Stereotypes of West and Central Asians
Stereotypes of Central and Western Asians are oversimplified generalisations against people from or with ancestry in Central Asia (including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, etc.) and Western Asia (including Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, etc.).
Common stereotypes have become more prevalent, especially after 9/11. There have been hate crimes against people of Western Asian origin, who are mostly Muslims.1 Many people who have Muslim names have also been detained at certain airports.2
Central Asia especially the Former Soviet-bloc, is often seen as a backwards region, where everyone lives on subsistence farming, and everyone has strange customs. Recently, Sacha Baron Cohen's character Borat Sagdiyev, a fictional reporter from Kazakhstan, has created controversy by taking advantage of Western audiences' lack of knowledge of Kazakhstan by creating false facts AbOUT Kazakhstan, that are often dubious in nature ("Throw The Jew Down The Well" being Kazakhstan's national folk song, and him being "Kazakhstan's sixth most popular journalist", for example.) Kazakhstan retaliated against Borat by removing his .Kz Website from the internet.3
Arabs
In his essay "Arabs in Hollywood: An Undeserved Image", Scott J. Simon argues that of all the ethnic groups portrayed in Hollywood films, "Arab culture has been the most misunderstood and supplied with the worst stereotypes".
The American media stereotypes Arab Americans and Muslims as billionaires, belly dancers, bombers, and terrorists with little regard for human life, especially in the post-9/11 world. Many movies feature Arab [...] villains threatening to blow things up, including Black Sunday and Wanted: Dead or Alive. The stereotypical appearance of such Arabs includes beards and keffiyehs. The stereotype of the Arab billionaire may have its roots in the 1973 oil crisis. Arab women are usually portrayed as exotic belly dancers who are MUTE, subservient, and repressed. A number of American movies picture the U.S. military [...] Arabs, such as Rules of Engagement, Iron Eagle, and Executive Decision.
The equation of "Arab" and/or "Muslim" with "[...]" is firmly embedded in Western media, in defiance of the "political correctness" that is frequently alleged by conservatives to permeate what they characterize as the "liberal" and "multicultural" editorial positions of the media.
Jews
Jews are often portrayed as stingy, bickering humorists, over-intellectuals who share exclusive social codes. They also are known to avoid manual labor and deal with large amounts of money and also are very cheap. They are often portrayed as nebbish and often dealing with mother issues; Woody Allen is an example of the Jewish neurotic. More often than not they speak with New York accents even if they do not live there.
Kazakhs
Kazakhstan, once a GeneRally unknown country in the West, has come under recent stereotyping, most notably due to the prominent British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen's Da Ali G Show character Borat. Borat is shown to be a crude, backward, misogynist racial Third-Worlder that hates Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals. Borat is often portrayed to be speaking Kazakh, while in reality, he is often speaking Hebrew or Polish. The Kazakhstan government has done everything it could to disassociate itself from Borat, even deleting his .Kz page.4
Mongols
Mongols are often portrayed as violent, barbarian nomads living in yurts and living off of their plunder and spoils of war (like in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle for example).
Persians
Hollywood movies such as Not Without My Daughter, Alexander, and 300 have been accused of portraying Persians in a negative fashion. Roger Ebert wrote: "Not Without My Daughter does not play fair with its Muslim characters. If a movie of such a vitriolic and spiteful nature were to be made in America about any other ethnic group, it would be denounced as racist and prejudiced."
The film Alexander was accused of negative and inaccurate portrayal of ancient Persians. Reviewers of the film 300 "noted the political overtones of the West-against-Iran story line -- and the way Persians are depicted as decadent, sexually flamboyant and evil in contrast to the noble Greeks."
Turks
Turks are often portrayed in media, such as the movie Midnight Express as violent and oppressive nationalists that hate and discriminate against Kurds, Armenians, and Greeks. This may have to do with Turkey's dismal human rights record.5 Many Kurds are calling for the creation of an independent Kurdistan and Armenians are now calling for reparations6.
Turkish people are usually portrayed as intelligent gunmen who have underground terror or mafia function. Keyser Soze from Usual Suspects and Habib Marwan from 24 are among popular Turkish people following this American stereotype of Turkish people. Mehmet Oz who had a TV show on the Discovery Channel broke this stereotype with his doctor uniform.