Bad example?

While waiting in Southampton airport yesterday, I made the mistake of buying that bastion of quality journalism, "The Sun". I did this on the grounds that I kinda wanted an update on the whole Celebrity Big Brother fiasco, and if seemed like the best place for that sort of trashy story.

Anyway, this proved a mistake, as I found myself reading a story that just left me disgusted. (Yes, just one... generally, I get through tabloids in about 2 minutes, because I only read the stories that strike me as remotely interesting, which tend to be few.) The story was about a new publication by the "Islamic Human Rights Commission", which has attacked Hollywood for their portrayal of Moslems. The problem? While there is a disparity in the way Hollywood portrays Moslems, the examples chosen were, for the most part, totally inane.

Firstly, the disparity in the way Hollywood depicts Moslems. It is true that the vast majority of Moslems to appear in Hollywood films fall into one of three roles: cultural stereotypes, terrorist bombers, or oppressed minorities being saved by heroic Americans. This is somewhat unfair, of course, but it's the nature of the beast. A lot of American films are about American soldiers saving the world from some menace or other. So, of course those films set in the Middle East portray Moslems as victims. Many others deal with terrorist plots against the US, and since the end of the Cold War, Moslems have been the terrorists of choice, hence their preponderance of villains. As for the cultural stereotypes... well, everyone is stereotyped in film. So, yes, the portrayal is unrepresentative... but hardly surprising.

But it was the examples that really ticked me off. They complained about Alladin portraying the 'good' Moslems with American accents, and the 'bad' Moslem with a Middle Eastern accent. Well, fair dos on that one.

But then they complained about the lack of 'good' Moslems in films in general. Ignoring for the moment 'Pitch Black', in which the conscience and spiritual centre of the film is Moslem, we'll skip to two of the films mentioned. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is clearly an indication of poor portrayals of Moslems... what with Indy's friend Salah being of that faith. Um, oops? And then there's "The Seige", in which one of four main characters is Moslem, and a good guy, and is not revealed as a traitor at the end. Oops again, I suppose.

"The Seige", of course, is a very strange example to choose. In it, the US is under seige from Islamic terrorists, and decides to intern all folks in the nation who are of Middle Eastern descent. The whole point of the film is that this is not the way to go, and that instead we need to be breaking down these barriers, not building them up. I guess no-one actually watched and understood the film before they had their rant.

And then there's "Executive Decision", in which terrorists who happen to be of the Islamic faith hijack a plane and try to use it as a weapon against the US. Are they serious? On the 10th of September 2001, they might have had a point... but then, on that day this film was just a silly but effective action film. Now, it's incredibly scary. (Just after 9/11, I saw a documentary about the events, which actually mentioned that film. In it, the security analyst said the only thing wrong with the film was that the good guys managed to stop the bomb. As I said, scary.)

The worst thing about this report is that the conclusion was actually correct: the depiction of Moslems in the media is generally not very fair (there is a disproportionate number of terrorists shown, and very few 'normal' people, and fewer heroes). But, by calling out examples that are so fundamentally bad, they manage to totally undermine their argument, and render their position weaker than it would have been if they hadn't said anything at all.

The second worst thing is that the group then called on the BBFC to be given, and to exercise, greater powers of censorship to ensure that the depictions given are more balanced, and to cut out material that, frankly, they don't like. That I find incredibly disturbing, since I rather prize freedom of speech.