Hollywood’s normalisation of Muslim deaths

[N.O.R.F]

^Selective reading iga dhe

[NGONGE]

^^ Err..I only commented on the part you quoted, saaxib. In it, Laision officer talks about encourging firms to flatter the army. What's selective about that and where is the SMOKING GUN?

[N.O.R.F]

^Open the link.

[Maarodi]

NGONGE;321406 wrote:

^^ Hollywood makes movies. Their driving force is making profits. Movies that deal with contemporary issues will only make money if they appeal to moviegoers. Hollywood is not obliged to be fair or just. They only have to be entertaining and make movies that people WILL like. Sadly, Muslims being the bad guys is NOT a Hollywood invention.

Read this book: Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People or Watch the documentary

 

It doesn't take a genius to see the trend in Hollywood movies like N.O.R.F. pointed out :rolleyes:

[xabad]

Normalization of Muslim deaths or normalization of Arab deaths ?? The two are conflated in this post.

[Maarodi]

^ Majority of the Arabs depicted in the movies/shows are Muslim. They always seem to shout: "Allahu Akbar" with the oddest accents before they terrorize people.

[xabad]

.

[Maarodi]

Sorry for my earlier post, I didn't realize other people had already referred to the Sheehan book/documentary. But I knew before I'd seen them that Hollywood plays on generalizations and the latest entity we seem to be at "war" with. It's a historical trend that can't be denied. NGONGE go and do an academic search if you're so blind and insist on arguing the opposite.

 

I'll help out by pointing to a few articles

 

THROUGH A SCREEN DARKLY: HOLLYWOOD AS A MEASURE OF DISCRIMINATION AGAINST ARABS AND MUSLIMS.

 

Representations of Muslim Bodies in The Kingdom: Deconstructing Discourses in Hollywood

 

A Propaganda for Hollywood

 

Portrayal of Muslims in the media: “24” and the‘ Othering’ process

 

Demonizing Islam before and after 9/11

Anti-Islamic Spin: an Important Factor in Pro-War PR?

 

Through the Looking Glass: Muslim Women on Television—

An Analysis of 24, Lost, and Little Mosque on the Prairie

 

Here is a List of many academic works on the subject you should look up to help you.

 

All the folks who think this is Tin-foil stuff should also check out those links. I can't seem to understand why you would reach that conclusion though? Or is it easy for you all to just dismiss everything by saying its a "conspiracy"?

 

In any case, happy reading!

[Maarodi]

xabad;899329 wrote:

so what if they are Muslim. they are Arabs, and the pertinent issue here is anti-arabism.

[Maarodi]

5;684839 wrote:

Norf, what's your beef with Hollywood?

 

Of course there are still propaganda films being made, many studio execs have relatives in the White House or the US Senate, but Hollywood has changed so much over the decades it's incredibly difficult for even major stars to get their projects off the ground let alone politicians.

 

If anything Hollywood is liberal and certainly not pro-military,

unless you want to call Avatar (which became the highest grossing film ever [not inflation adjusted] and was produced by the big bad Fox), Hurt Locker, Brother, or any other modern film with military themes "pro-military".

CIA has been trashed in films numerous times

. It almost seems that the CIA guys are always the bad guys. I saw RED just recently and was positively shocked at the light they presented the CIA and the vice president of the USA.

 

PS. Regarding the article: GE sold NBCU to Comcast. I'm at work now but I'll definitely get back to this later.

Actually, the entertainment industry and the government are very much collaborating to create movies, shows, and songs.

 

There are a lot of pieces that investigate this relationship but I'll highlight the ones I find interesting.

 

Militainment, Inc.: War, Media, and Popular Culture (there's also a documentary/film by the same name on Youtube -- it's full length too)

 

The Pentagon’s strengthening grip on Hollywood

 

As for the CIA comment, instead of selectively looking at certain movies/shows, its best to look at the trend because having a 90 min look at a certain movie that depicts them in a "negative" light doesn't make up for the 100s of other movies in which they are depicted in a heroic manner (often doing illegal things by the way).

 

Here's an awesome lengthy article that talks about the show 24 and how it was practically based on CIA torture measures. It's a very good article and I urge you to read it and everybody else to read it.

 

Similarly, another article from the New Yorker examines the relationship between the government and Bigelow's new movie Zero Dark Thirty.

[N.O.R.F]

‘Zero Dark Thirty,’ Through a Theological Lens

 

By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN

 

Published: February 22, 2013

 

Almost nine years ago, journalists on “60 Minutes II” and at The New Yorker revealed a trove of photographs showing the abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison. The images of inmates variously stripped, hooded, leashed like a dog, piled into naked heaps and forced to simulate oral sex then spread widely, causing international outcry.

 

Even on the patriotic home front, the revulsion was widespread. President George W. Bush called the Abu Ghraib episode “abhorrent.” Senators across party lines, having been shown more than a thousand photos, described them as “appalling” and “horrific.”

 

At the 2013 Oscars on Sunday night, one of the nominees for best picture, indeed one of the most lauded films of the year, contains scenes of prisoner treatment that closely recreate the Abu Ghraib tactics. Yet in “Zero Dark Thirty” the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” including waterboarding, forms part of a heroic narrative, as a valiant C.I.A. officer tracks down Osama bin Laden.

 

There has been much debate about the film, primarily about its historical accuracy, but one might say not the right debate, not the deepest debate. Aside from a few Hollywood dissidents like Edward Asner, it has been left largely to theologians to call the film into question not on the pragmatic ground of its fealty to facts but on the moral ground of its message: that torture succeeds, and because it succeeds we should accept it.

 

“Our culture has almost lost the ability to have a genuinely moral conversation,” said Prof. David P. Gushee, 50, a Southern Baptist who directs the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University in Atlanta. “The utilitarian-type reasoning is the only vocabulary we have. The only way we can decide what to do is whether it works. That’s a terribly impoverished moral conversation. It leaves out the question of whether torture is intrinsically right or wrong.”

 

For the Rev. George Hunsinger, a Presbyterian minister who teaches at Princeton Theological Seminary, “Zero Dark Thirty” evoked the same kind of moral questions he associates with the American decision to drop atomic bombs on Japan. But the film has the added complication of being something that the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki never were: an instant box office product.

 

“What does it say about American culture that torture has become a form of entertainment for us?” asked Mr. Hunsinger, 67, who is involved with the National Religious Committee Against Torture. “Torture has been normalized since Sept. 11 in a way that’s unimaginable.”

 

That normalization can be measured in specific ways. Directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Mark Boal, “Zero Dark Thirty” has grossed $88 million at the box office and received the top prize from the New York Film Critics Circle. It will compete in five categories on Sunday’s Academy Awards, including best picture and best original screenplay.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/a-theological-view-of-zero-dark-thirty.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

 

Far from highlighting that sad truth, Zero Dark Thirty lionizes those who ordered and implemented torture. In this respect, the filmmakers are complicit in reinforcing the impunity shielding the culprits.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/01/20131191566253143.html

[Raamsade]

There is no doubt Hollywood demonizes dark-skinned folks (use to be Native Indians in the early 20th century) and normalization of violence and brutality against dark-skinned has a long, sordid history in Hollywood. Muslims, being largely of swarthy extraction, are getting their fair share. But why don't those rich Arab oil-states change the scene with their petrodollars? Why don't they invest in media and film production companies to change how Muslims are portrayed in the media?

[Maxaadeey]

Who cares?

[Maaddeey]

[NGONGE]

Heh@Norf..do you even read what you post?