On stereotyping...once I get there

I just did something I completely don't have time to do, but I was so bored...I watched a movie. Not Without My Daughter, with Sally Field and Alfred Molina, about an Iranian-American who begs his wife to accompany him, with their daughter, on a visit to his family in Iran. He tricks her, forcing them to stay and live there and becoming violent and abusive. Because of the government's oppressive restrictions on women's rights, she cannot legally escape and must find her way through an underground of sorts (after being trapped for over a year) in order to leave the country with her daughter.

The funny thing is that the cast and crew are -- no kidding -- more than 50% Israeli. I guess they were filming in the Middle East, so it might make sense (the percentage is slightly smaller if you include the second crew in Atlanta -- go figure!)...but there are hardly any Arabic names in the credits. Makes you think...

Oh, and I got even more sidetracked looking at the postings of people commenting on the movie on IMDB. First, I have to say it really amazes me how many people simply cannot speak English. (Disclaimer: I don't mean foreigners; I mean people who show where they're from pretty obviously by what they say, but can't manage to say it in anything resembling a real language.) It's also amazing how mixed-up people's thinking can be. There are some who are so busy defending Persian and Iranian people against the movie's "racist" attack that they fail to notice that the only generalization portrayed is of the Muslim attitude towards women. Yes, it's a dramatization of a true story, so yes, there will be stereotypes that are played upon to make a point and to add to the drama. That's true about most occurrences that are depicted within the framework of entertainment. The movie does not, however, cast blame on the general population of the country, but rather on the extremist religious political policy that validated and reinforced Moody's treatment of his wife.

Of course, all this pushes an examination on the definition of stereotyping. If something is portrayed that is stereotypical, it's not necessarily inaccurate. It may be, if the stereotype was initially invented as a form of hate propaganda. But if the stereotype developed because a certain behavior is regularly observed among certain categories of people, then where is the line between acceptable and inappropriate in the context of portraying that characteristic fictionally? How much credit should artists and entertainers give their audiences on the ability to recognize exaggeration when they see it? Or, for that matter, who's going to remind the general public that when they see a person behave a certain way in real life, his/her actions should only reflect on him or her, not on the entirety of his/her race or nation or gender or religious group or political party or sexual affiliation, etc??