Sonic Orientalism in the Dune Film Scores: Challenging Harmful Depictions of SWANA Culture
Amy Maatouk
University of California, Riverside
Deep in the burning hot desert, you hear the sounds of the sultry oud that complement the echoes of voices singing in Arabic ringing in your ears. You are transported into an otherworldly place. The ethereal ambiance connects you with the vibrant colors and the intoxicating smells of this “mysterious” land. This soundscape is used in many U.S. films, such as Dune, Dune: Part Two, Gladiator, and Aladdin, to represent SWANA (Southwest Asian and North African)[1] regions. However, as a Syrian refugee myself, I rarely see these soundscapes reflect any particular SWANA culture with care, respect, and awareness. In this paper, I explore how such usage of sounds within Hollywood and anglophone cinema, which I call sonic orientalism, perpetuates harmful stereotypes of SWANA culture. Instead, I argue for the need for more culturally grounded alternatives to foster better representation of the SWANA community within the U.S.
Such sonic representation draws heavily from what Edward Said (1978) coined as “orientalism” to describe the West’s stylized and stereotypical portrayal of the East. Sonic Orientalism turns diverse musical expressions of entire SWANA regions into a vague, exotic backdrop, flattening cultural distinctions. The rise of sonic Orientalism can be dated back to the 18th century, according to Ralph P. Locke (2009). During this period, a fascination with Eastern cultures led Western composers to incorporate “oriental” elements such as using Maqam scales (like Hijaz Maqam), rhythmic patterns like malfuf, and traditional instruments like the darbuka and oud into their music. The “Exotic Style Only Paradigm” refers to music that has recognizable musical elements that evoke a sense of an “alien” culture and are borrowed from existing foreign cultures. This paradigm allows Western composers to selectively borrow from various musical cultures without representing them faithfully or acknowledging their origins. This is described as musical exoticism, where Eastern music is exoticized to a degree that the audience forgets the humans behind such music, as the composer vaguely aims for a “foreign” or “strange” sound (Locke 2007, 478).
The problem that arises with sonic Orientalism is that it reduces entire cultures to a handful of musical tropes and perpetuates a harmful cycle of stereotyping and erasure. When audiences hear certain sounds repeatedly associated with mystery, violence, or sensualism, they begin to associate the actual cultures behind the sounds with those same reductive narratives. Sonic Orientalism, therefore, becomes a form of cultural control. Such stereotypes are used as justification for oppression and discrimination, as well as the erasure of culture by homogenizing them with other sounds instead of highlighting their authenticity.
Hans Zimmer’s film scores for Dune (2021) and Dune: Part 2 (2024) are prominent examples of sonic orientalism. In these films, we hear the use of traditional SWANA instruments such as the oud, tabla, and SWANA-influenced ululations paired with non-traditional sounds such as electronic pads and newly invented woodwind instruments processed through layers of effects. In a 2022 interview with Vanity Fair, Zimmer describes his goal for the soundtrack: to “invent sounds that don’t exist. To invent instruments that don’t exist.” However, many of the sounds included in fact do originate from “real” instruments that exist within particular human musical traditions The use of these sounds in the film exoticizes and homogenizes different SWANA cultures, often mixing them with sounds originating from non-SWANA cultures. The ultimate effect of the film is the erasure of real musical traditions which these ostensibly “imaginary” sounds reference. As Durrani (2023, 81) suggests, the Dune movies highlight, “...What I call the ‘failure of post-9/11 science fiction,’ which is that Islam and Muslims become this sort of abstract, in this case, almost unnamed entity. For example, commentators call the music and singing in the film Arabic ululation, but it’s not.” The creators of Dune, avoid accountability for misrepresenting a people or their culture by claiming that the world of the film is entirely fictional.
Film reviews often reinforce this erasure. A New York Times article praises Zimmer’s work on the film, noting that:
The score combines the gigantic, chest-thumping sound of Zimmer’s best-known work of the last decade with the spirit of radical sonic experimentation. The weirdness is entirely befitting the saga of a futuristic, intergalactic civilization whose denizens are stalked by giant sandworms and revere a hallucinogenic substance called spice (King 2021).
The article goes on to praise Zimmer’s mixing of instruments in the score, highlighting the presence of bamboo flutes, Irish whistles, distorted guitar, and the cello alongside the oud, tabla, and ululations. By mixing different sounds from all across the SWANA region and throwing in non-SWANA elements, Zimmer homogenizes the sound to something that is appealing to an American audience but is not indicative of where such sound can be credited to.
Sonic Orientalism contributes to the oppression of SWANA people. Orientalist music has become another avenue for cultural imperialism as it exoticizes Eastern musical traditions (Bellman 2011, 411). When the culture is often represented in a brutal and dehumanizing way, it perpetuates negative stereotypes that are often brought up later when discussing wars and humanitarian crimes against Arab, Muslim, and other SWANA populations. It furthermore erases a history of culture as immigration and deaths occur after ongoing conflicts and genocides in the region, leaving few individuals to pass on musical traditions. As Edward Said notes, “[m]arginalization in American culture means a kind of unimposing provinciality…it means association with what are considered euphemistically as ‘alternative’ modes, alternative states, peoples, cultures…which may later become central or at least fashionable” (Said 1993, 324). Following Said, it is only when a culture is confronted with it’s relationship with the United States that it becomes important to discuss. The culture itself is rather made unimportant then if it is not spoken about in regards to how it affects or is perceived by developed/industrialized countries. When this is the only way we see these cultures represented, it is no wonder the representation is often poor and inaccurate.
Why do movies and music push for a rather vague and mysterious representation of the SWANA region? It can be argued that there is an intentional purpose in avoiding directly mentioning a specific cultural influence. Vagueness requires less effort from the composers and filmmakers as, “There are also certain advantages in the use of fuzzy concepts and vague boundaries, because they extend the range of options open to a speaker, offering a chance to express many grades of truth and many different attitudes towards propositions without the speaker having to be pinned down to just one position” (Mcgee 2018, 44). The intentional use of vagueness allows space for multiple interpretations and room to change the narrative behind the movie and soundtrack to market the film to a bigger audience. An underrepresented group in media will often be happy to see even a hint of SWANA influence, and audiences (who might even hold anti-Arab or Islamophobic beliefs) are pleased with the aesthetics without having to be too closely engaged with the culture or politics.
Sonic vagueness, however, leaves wasted potential in creating media that pushes the typical Orientalist narrative into something more meaningful. Currently, there are ongoing conflicts, genocides, wars, and more going on in the SWANA region. Using vagueness as a political and social weapon to avoid criticism and research, especially in blockbuster movies, has a greater impact than people might initially assume. It breeds cultural insensitivity and can be used to draw attention away from political and humanitarian issues in the SWANA region. In both 2021 and 2024, when each respective installment of the Dune movie franchise was released, significant conflict escalations occurred within Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Iran, Yemen, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Amidst ongoing wars, genocides, and violence, the cultural insensitivity and diversion from the plight of real people with real musical traditions, while perhaps unintentional, creates a pressing problem. By not representing a specific country and not claiming a particular region, composers and filmmakers can avoid the complex political issues and identities that lie within these places.
Zimmer’s problematic approach to soundtracks is not limited to the Dune movie franchise. Even in the movie Gladiator (2000), where there is a scene set in Morocco, the movie soundtrack does a poor job of accurately representing Moroccan music. Zimmer’s soundtrack once again depicts SWANA culture as homogenous and static. In the scene, you can hear the duduk in the background. This is an Armenian instrument, which has no relation to Moroccan culture. It would be as if someone were to play the bagpipes during a scene set in Italy. Farya Faraji, an Iranian composer and musician, points out this discrepancy by saying, “...if Western audiences knew just as much about Morocco and Armenia as they did Scotland, Hans Zimmer would not be able to get away with this” (Faraji 2024). Instead, Hans Zimmer could have shed light on lesser-known Moroccan instruments such as the sintir, the rabab, and the bendirs. Moroccan culture is rarely represented to Hollywood audiences except as decontexualized fragments. As can be seen with the history of Orientalism, the aesthetic of the culture to a Western audience is contingent on vagueness and rather on an “aura” of what the region feels and sounds like in the public imagination.
Such dehumanization can be seen even in media made for children. One of the most notable examples of Orientalism in movies and soundtracks is the 1992 movie Aladdin. While many praised the film for representing the SWANA region, it is still far from perfect when highlighting different cultures in a positive, non-hegemonic way. The following lyrics demonstrate this in the music and film: “Oh, I come from a land, from a faraway place / Where the caravan camels roam / Where they cut off your ear / If they don’t like your face / It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home” (Ashman 1992). These lyrics clearly paint an image of a very stereotypical view of Middle Eastern culture. It dehumanizes Arabs, SWANA people, and Muslims by making them out to be barbaric and using familiar tropes like riding camels as symbols of an ostensibly “primitive” culture. These stereotypes are harmful as they “otherize” the community and make them appear less-than to the anglophone audience. The whole movie and the illusions in the soundtrack take place in the made-up country of Agrabah, inspired by the SWANA region, which once again shows the desire to keep the region as a fantastical idea rather than an actual culture.
How can composers achieve better representation in movie scores, to better balance creative expression and cultural awareness? Syrian immigrant and film composer Alexander Maloof is a great example of how to represent SWANA culture for Western audiences from a deep understanding of the region’s musical history. Maloof wrote music for silent films for Columbia and Broadway in the late 1910s and early 1920s. In his music, he expresses a sense of solidarity, activism, and pride in his identity. This representation is an essential step toward liberation and breaking down the lens of Orientalism. Not only does he make intricate and brilliant orchestral music that displays Syrian and Arab culture, he also speaks about the emotional state of the immigration populations (Bothwell 2020, 411). Maloof’s music challenges that of the orientalist music done by the West, as it provides a quality of authenticity and culture that cannot be compared with that of a hegemonic “mysterious” music that lacks both. This provides grounds for him to discuss the political and social climate of the SWANA region and the struggle for immigration to the West. He does a brilliant job of providing a narrative through his music that pushes for the cultural preservation of many typically lost musical elements. If Zimmer were to work with multiple SWANA composers, they might be able to provide input on how to represent their historical music authentically in films. Thus, creating music to accurately and proudly display a culture and its history is essential.
In conclusion, Orientalism is a critical issue to discuss in the music space as it dehumanizes SWANA peoples and minimizes their cultures. When the music space lacks SWANA, Arab, and Muslim representation, it breeds ground for inaccurate portrayals of the East. It also perpetuates harmful stereotypes that are used for an ongoing quest of cultural imperialism. Therefore, a heterogeneous and accurate representation of the Eastern identity is vital to fighting against these issues and positively highlighting SWANA cultures. Understanding Orientalism as a lens through which the world sees the SWANA region is an essential step towards media literacy that allows us not to fall into the trap of Western colonialist attitudes towards the East. Although Orientalism is an issue we see in so many fields, the rise of the internet, where people can easily see and hear authentic music, and increasing attention by ethnomusicologists on traditional music forms, has allowed for an environment that actively displays the culture’s beauty. This beauty is conveyed not through an idealized imagery of a hot sunny desert and vague music, but through authentic and meaningful language, lyrics, and melodies.
NOTES
[1] SWANA stands for South West Asian and North African. It iss a geographic, political, decolonized term used instead of Middle Eastern to more accurately describe the people and the region.
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