shapiro’s anti-Muslim film is nothing new

What remains unclear — The film’s impact on the portrayal of Muslims and its potential to influence public perception has not been measured.

Ben Shapiro’s new film continues Hollywood’s long tradition of anti-Muslim stereotypes

OPINIONOPINION, OpinionBen Shapiro’s anti-Muslim film is nothing new

Hollywood has spent decades portraying Muslims as terrorists and extremists. Shapiro’s new film simply repackages those stereotypes for the present moment.

Ben Shapiro, prominent pro-Israel blogger and co-founder of the far-right news site The Daily Wire, claims Hollywood has spent the last three decades refusing to tell the story of “the threat of radical Islam”.

As an American Muslim woman, an avid movie-goer, and a human with eyes, I must say that statement’s pretty delusional – even for a known bigot like Shapiro, who once declared, “Arabs like to bomb crap and live in open sewage.”

While announcing the trailer for his Islamophobic new film, Run Hide Fight: Infidels, Shapiro posted on X that “the threat of radical Islam is real” and that Hollywood has “refused to tell that story for three decades”. He described his film as the “biggest, most audacious, funniest and most kickass film” The Daily Wire has ever released.

I’m not sure what’s supposed to be audacious about making Muslims the bad guys; Hollywood has been doing that since before I was born.

In 2003, American writer and educator Jack Shaheen published Reel Bad Arabs based on his review of more than 900 films featuring Arab characters. He found that Hollywood routinely blurred Arab and Muslim identities and overwhelmingly portrayed them as violent, barbaric, greedy, sexually threatening, or otherwise dangerous.

And you don’t have to take Shaheen’s word for it. Just take a look at a few of the movies.

In True Lies (1994), Arab terrorists plot to detonate a nuclear weapon in the United States. Executive Decision (1996) features Muslim terrorists hijacking a plane and associates Islamic prayer and Quranic imagery with terrorism. The Siege (1998) envisions terrorist attacks in New York that lead to the arrests of Arab Americans. Rules of Engagement (2000) portrays US Marines killing Yemeni civilians, then proceeds to justify it.

I distinctly remember the horrific surge in anti-Muslim threats and comments on social media when American Sniper, a film that dehumanises and demonises the Iraqi people, came out in 2015.

Television shows didn’t exactly take a different approach. Shows such as 24 and Homeland built major storylines around Muslim terrorists, sleeper cells, and the possibility that Muslim communities were sheltering extremists.

At times, Hollywood did give us slightly improved versions of the same story: The “good” Arab or Muslim character who helps the Americans fight the “bad” Muslims. For example, in the 2007 action thriller The Kingdom, a Saudi police officer partners with American agents to help them investigate and fight off terrorists. While it is a little better than every Arab or Muslim character being a terrorist, it still leaves us with limited options: We are either the bad guys or the exception who sees the error in our people’s barbaric ways.

In more recent years, however, Muslims have been seeing more complex and nuanced representations of ourselves in shows and films such as Ramy, Mo, Ms Marvel, and the yet-unreleased Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother. While these dramatic fictional portrayals do not always embody how Muslims strive to live their faith and ideals in everyday life, they have helped expand public understanding of the diversity of Muslim experiences.

But that doesn’t change basic history or undo the harm that’s already been done by decades of Hollywood using “Muslim” and “Arab” as shorthand for “terrorist” and “extremist”. This portrayal of Muslims and Arabs as threats that need to be neutralised has real consequences. In May this year, anti-Muslim extremists filmed themselves violently attacking the Islamic Center of San Diego, fatally shooting three men who sacrificed their lives to stop the attackers from making their way to young children in the Islamic school on the mosque’s premises.

However, I will give Shapiro some credit. He did try to put a modern spin on those tired, old anti-Muslim tropes.

According to the film’s trailer, the story centres on a college campus taken over by “radical Islamic terrorists” who seize a Gaza solidarity encampment, establish what the movie calls a “makeshift caliphate”, impose “Sharia law”, and execute “infidels”.

It also juxtaposes ISIL (ISIS) imagery and footage from 9/11 with footage of the 2024 protests on college campuses, taking a real political movement – students protesting Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza – and putting it in the same fictional frame as extremist violence.

Since October 7, Palestinians, Muslims, and their allies have increasingly been treated by the US political establishment as security threats. Palestinian solidarity has routinely been treated as suspect. College protesters have been accused of being sympathetic to terrorists. American Muslims have been accused of being anti-Semitic for criticising a foreign government that is actively committing genocide.

Now, here comes a movie that turns an anti-genocide campus encampment into the starting point for an “Islamist” takeover of America. It is an old far-right conspiracy theory, repackaged as a new film.

We also can’t ignore its questionable timing.

The film’s promotion comes at a time when anti-Muslim hate, spurred in part by the Israeli government’s attempt to distract people from the bad PR of committing genocide, is already at an all-time high; as we head into another election season, with voters increasingly turning against AIPAC-funded candidates who refuse to condemn or take action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza; and as The Daily Wire and Shapiro himself no longer hold the same level of influence they once had. And what better way to stay relevant than to take a popular, if not played-out, subject, update it, and tell everyone you’re brave enough to tell a new story that Hollywood was too afraid to tell?

Except he’s not. He’s just recycling one that Hollywood has been telling for decades and attaching it to the political argument he wants to make today.

For those of us who have been negatively impacted by this blatantly inaccurate portrayal of Muslims for our whole lives, it’s definitely not new or brave.

It’s honestly just getting old.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect WTX News’s editorial stance.

Bodies of missing persons found in Jeju Island amid police investigation

Get you up to speed: Missing people are turning up dead on a misty honeymoon island | News World

What remains unclear — Authorities have not disclosed how many missing persons cases are currently unresolved on Jeju Island.

Bodies of missing persons found in Jeju Island amid police investigation

Police officers inspect the scene where the body of missing person Jang Mi-ran was discovered at a palm tree farm in Jeju island.(Picture: Reuters)

Jeju Island is South Korea’s idyllic honeymoon destination.

Its dramatic volcanic landscapes, maze-like cave systems and stunning waterfalls offer so much for lovers to explore – but then the bodies started appearing.

In just three days, four people who had been reported missing on Jeju turned up dead, police said.

Authorities have not linked the deaths or found evidence of widespread foul play.

But the discoveries followed revelations that one police officer allegedly faked speaking to the missing person and prematurely closed their case.

Hundreds of people have vanished on the island, prompting questions about how many bodies are out there.

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The palm tree farm where the presumed body of a missing woman, Jang Mi-ran, was found (Picture: EPA)

Jang Mi-ran’s boyfriend reported the 37-year-old missing after she vanished from Jeju City, early on May 13.

He was allegedly told by a police detective named Bu that she had told him she was leaving and didn’t want to see him anymore.

The case was quickly closed amid an attitude that no real crimes happen on the 700sq mile rocky island.

But investigators found no phone records supporting his claim that the officer had spoken to her – and nearby CCTV had been reportedly deleted.

The officer reported to the police emergency call center that Jang had refused to meet him and requested her location not be disclosed to the person who reported her missing.

More than 100 days passed, her weary parents launched another missing persons probe and Jang was found hanging from a palm tree less than a 10-minute walk from where she was last seen.

Officers told her family that she had killed herself based on the position and location of the body, but her boyfriend remains sceptical.

Jang’s boyfriend told local TV station Chosun he could not make sense of the discovery. ‘She said she found that place frightening whenever she passed by, so I can’t understand why she was found there,’ he said.

A Jeju local said the farm was densely planted with Canary Island date palms, which are covered in sharp, hard spines.

‘Even for a man, it would be nearly impossible to hang a rope from one of those trees – they don’t have branches like ordinary trees, and you’d get stabbed just getting close,’ they added.

Investigators found no phone records supporting Bu’s claim that he had spoken with Jang before closing her case, while nearby surveillance footage had already been deleted.

Police also allege Bu similarly closed the case of a man in his 60s, who was later found dead.

South Korean police received 70,814 reports of missing adults last year
(Picture: EPA)

The same day Jang’s remains were discovered, another person previously reported missing was discovered dead near a valley in Aewol-eup.

The following day, a fisherman spotted the body of a man in his 70s floating in the waves loved by surfers.

Bu, whose full identity has not been released, was perp-walked to a court hearing where Jang’s family attacked him on live television.

He has denied any wrongdoing and insists he did contact the missing people.

But nearly 300 missing persons cases are to be reviewed with ten being examined for possible improper closure.

A policeman takes part in a search operation of a missing person (Picture: Reuters)

Whether the case truly involved no crime, as the police currently believe, but have said they will forensically reconstruct the scene to assess if there had been any third party involvement.

The suspected botched investigations and lack of official explanations has created a feeling of mystery over the volcanic island.

Now people are cancelling their trips to Jeju after unfounded claims a serial killer could be on the loose with online sleuths drawing up maps where the bodies are being found.

A recent Instagram post by Hong Hye-geol, a television personality who has lived on the island for seven years, read, ‘When I cycle around Jeju, I often come across deserted roads in villages without even venturing deep into Hallasan.

‘Stray just a little from a trail, and you can find yourself somewhere no one would hear you scream.

‘I wouldn’t recommend either women or men going around here alone, even in broad daylight or on paved roads.’

Surfers ride waves off a beach in the popular Jeju Island but others are cancelling trips (Picture: EPA)

Jeju, one of South Korea’s most popular tourist destinations, drew 1.2 million foreign visitors in the first half of 2026, according to the Jeju Tourism Association.

More than ⁠70,000 such ​reports have been filed annually since 2022, though the vast majority were solved ​within 30 days, police say.

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