Hollywood producers, Azam Ali has a blockbuster pitch for you. An edgy political thriller about American military action in Iran, it’s current, incredibly provocative and bound to get some award buzz. The concept: an action film about the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup against the Iranian prime minister.
She suggests the idea with a healthy dose of skepticism. But Ali, an Iranian singer and musician who moved to Los Angeles after the 1979 student revolution, brings it up to make a point about Americans’ lack of understanding about other cultures, especially those in the Middle East.
“The political situation is where it is today as a result of so many things, and when there’s no historical context, it’s very easy for people to say I’m good and you’ve evil,” she said. “If a film like that got made, it would put things into perspective for Americans.”
A lack of cultural perspective and certain stereotypes are at the heart of an issue faced by musicians with Middle Eastern backgrounds such as Ali, who are often asked to contribute to soundtracks for Hollywood movies about terrorism. It’s a well-paying opportunity but comes with a certain cost. While composers scoring American movies make sincere efforts to be culturally sensitive and respect musical traditions, it doesn’t always diffuse the internal conflicts musicians experience when they consider how the movies they work on contribute to negative depictions of their culture.
“I definitely feel strange about it because our music predates terrorism,” said Ali, who has contributed her ethereal vocals to numerous film projects, including the soundtrack for last fall’s controversial TV mini-series “The Path to 9/11.”
“You feel like you’re letting down people of your tradition in a way, because you’re propagating a certain image. Part of me feels guilty, even though I have to earn a living doing these projects now and then,” she said.
Music and art are meant to break boundaries, according to Ali, and her career reflects that belief. After extensive vocal training and years of studying the santour (a traditional Persian hammered dulcimer), she embarked on a variety of projects challenging cultural boundaries, including “Portals of Grace,” an album featuring her interpretations of medieval songs of Europe, and Niyaz, a group that mixes Urdu and Persian poetry with modern electronics. The decision to work on “The Path to 9/11” was difficult because she feels the media bombards us with negative images from the Middle East, especially Iran, and she feels a responsibility to showcase the positives.
“I’m proud of who I am, and I want to remind people that there are a lot of good things and good people that come from that part of the world,” she said.
Big-budget bias?
Naser Musa, a Jordanian of Palestinian descent and a singer and oud player whose work has appeared on the “Passion of the Christ” soundtrack, also feels divided about working on terrorism-focused films. He has worked on documentaries and the occasional movie since the ’80s, and believes big-budgets films are the ones more likely to focus exclusively on the negative aspects of the Middle East. He also feels the climate was different before Sept. 11.
“Before 9/11, the stereotype was that we were backwards and riding camels,” Musa said. “Most of us have only seen camels at zoos. It’s not like we all live in tents. It’s like me asking someone from Manhattan how it feels to ride horses and be a cowboy. But that didn’t hurt anything. Now the stereotype is more vicious, it can hurt. It can direct people against you.”
If there’s a bias in films now, he said, it’s usually anti-Muslim and points toward violence.
“I’m a vocalist, so sometimes I’m asked to translate lyrics into a chant, to sing stuff like `Death to America,’ or `Let’s kill every American,'” he said. “We don’t all say that. I’m a Christian Arab. I recorded a Christmas album. How do I know what terrorists would chant?”
Many film composers make sincere and serious efforts to respect the musical cultures they draw from when writing soundtracks. John Cameron, the British composer who wrote the music for “The Path to 9/11,” said he always is alert to the danger of “cartoonizing” music of other traditions and avoids triggering inappropriate sentiment. A history student before he turned to music, Cameron worked extensively with Middle Eastern musicians and consultants before writing music for “The Path to 9/11.”
“Cultural sensitivity was a huge factor, and I didn’t want to be good versus bad about the whole thing,” he said. “I tried to make the Middle Eastern music as beautiful as the Western music, because my attitude is that 9/11 was a universal tragedy, not just an American tragedy.”
While there have been many recent well-regarded soundtracks for films dealing with this topic — including those for “Munich” and “Syriana,” which Cameron praised for their beauty and detachment — scores occasionally fall back on cliche. According to A.J. Racy, a performer, composer and professor of ethnomusicology at the University of California at Los Angeles, who specializes in Middle Eastern music, that’s partly because of tradition and partly because of the nature of soundtracks, which need to convey messages that instantly translate.
“There was a process of translating Middle Eastern culture into a language we all understand in the Western world,” he said. “Things were domesticated into something useful for us, something user-friendly.”
Written in the U.S.
Many of the long-standing tunes and musical themes we consider Middle Eastern were written in the United States, according to Racy. The so-called “snake charmer” tune, prevalent in cartoons, was written by an American as a tribute to performers at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The influential soundtrack to “Lawrence of Arabia” evokes the Orient more than the actual music played by the Bedouin tribes from the region portrayed in the film. Racy, who has contributed performances for numerous soundtracks, including “Hidalgo” and “King Kong,” suggested that the continued use of these melodies isn’t malicious and mean-spirited as much as an established method of musical shorthand — a way for musicians to instantly convey the Middle East in music. While some of these methods are still used, Racy said that many contemporary composers have been very progressive and discovered the descriptive potential of Middle Eastern music, using it in a variety of contexts.
“The idea is evocation and sound,” he said. “In a way, it’s a very pragmatic medium. We just want something that talks to people and helps them imagine a certain situation.”
That obviously doesn’t always translate to audiences in the Middle East. Rami Ba’arah, a hip-hop producer originally from the West Bank city of Jenin who now lives in the United Arab Emirates, runs the site arabrappers.net. He feels that modern music from the Mideast doesn’t get much play outside the region.
“What makes me laugh is, most of the time when they try to refer to Arabic music, they use Indian or Pakistani songs,” he said. “Maybe it’s due to a lack of knowledge, but I rarely, almost never, hear popular Arabic music played in an English-language movie or television show.”
Azam Ali would agree with Racy that soundtrack music is pragmatic.
“I think ultimately it’s about entertainment,” she said, “but it comes at a huge price for Middle Eastern people.”
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