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Tinseltown's Timidity on Terrorism
Page forward to page 16 at link - DC Examiner (.pdf)Howâs this for a plot? Thereâs this international conspiracy to acquire nuclear weapons and kill millions of Americans. The conspirators act with the aid of various governments, some of which pretend to be our friends. Some of these governments are ruled by medieval tyrants who keep many wives, rule by fiat and crush, behead, hang and otherwise mutilate dissidents, freethinkers, Christians and other inconvenient souls. Other governments are ruled by fascist dictators who invade their neighbors, subvert democracy, fund terrorists, collude with Western powers in criminal schemes, illegally smuggle nuclear materials, jail, starve and kill children while living high on the hog. All the while, these conspirators commit countless grievous acts of cruelty and barbarism. Though they may be savages, theyâre not mindless ones. They hatch brilliantly audacious schemes to bring down skyscrapers with hijacked planes. They attack naval ships with speedboats. They manipulate the Internet, the press and Western governments. Call me crazy, but somewhere in there I think thereâs enough material for Hollywood to make a pretty good movie. Apparently Iâm missing something. Consider, for example, âThe Constant Gardener.â Now, I havenât seen it yet, so Iâm not offering a review of the movie. Besides, from what I hear itâs a pretty good flick based on a novel by John Le Carré. The plot involves an elaborate conspiracy of Western governments and pharmaceutical companies who assassinate anyone who tries to uncover their fiendish plot to experiment on poor Africans for the benefit of rich Westerners. A trailer for the film declares that pharmaceutical companies are no better than arms dealers, preying on African poverty. The filmâs director told National Public Radio that the drug companies are the âperfect bad guys.â Now, whatever the mistakes of pharmaceutical companies, I think itâs fair to say, without much fear of contradictions, âAre you on crack!?â I understand the war on terror is a controversial subject. I know there are sensitivities involved insofar as the terrorists claim to speak for Islam and therefore some care is necessary when dealing with the nature of the threat. But come on. The last major Hollywood film that dealt with a terrorist threat was âThe Sum of All Fears,â the 2002 film that started Ben Affleckâs career on a downward glidepath to the center square on âHollywood Squares.â In the book, the bad guys were Islamic fundamentalists. But in large part thanks to a campaign from the Council on America-Islam Relations, the movie villains changed to a secret cabal of ultra-sophisticated, super-wealthy neo-Nazis. Whereas in real life, most neo-Nazis smash cans of beer against their heads while dancing in the woods, in Hollywoodâs vision they wear perfectly tailored suits and plot world domination from the highest corridors of power. Capitulating to CAIRâs campaign, the director of the film wrote to the organization, âI hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination.â No doubt CAIR is working tirelessly to receive similar letters from Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaida and other groups dedicated to promoting negative images of Muslims and Arabs by actually killing people, not merely pretending to on the big screen. The weirdest irony is that in the 1990s, before the war on terror, there were several depictions of Arab and Muslim terrorism on the big screen. The only realistic depiction of suicide-bombing I can recall was in the 1996 film, âExecutive Decision.â Other â90s films which apparently couldnât get made today include âThe Siege,â âThe Peacemakerâ and âTrue Lies.â Political correctness about ethnic sensitivities only explains part of Hollywoodâs silence. Other ideological factors no doubt play a role, too. The notion that big corporations â even those committed to curing disease, prolonging lives and male pattern baldness â are the root of evil has a pedigree which predates the current obsession with identity politics. The post-Vietnam conviction of the Oliver Stone crowd that America is most often the problem, not the solution, probably explains some of it, too. There are practical explanations, too. A realistic, pro-American flick on the war on terror is a risky proposition for studios that make much of their money from foreign markets. One of the downsides of globalization is that pro-American movies donât sell well when much of the global movie audience doesnât like America. But none of this excuses that Hollywoodâs silence is deafening. Itâs hard not to think the entertainment industry really just doesnât think the war on terror isnât that big a deal, at least not compared to the war on drug companies. And of course, AQ would never attack Hollywood, since a.) so few Americans would care, and b.) it'd be cutting off their nose to spite their face. Hey! Maybe that's the plot! Terrorists attack Hollywood! Examiner columnist Jonah Goldberg is editor at large at the National Review Online and a syndicated columnist. Posted by: Bobby 2005-08-31 |
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