Hollywood’s normalisation of Muslim deaths

[Sherban Shabeel]

I don't think they do it on purpose. They do it out of ignorance.

[N.O.R.F]

Originally posted by NGONGE:

^^ 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.

 

You are trying to present some sinister conspiracy theory to portray Hollywood as some sort of tool to continue the suppression of Muslims. That’s fair and ok in Ibti’s girly chats but if you bring it here for discussion, of course I will ask you for proof. Waxa la yedhi wont cut it, saaxib.

I agree with most of your first paragraph. However, I didn’t say it was a Hollywood invention. I said Hollywood is ‘contributing’ to the negative view of Muslims (perpetuated mainly through the media over the years) through it’s movies and is implying that the death of Muslims (civilians or not) and the destruction of property is, in today’s climate, perfectly normal. I believe such a portrayal is designed to negatively influence the mindset of moviegoers/watchers towards the value of a Muslim’s life.

 

In addition, I highlighted the lack of coverage given to US/Nato strikes on Muslim lands compared to a few years ago and the resultant ‘normality’ this has created. Hearing of such news today is not unusual and seeing the 10 second slot given to it by various media outlets indicates that, in their opinion, the value of a Muslim’s life has decreased over the years.

 

Now, with regard to your request for proof, what kind of proof are you looking for? What would get you to agree with the above? An article? An essay? A movie perhaps?

[Ibtisam]

Ngonge you are going in circles.

[Urban]

Tell people lies long enough, and they'll believe it eventually. To think that hollywood is mativated purely by profits is a terrible underestimation of the influence of 'Zionists'..

Norf I agree with you completely, and you're not the only one who thinks this way.

 

I'll post something later inshallah.

[Chimera]

Muslims have normalised the 'death of muslims', in our case the civil war is a good example. 5 trillion dollars is circulating in the Islamic world but nobody can produce a alternative to Hollywood? One determined man with a tight budget made a epic movie know as the ''Message'' that continues to inspire people (both muslim and non-muslim) why not follow up on that? The Indians tired of the ''thank you come again'' rubbish did it and their movies are sweeping the globe, a muslim version of this phenomena would be ideal and logical if 'muslims were really concerned with their image and the consequences of bad cinema.

[N.O.R.F]

october 7, 2010

 

HOLLYWOOD - WEAPONISED DREAM FACTORYAN INTERVIEW WITH MATTHEW ALFORD, AUTHOR OF REEL POWER

 

Where They Have Holes In Their Souls

We bask in a certain reflected glory from the newspapers we read. To “take” The Times is to be far more intellectual, far more highbrow, than someone who takes the Mail. To read the Mail is to be far more responsible than someone who gawks in the Mirror. A Guardian reader is highbrow with a human face: intellectual, aware, like other “broadsheet” readers, but with a much greater commitment to making the world a better, fairer place. Independent readers share the same commitment, perhaps a little less earnestly.

 

Because we locate some of our identity in what we read - some sense of who we are as intelligent, caring people - we may react with rage when the newspapers we take are criticised. To suggest that “my” newspaper is biased and superficial can seem to imply the same of “me” and “my” beliefs about the world.

 

A similar glow of pride reflects on us from cinema screens. How we love to declare our appreciation for the latest thoughtful, sensitive, challenging movie. Again, we may reinforce a sense of ourselves as smart and caring from the films we watch. Of course we don’t like the gung-ho rubbish, but we do believe there is a certain satisfying stream of liberal, even leftist, movies challenging power: think George Clooney, Oliver Stone, Tim Robbins and a few others. Matthew Alford, author of 'Reel Power: Hollywood Cinema and American Supremacy’ (Pluto Books, 2010) does not agree.

 

In his book, Alford sets the charges for a controlled demolition of the myth that there is any kind of serious challenge to US foreign policy coming out of Hollywood. By the end of the book, not just Stallone, not just Schwarzenegger and Willis, but the entire edifice of liberal credibility has collapsed into its own footprint. Alford writes:

 

“One of the recurrent themes of the body of films in Reel Power is that even many of the most politically sophisticated of them assume the essential benevolence of US foreign policy, even when they express tactical concerns over using force. To suggest that foreign policy is the result of deeper, more unseemly economic and political interests is virtually unsayable.”

 

Over the last couple of weeks we have been e-chatting with Alford about his book.

 

David Edwards (DE): Life was awful in the old days - cinema-goers were subjected to propaganda masquerading as entertainment. We all know how German filmmakers boosted Hitler’s fortunes in the 1930s and 1940s. And between 1948 and 1954, Hollywood made more than forty anti-communist films with titles like I Married A Communist and I Was A Communist For The FBI. Happily, today, we can all go to the cinema relaxed in the knowledge that we are watching completely open, independent, uncompromised versions of the world. We’re not propagandised to believe anything in particular - it‘s just entertainment. That’s right, isn’t it?

 

Matthew Alford (MA): It’s curious that we can easily accept there was propaganda in the distant past, under dictatorships and during former wars, but we shy away from the idea that there are parallels with our own modern societies. Still, these days - and especially prevalent since the 1980s - there is a sizable body of national security cinema that glorifies US power systems and the use of extreme force against official enemies across the world. Imbued with a blinkered sense of fear and American victim-hood, products like Rules of Engagement, Amerika, and 24 are frequently not ‘just’, even if they are, ‘entertainment’. More liberal products like Hotel Rwanda, Charlie Wilson's War and Munich are more subtle but at least as dangerous, as the book details.

 

DE: So why, in our time, +do+ the big corporate studios consistently make films that glorify the US war machine? Many people may find this counter-intuitive, thinking, ‘Well, a movie studio just wants to make movies that are popular with huge numbers of people - they couldn’t care less about the politics of the message’. Can you succinctly spell out for our readers why a US corporate movie system would produce such a biased, pro-military result?

 

MA: Corporate Hollywood has no imperative to tell the truth or act responsibly, except to the extent audiences can compel it to do so. The six major studios that control the industry "breeds a kind of person who is invested completely in power and money, and human considerations and concerns are secondary”, as producer Jon Avnet put it. Or, as Julia Phillips, author of the industry classic You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, remarked: "Hollywood is a place that attracts people with massive holes in their souls.”

 

In such an environment, it becomes very easy in cinema to demonise official enemies, dismiss indigenous populations, make heroes of the US military/government, and tidy up the world with a spectacular series of nice explosions and shootings. This is especially the case when the national security apparatus is involved in productions, making it impossible to step out of the ideological madhouse, even for those who are uncomfortable in their straitjackets. The Pentagon and CIA routinely offer advice, people and equipment to production sets and, in exchange, film-makers are obliged to toe their line.

 

So, for instance, the Pentagon provided Black Hawk Down with eight helicopters and 100 soldiers. The film rewrites a controversial history of US intervention in Somalia, providing a depiction of American suffering and innocence that is extreme even by Hollywood standards, juxtaposed with an evil or otherwise worthless enemy population. One of the specific changes the Pentagon requested was the identity of one of the US soldiers because in real life he had been sentenced to fifteen years in jail for statutory rape. Not good PR.

 

DE: In your book you cite Major David Georgi, one of the US Army’s on-set technical advisers, as saying: “If they don’t do what I say, I take my toys and go away.” Terrence Malick’s film, The Thin Red Line, was denied cooperation from the Pentagon because of ‘its depictions of cowardly soldiers, callous leaders and alcohol abuse on the battlefield’.

 

So the US military subsidises pro-war films, just as advertisers subsidise mainstream newspapers that provide a conducive ‘selling environment’. But there are also direct links between companies making films and companies making weapons. Can you tell us about some of those?

 

MA: Yes, the parent company of Universal studios is General Electric - one of the biggest multinationals in the world with an appalling environmental record and which at least until the early 1990s was making nuclear weapons for the US government. There are also various people I name in the book who simultaneously sit on the boards of major studios and defence contractors.

 

Iron Man – absurdly dubbed a ‘pacifist’ picture - thanks the aerospace giant Boeing for its on set assistance in its end credits. Recently, the defence contractor Raytheon showed off their new invention - a motorised robotic suit intended to endow soldiers with superhuman strength - at an event specifically timed to coincide with the DVD release of Iron Man 2. A good reason not to buy pirate DVDs is that you’re helping buy weapons for violent gangs. It’s hard to see why this principle shouldn’t be applied universally.

 

DE: I loved the quotes from the big stars in your book. Bruce Willis made a public offer at a concert for US troops in Iraq to give a million dollars to anyone who captured Saddam Hussein and allowed him “four seconds” with the Iraqi leader. Willis had to back-pedal when Saddam was actually captured! When Arnold Schwarzenegger visited Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany in 2004, he told US troops: “Do you know how they translate ‘Ramstein’ in the English language? It means ‘We’re gonna kick some ***’.” Have you get any more gems like these?

 

MA: I enjoyed Arnie's other comment, when he inspired US troops in Iraq with a rousing "You are the real Terminators!" Criticising the military is meant to be this great taboo but here's the Governor of California comparing them with time-travelling killer robots.

 

DE: So the corporate giants have deep ties to the arms industry, are subsidised by the Pentagon, and are ideologically aligned with a similarly soulless US war machine. But still dissent +does+ get through. I recently (a bit late!) saw the film Avatar by James Cameron. It clearly is intended as bitter criticism, not just of the genocide perpetrated by European colonists on the indigenous peoples of America, but also of the war in Iraq. One of the few things I felt was missing from your book was this comment by the hero in the film, Jake Sully, a former US Marine. He says:

 

“This is how it's done. When people are sitting on shit that you want, you make 'em your enemy. Then you're justified in taking it.”

 

To me, that was James Cameron using his power, success and celebrity to get away with summing up the Iraq war, because that‘s exactly what happened. Aren’t people like Cameron forced to play the industry like a piano - saying one thing in public, for example, “I am very pro-America. I’m pro-military”, as Cameron did - and then sneaking in what they really believe in disguised form? Can you discuss any other examples of that?

 

MA: The starkest case is Starship Troopers, where maverick director Paul Verhoeven deliberately made a Chomskyian critique of US empire whilst selling it as a dumb-*** shoot ‘em up.

 

In the case of Avatar, we're really talking about a cosmetic form of dissent. Rupert Murdoch, the notoriously right wing ultimate owner of Avatar, reportedly ignored the film's politics and focused on the utility of its 3D technology for football matches. I wonder if he would have felt differently had Cameron taken the film's philosophy to its logical conclusion. One ending I heard proposed would have had the US military personnel uniting and turning on their own masters in a show of peaceful resistance to tyranny. How about that as a political statement, drawing on Spartacus and V for Vendetta, with an Iraq War twist? No way.

 

So what did we see instead? A deus ex machina - the wildlife suddenly join the Na’vi’s fight against the invading Marines. Now, in my professional role I don't usually judge movies on their artistry but, I mean, isn't this the kind of story twist that we ALL wrote at school when we were 6 years old? Maybe the final scene should have been Jake waking up and it was all just a dream... or was it?

 

DE: Yes, and it was appalling that it was a former Marine who saved the day.

 

MA: Well, if there’s got to be a hero I don’t think it should always be Buddha armed with a joss stick. But yeah, Avatar wasn’t exactly the great triumph of imagination it was billed to be.

 

DE: What are the latest examples of national security cinema?

 

MA: Two of the most breathtaking cases in this half of 2010 are Unthinkable – Samuel L. Jackson endorsing the very extremes of torture, and Red Dawn – China invading the United States. The mind boggles.

 

DE: How has Reel Power been received?

 

MA: It only went on sale worldwide in October but we’re getting excellent responses so far. Liberal commentators have seemed less able to understand the point that Reel Power advocates creative (and, by extension, political) freedom, rather than advocating one system of beliefs over another.

 

DE: What are your plans now?

 

MA: A sequel to Reel Power is on the cards. I also recently unearthed a ‘lost’ autopsy report that said Hollywood screenwriter Gary Devore was murdered - not the victim of a bizarre traffic accident, as the authorities spun it. As part of a small team working in L.A, I am putting together a documentary, novel and screenplay about Gary’s disappearance and death. Did Devore discover too much about CIA black ops/ drug running? If anyone wants to invest in this multi-faceted project we are open to offers.

 

DE: Many thanks for taking the time to answer our questions about your book. Very best of luck with those projects.

 

Source

[NGONGE]

Still no smoking gun.

[N.O.R.F]

^You just refuse to see the smoke.

[BOB]

North ninkan naftii yareed buu kugu dhibay and he bullies you all the time...ninkani waa bully weynaaday...I like how he constantly accuses you of being a Gooner when in fact he's the closet Gooner.

 

 

Ninkani is badly missing his old buddy A&T who is said to be in trouble with Mugabe after he adviced him to bet on Brazil winning the world cup and Mugabe the ever risky taker gambled with the entire budget of Zimbabwe's Ministry of Defense.

 

 

Peace, Love & Unity.

[5]

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.

[Alpha Blondy]

Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People . This groundbreaking documentary dissects a slanderous aspect of cinematic history that has run virtually unchallenged form the earliest days of silent film to today's biggest Hollywood blockbusters. Featuring acclaimed author Dr. Jack Shaheen, the film explores a long line of degrading images of Arabs--from Bedouin bandits and submissive maidens to sinister sheikhs and gun-wielding "terrorists"--a long the way offering devastating insights into the origin of these stereotypic images, their development at key points in US history, and why they matter so much today. Shaheen shows how the persistence of these images over time has served to naturalize prejudicial attitudes toward Arabs and Arab culture, in the process reinforcing a narrow view of individual Arabs and the effects of specific US domestic and internationl policies on their lives. By inspiring critical thinking about the social, political, and basic human consequences of leaving these Hollywood caricatures unexamined, the film challenges viewers to recognize the urgent need for counter-narratives that do justice to the diversity and humanity of Arab people and the reality and richness of Arab history and culture. Director: Sut Jhally Biographical Summary: Dr. Jack Shaheen, Professor Emeritus of Mass Communication at Southern Illinois University, is a leading scholar of Arab representations in US popular culture. Shaheen is the author of the groundbreaking study The TV Arab and, most recently, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People, the most comprehensive review of Arab screen images ever published. Analyzing over 900 Hollywood films made from 1896 to 2004, Dr. Shaheen exposes American cinema's systematic and pervasive degradation and dehumanization of Arabs. Articles: "Jack Shaheen continues to be a piercing laser of fairness and sanity in pointing out Hollywood's ongoing egregious smearing of Arabs."

 

 

 

continue to part 2.......

[Alpha Blondy]

 

 

 

continue to part 2.............

[Jacaylbaro]

Calaacal.com

[5]

N.O.R.F;321419 wrote:

Source

There are so many things wrong with this article I don't know where to begin. It is absolutely evident Matthew Alford has never worked in the biz a single day. He takes an example, stretches it out and then makes gross generalizations and strange conclutions. You'd expect more from a PhD student, but then again he's clearly trying to stir up the pot and get a few books sold.

 

1. Hitler's propaganda films have absolutely nothing to do with Hollywood. The fact that they are mentioning this is ludicrous, but it also sets the mood for the whole article.

2. Most of anti-communism films were "B" films, in fact those two are the best known ones. I'm saying this because several hundred films were made during the 1940s-1950s and only handful anti-commie starring big names. My point is, it was definitely not the norm.

 

there is a sizable body of national security cinema that glorifies US power systems and the use of extreme force against official enemies across the world. Imbued with a blinkered sense of fear and American victim-hood, products like Rules of Engagement, Amerika, and 24 are frequently not ‘just’, even if they are, ‘entertainment’.

And that's why "Rules of Engagement" became such box office gold, huh? The film never made its money back, it was a flop. I've never even heard of "Amerika". When you take films or non-films like these as examples, you know you don't have a foundation to base your claims. I don't watch 24 or TV for that matter, but I know there were Russian and Chinese terrorists in the storyline.

 

So why, in our time, +do+ the big corporate studios consistently make films that glorify the US war machine?’

It's either himself or his best buddy conducting the interview. Heavily biased questions.

 

"

Corporate Hollywood has no imperative to tell the truth

or act responsibly, except to the extent audiences can compel it to do so. The six major studios that control the industry "breeds a kind of person who is invested completely in power and money, and human considerations and concerns are secondary”, as producer Jon Avnet put it. Or, as Julia Phillips, author of the industry classic You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, remarked: "Hollywood is a place that attracts people with massive holes in their souls.”

Pot, kettle anyone? See my bolded reply further down.

To become a top exec at a studio you need to have pretty much the same qualities as any other top person at any other field. I would say even Mother Teresa was a tough cookie. And if you're looking for people invested in money & power, see Wall Street. At least Hollywood is creative, and most execs (although certainly not all) have a creative streak in them; many are failed filmmakers and not always interested in just making money (though if their projects fail, heads start to roll). I would like to know when Jon Avent made that remark - not questioning, simply curious. To quote Julia Phillips is like to ask investment tips from Maddoff. This article and the book "Reel Power" is for non-industry people like you & me who might not know that Julia Phillips was once amongst the biggest names in Hollywood, before drug addiction put an end to her career and as a final straw, resorted to writing a scandalous book about the way she felt about certain people.

 

Black Hawk Down is probably the only legit example in the whole article. But for every BHD there are The Thin Red Line, Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Sergeant Bilko... you get the point. My point? Hollywood is certainly not pro-military.

 

But there are also direct links between companies making films and companies making weapons. Can you tell us about some of those?

 

MA: Yes, the parent company of Universal studios is General Electric - one of the biggest multinationals in the world with an appalling environmental record and which at least until the early 1990s was making nuclear weapons for the US government

The parent company of Universal Studios is now actually Comcast. Nonetheless, GE manufacture home appliances too. Are there direct links between a housewife making a smoothie with a blender and companies making weapons? But ignore all this. Because even if Hollywood was indeed run by arms companies making nuclear weapons, it is the same Hollywood that pressurizes them out of said business. Why did Alford not mention that the short documentary film "Deadly Deception: General Electric, Nuclear Weapons and Our Environment" brought light to this subject 1991, won an Oscar, and 9 months later GE got out of nuclear weapons manufacture? Because he's here to sell a book, not to tell the truth.

 

A good reason not to buy pirate DVDs is that you’re helping buy weapons for violent gangs. It’s hard to see why this principle shouldn’t be applied universally.

I fail to see how another company capitalizing on the success of a huge blockbuster makes the said blockbuster (which was ironically anti-military/arms industry) a partner in crime? Alford is certainly adament to draw links and conclutions where they don't exist. The American version was a soft rip-off of Japanese exoskeleton http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=real-life-iron-man-exoskeleton

They only stuck in mind better due to conciding with Iron-Man DVD release. PR 101. PhD, seriously?

 

So the corporate giants have deep ties to the arms industry, are subsidised by the Pentagon, and are ideologically aligned with a similarly soulless US war machine.

You just have go to love the line of thinking here. Amazing.

 

Now, in my professional role I don't usually judge movies on their artistry but, I mean, isn't this the kind of story twist that we ALL wrote at school when we were 6 years old?

If we all wrote stories like that, we'd be making $300m a year and our stories would be grossing $2.8billion. I think he's just a little bit annoyed that the main villain in Avatar says "we will fight terror with terror" which is pretty much exactly the phrasing George W. Bush and his friends at Pentagon used. And that's a strak contradiction to what his book is trying to sell us.

 

Summa summarum, Hollywood is a weird animal and very difficult to understand from the outside. So many rumours and wrong images have been fed to us by the media (ironically) that we tend to think it's this soulless place where young blonde chicks and guys with serious emotional issues go to find acceptance and become a star. The fact of the matter is, aside from talent, Hollywood has some of the most brighters, smartest, generous and talented people anywhere in the world. Most people (again, aside from talent) are Ivy League graduates, and it's rather odd to think that Harvard Law School grads would compete against Yale Business School grads over a job in a studio/agency mail room. But that's the reality. It's often joked that if movie people spent a third of the energy and mind they do on entertainment to help save the world, we'd already have a better place. The real Hollywood is just a neighborhood in Los Angeles and most studios are not even in Los Angeles. In fact only Paramount is. The rest are in Beverley Hills, Culver City and Burbank - which are not part of Los Angeles but are cities of their own. Betcha didn't know that either.

[Prometheus]

The author strikes me as a conspiracy theory crackpot. Some Muslims, afflicted as they are with a victim complex, may suppose his spurious claims are factual. It would strain credibility to argue that Hollywood, the most liberal industry in the US, is colluding with the military, the most conservative institution in the US government. But the insufferable ninnies who think that Bush was behind 9/11, that the moon-landing was a hoax (filmed in a Hollywood studio, no less), that Tupac and Elvis are still alive, and that the Illuminati and Bilderberg Group are hatching a new plan for world domination are going to add this nonsense to their catalog of dark conspiracies.