6 - Decodings by Arab/Palestinian Israelis-in-the-Making

Summary

This chapter looks at the interpretations of the series by the Arab/Palestinian Israeli state minority audience in Uhm Al-Fahm. Half decoded “Jews”; one-third decoded Palestinians. All concluded there were “Arab” characters in Sesame Street, meaning Arab/Palestinian Israelis. Drawing on assumptions about language, physical features, or attire of characters, they typically converted Jewish Israeli characters into “Arabs,” moving them from the national to the civic axis, still Israeli but specifically Arab/Palestinian Israelis like themselves. Palestinian characters moved from the civic to the national on the continuum, and were interpreted as just “Arabs.” A majority held negative to very negative attitudes about Jewish Israelis, and very positive to very negative attitudes about Palestinians, their other shared other. In some cases they negatively stereotyped the former as “police” and the latter as “dirty, primitive or poor.” Optimistically for peace-building, most nonetheless adopted positive attitudes toward all the characters they had “correctly” decoded as pro-social and nice, and were able to generalize those mediated experiences to the other characters on screen and to the real world. This suggests there is some room for Sesame Street to influence the Arab/Palestinian Israeli audience’s inter-grouping attitudes towards these shared others.