Monday, May 23, 2005

Movie blogging by James Lileks on todays Bleat.

I have to admit, though, it’s a brilliant satire of all those US-forces vs. the terrorists movies we’ve suffered through in the last few years. You know, the ones with the Arab militants as the bad guys. The ones full of jingoistic drivel about Special Forces. The ones that feature all sorts of slam-bang action designed to make you feel good about our side and hate the other.

You know, those movies.

“Team America,” in other words, maybe the first movie that satirizes a genre that doesn’t actually exist.
Once again James hits the nail on the head. The only place that I have observed that Muslims are actually seriously protrayed as the bad guys who hate America has been the tv show 24(the two hour season finale is tonight btw). This isn't a new trend. Take the movie "Sum Of All Fears" for instance. In the Tom Clancy novel that it was based on the bad guys were muslim extremists. In the movie they were changed to neo-nazis with no religious conviction.

Hollywood seems to give Muslims and Islam in general a free pass despite it being probably THE most intolerant religion in the world. For example consider the murder of Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered by Islamo-facists for making a film detailing the oppression of women. Hollywood elites had very little to say about it, and even excused the Muslim behavior on occaison. Christians and conservatives in general on the other hand are dismissed and mocked outright.

I still love movies. But with the Hollywood establishment so intent on preaching to us that I have become completely disenchanted with the movie star lifestyle. Heh, maybe I'm just growing up.