Siege, The

The Siege (1998) is a 20th Century Fox controversial thriller that investigates a growing sense of terror in New York City invoked by a multilayered terrorist cell comprising a number of Arabs, Muslims, and Arab/Muslim Americans. The film carries relevance to today's America through its engagement with issues like homegrown terrorism, U.S. government antiterror measures, U.S. foreign policy, and American multiculturalism, issues that have increasingly dominated the American sociopolitical spectrum ever since the tragic attacks of September 11, 2001.

The film is directed by Edward Zwick and written by Lawrence Wright. The screenplay is cowritten by Lawrence Wright, Menno Meyjes, and Edward Zwick. The plot presents a passionate and dedicated Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, Anthony Hubbard (Denzel Washington), wrestling with a maneuvering Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent, Sharon Bridger (Annette Bening), and a conceited military officer, Major General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis). Regardless of their different approaches in how to fight homegrown terrorism, the three figures—representing three various aspects of the U.S. government—are engaged in finding ways to eradicate such terror and restore peace and security to the United States.

The film calls into question whether associating homegrown terror with Arabs, Muslims, and Arab/Muslim Americans is a post–9/11 Hollywood practice. Since the 1970s, films like Black Sunday (1977), Wrong Is Right (1982), Invasion U.S.A. (1985), Wanted: Dead or Alive (1987), True Lies (1994), and Executive Decision (1996) have proposed a certain set of stereotypes that The Siege seems to replicate. Homegrown terrorism, the film suggests, is a phenomenon exclusively advanced through Arabs and Muslims living in the United States, who seek to secure their demands through targeting crowds of civilian Americans in public buses, movie theaters, elementary schools, and multicultural gatherings. The Arabic and Islamic identities are conflated to reinforce each other. Islamic signs and practices such as ablution, praying, wearing traditional clothing, and growing a beard are packaged as signs of extremism. The terrorists’ cultural and religious affiliations are projected as significant marks of identity inherently opposed to America's cultural norms.