The impact of American cinema on culture and creation of world view among society about Muslims: a sociological analysis of Hollywood movies (2012–2024)

ABSTRACT The majority of countries in the globe have huge audiences for Hollywood films, and people in these nations look to these blockbusters for amusement. Hollywood film stills have the capacity and influence to elicit ideas, perspectives, and judgments from viewers about various social, political, or ideological matters. Islam, the second most popular religion in the world, and Muslims, who number over 1.5 billion, have frequently been the target of mockery and misrepresentation in the film industry. The goal of the current study was to investigate how different Muslim populations are portrayed in Hollywood films. For this study, a quantitative content analysis research approach was employed. Hollywood films from 2012 to 2024 were chosen for examination using the purposive sample approach. In the films released in 2012–2024, public figures, government employes, and law enforcement organizations were all portrayed negatively. With a few exceptions, the pattern of how Islamic nations were portrayed in Hollywood productions was discovered to be very consistent. From the South Asian nation of Pakistan, African state of Libya, Beirut state of Middle East, and Bangladesh etc, practically every Islamic nation had about the same representation; the only one with a positive representation was Turkey. The findings showed that all Muslim demographics were portrayed as anti-Western. The films also presented a bad image of each of the five Islamic nations. The findings also showed that individuals in Islamic countries were characterized as being less civilized than those in other countries and that life in these nations was obviously problematic rather than tranquil.