Abstract of Presentation

Film Depictions of Mono-Theistic Religions: Christianity, Islam, and Judaism The way media portrays different races, genders, sexual orientation, and other groups, impacts how they are treated in modern society. Unfavorable, or negative portrayals can reinforce bias and discrimination, while positive portrayals can help to promote understanding, which can in turn, dismantle harmful stereotypes. This is often seen in the portrayal of different monotheistic religions in film, specifically with Jewish, Christian, and Muslim characters. Believing the negative preconceptions presented in the media carries a risk. A meta-analysis conducted by Appel and Weber (2017) found that negative portrayal of stereotyped groups in media impair the cognitive accomplishments of the stereotyped groups and had no effect on non- members of the stereotyped groups. Shaheen (2003) focused on the portrayal of Arabs in media and concluded that Hollywood tends to “villainize” Arabs. Shaheen (2003) reviewed over 900 films that portray Arab characters and found that only a few represented Arabs as heroic characters. Most of the films stereotyped Arabs as evil, heartless people, which has affected the way Arabs are treated in everyday life. According to Aya Nimer (2023), Muslims are not only underrepresented [in the media], but also drastically misrepresented. The harmful stereotypical portrayals of Muslims being violent in the media has not only negatively affected how people perceive Muslims, but how they perceive their own identities as well. The hypothesis for this study is that there are more negative stereotypes than positive depictions in films of monotheistic religions. We also hypothesize that Muslim and Jewish characters are often portrayed more negatively than Christians in film. Using the IMDB database, movies representing three monotheistic religions (Christianity, Islam, and Judaism) were chosen. Movies were selected by searching the database using key words such as “Islam”, “Islamophobia”, “antisemitism”, “Jewish”, “Jew”, “Jewish culture”, “Christian:, “Catholicism”, and “Christianity.” Each of the undergraduate researchers represented one of the mono-theistic religions in their personal lives. As such, each was considered a subject matter expert in terms of rating the accuracy of the films’ depictions of their respective religion. The number of positive and negative depictions of the religion of the film were also recorded by the raters and each researcher rated the accuracy and overall impression of the religion (positive or negative). Data are partially collected and the study will be completed by December, 2024. Data will be analyzed with One-Way ANOVA (comparing the three religions) and potential findings and implications will be discussed within an appropriate context.