I stopped watching Marvel shit, so I'll give an example from an earlier film - Iron Man. The Ten Rings militants/terrorists/army/whatever is not even real. But they're shown separating families/murdering civilians, made to look as realistic as possible with a TV announcer doing a story on it. The result is a narrative that this is the sort of thing that Afghans do - they're either abusing people or getting abused. And the sort of thing Americans do in response is journalists lamenting it, the military complaining they "never got the green light to go in", and Iron Man saving everyone just because he's such a nice guy.
Gal Gadot saving Egyptian kids reinforces the same narrative - English-speaking Western-culture superheroes save the children of the world (and all inferior people are children to their benevolent Western benefactors). That's the relationship between Arabs and the West - benevolent rescue.
I don’t think Gal Gadot’s IDF service is top-of-mind for most viewers, if they’re even aware of it.
You're right. But if you like the movie and then look up the actress and BAM she's Israeli, your mind now extends the association - Israelis, they're Westerners just like us. They like hamburgers and they're funny and cute and they rescue Arabs on the side. They're "THE GOOD GUYS". If you hear some crazy radical or Middle Eastern politician then point out Israeli crimes, you'll think, "Nah... If anything bad happened, it was an accident. The good guys mean well."
Whether "missile flying at 4 kids playing soccer" was intentional or not doesn't matter. The fact that the reality is Israelis kill Arab kids and the media tells you Israelis rescue Arab kids is quite enough.
I stopped watching Marvel shit, so I'll give an example from an earlier film - Iron Man. The Ten Rings militants/terrorists/army/whatever is not even real. But they're shown separating families/murdering civilians, made to look as realistic as possible with a TV announcer doing a story on it. The result is a narrative that this is the sort of thing that Afghans do - they're either abusing people or getting abused. And the sort of thing Americans do in response is journalists lamenting it, the military complaining they "never got the green light to go in", and Iron Man saving everyone just because he's such a nice guy.
Gal Gadot saving Egyptian kids reinforces the same narrative - English-speaking Western-culture superheroes save the children of the world (and all inferior people are children to their benevolent Western benefactors). That's the relationship between Arabs and the West - benevolent rescue.
You're right. But if you like the movie and then look up the actress and BAM she's Israeli, your mind now extends the association - Israelis, they're Westerners just like us. They like hamburgers and they're funny and cute and they rescue Arabs on the side. They're "THE GOOD GUYS". If you hear some crazy radical or Middle Eastern politician then point out Israeli crimes, you'll think, "Nah... If anything bad happened, it was an accident. The good guys mean well."
Whether "missile flying at 4 kids playing soccer" was intentional or not doesn't matter. The fact that the reality is Israelis kill Arab kids and the media tells you Israelis rescue Arab kids is quite enough.