The framing of the Orient as a wild and uncontrolled environment helped to explain why the Oriental was viewed as "irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, 'different' "—the opposite of the European, the American, the Christian. In literature, art, and cinema, such characterizations are seen in the Muslim despot (who cannot help but be violent because he is a product of his environment and religion, both unrestrained and violent) and the Oriental landscapes found in Gothic horror, which feature blood-streaked skies and medievalesque subterranean chasms that swallow the innocent victims of Muslim monsters.

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 385