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Terrorism in Popular Media: How Hollywood Represent Muslim Terrorist

Movie has significant function not only as an entertainment but more importantly it also functions to document the historical events, to negotiate or even challenge the existing norms in the society. This paper discusses how Hollywood movies represent the discourse of Muslim terrorist. The movies share similar theme of Muslim terrorism; they are “The Siege” (1998) and “Syriana”(2005). The question presented here is how the movies represent the discourse of Muslim terrorism. This question critically addresses the issue of different faces of “Muslim terrorist” represented in the Hollywood films and the ideas or ideology underlied. The films are analysed through the lenses of critical discourse analysis (CDA). Fairclough’s CDA discover the discourse through three levels of analysis, micro, meso and macro analysis. It aims to unravel how the Muslim terrorist is constructed by a particular group with a definite interest. Each of the movies has different causes, but they share similar use of “Muslim terrorism” as the vehicle of reaching the goals. The different context constructs the faces of terrorist in different ways. Muslim terrorist in Middle East context is represented in film “Syriana” with the background of oil business war. The Muslim terrorist in domestic context of the United States is represented in the film “The Siege” with the background of US foreign and domestic policy issues.