Coming to a movie theatre near you: Dubai destroyed, again
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — As a mammoth wave from the Persian Gulf rises up to drown fleeing beachgoers and wash over downtown Dubai and the world’s tallest building, you can be forgiven for thinking you’ve seen this all before.
The coming film “Geostorm” marks just the latest movie in which Western filmmakers put the commercial capital of the United Arab Emirates in their crosshairs.
The UAE offers an attractive, tax-free shooting environment and Dubai’s futuristic, skyscraper-studded skyline as a backdrop. But amid all the computer-generated destruction, viewers are offered only rare glimpses of Emiratis, and learn little about the country or the surrounding region.
“It’s just kind of like this futuristic city that exists only to be destroyed in a very dramatic way,” said Dale Hudson, an associate professor of film and new media at NYU Abu Dhabi. “For audiences in the U.S. used to Hollywood, it’s just another city… It’s not the Middle East, where they assume it’s going to be religious conflict or oppression of women or all the different stereotypes they have. It just kind of normalizes it.”