It is only to be expected that the art a nation produces primarily engages with the issues that preoccupy that nation. Furthermore, in all likelihood, those texts that a nation produces will privilege the experiences of its own people, whether out of cultural relevance or economic necessity. It hardly needs to be said that for the most part the Italian film industry tends to make films about the Italians, the Japanese film industry about the Japanese and the American film industry about the Americans. However, the way that these texts articulate both the experiences of their own people and the people of other nationalities is of central importance to understanding the culture in which they are made. The following chapter explores the representation of identity and vulnerability in American film of the post-9/ 11 era. By looking at American cinema of this decade one is able to discern the presence of patterns in dominant cultural representation practices. Throughout its history American cinema has rarely offered sympathetic images of the Other, those figures who do not correspond to what a society defines as its ‘norm’ whether in terms of race, nationality, gender or sexuality.