Pul-leeze…

This caught my eye, from an item on the IMDB:

“Director Ridley Scott has been praised for challenging the post 9/11 demonization of the Muslim religion and warfare in his latest movie Kingdom Of Heaven.”

“Demonization“? Where? When? Following 9/11, there are still more many, many more movies and television episodes featuring militia guys/neo-nazis/etc. terrorists than Muslim ones. 24, a show about terrorism, finally features Muslim terrorists in its fourth season, and the producers constantly have to answer questions about how ‘controversial’ this is.

And even if the American entertainment media were regularly protraying Muslim terrorists, which it isn’t by a long shot, that still wouldn’t constitute “demonization of the Muslim religion”. Despite what some people on the coasts of this nation think, the mass of people in the flyover country aren’t a roiling blob of bigotry and hatred, and in fact can actually differentiate between Muslim terrorists and Islamofascists and regular Muslims. In fact, in case anyone hasn’t been paying attention, we’ve been fighting a couple of wars with the ultimate aim being to put political power in the hands of normal Muslims so as to defuse the power bases used by the Muslim terrorists, who have been killing those regular Muslims whenever they can.

Gakk. What a load of crap. In fact, the truth is most likely the exact opposite of what the quoted sentence implies, and be just another revisionist, politically correct anti-Western piece of agitprop. In fact, after writing that sentence, I read the rest of the article and behold: “…and is set to cast aside stereotypical views of Muslims and show the benefits of diplomacy over war in resolving Middle Eastern crises.”
Gee, I hope Scott isn’t ending his career with this ‘bold’ metaphorical critique of the Bush administration.

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Governor Breck

I think the “demonization” of Muslims has actually lessened since 911. Take the movie True Lies for example. Do you think that movie would get made today with it’s broad stereotypical Arab terrorists? I don’t think so.
Ken Begg

Exactly. Although even pre-9/11, Hollywood was scared off by the reaction to The Siege, a film who’s intent was to warn against of, again, regular-joe Amerikkkan overreaction to a Muslim terrorist event, and ironically was attacked by over-sensitive Muslim advocacy groups for portraying such a thing as Muslim terrorism in the first place.
Chris M

One of these days I’m going to have to make a film featuring a bold statement about the unfair demonization of Americans.
Terrahawk

The sad thing is that certain groups that cry about the stereotyping of Muslims have ties to terrorism.

The 80’s and early 90’s are filled with films where Arabs are the bad guys.

I’m waiting for the PBS documentary and Times and Newsweek articles about the “true” Mohammed……./chriping crickets/
Terrahawk

In fact, the truth is most likely the exact opposite of what the quoted sentence implies, and be just another revisionist, politically correct anti-Western piece of agitprop.

Which means it will die at the box office. I’m willing to watch a film that makes my religion look bad if it is honest and accurate. (Makes me wonder how the TNT special by Speilberg will be this summer). However, hit pieces that distort the truth aren’t worth my money.
twitt

The trouble is, Hollywood THINKS it knows history, comparative religions, etc. It THINKS that “diplomacy is better than war” is a brilliantly original, as well as unarguable, political statement.

Unfortunately, Hollywood doesn’t actually make much more sense than anyone else who chooses to get up on a soapbox and lecture the rest of the world. Plus, trying to tell your target audience that “you’re all evil, rotten people (or at least descended from them)” is not a great way to repeat business. (For example, see Hidalgo, which was not a bad little adventure flick, and would have done MUCH better at the box office without the “watch the eeeevil whites slaughter the natives” scene at the start.)
twitterpate

And why did “twitterpate” get turned into “twitt”? Subliminal? I think NOT!!!

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