Film Critics Shut Their Eyes to Terrorism
As their response to Traitor demonstrates, they want your eyes to be shut as well.
The Onion A.V. Club, a reliable source of pungent criticism, gives Traitor credit for depicting Muslims in the aforementioned three-dimensional fashion, but still gripes about the finished product.
In a cinema world that all too often stereotypes Muslims as one-dimensional bad guys, Traitor dares to take Islam seriously, if not for the troubling fact that most of the Muslims here are terrorists.
In today’s Hollywood, the bad guys are far more likely to be rednecks, corporate fat cats, or Euro trash than Muslims, so the Onion is misguided on two fronts.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Scott Von Doviak uses his review slot to blame the film because it “unwittingly fans the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment.”
So any film showing Muslim terrorists will fan said flames? Perhaps critics should submit a list to Hollywood screenwriters about what they can and can’t write about in a dastardly fashion. Would be a fascinating read, even if the integrity of movies would take a sizable hit as a result.
The Star-Telegram critic couldn’t resist the chance to slam the current administration, even if he has to strain mightily to do so.
There’s a terrorist around every corner in Traitor, to the point where you start wondering if “Steve Martin” [who co-wrote the story] is a pen name for Dick Cheney.
Other film critics applauded the film’s depth, but otherwise badly misjudged the audiences they’re supposed to serve.
Detroit News film critic Tom Long offers a harsh, albeit evenhanded, slam against Traitor, but then misjudges a key element in the film:
Americans haven’t exactly been begging for movies about the Middle East or terrorism lately.
Who says Americans aren’t itching to see terrorism on screen? The Kingdom did far better at the box office than the slate of anti-war films last year, and the more recent Vantage Point was one of this year’s genuine sleepers.
Film critics have limited pull with the public and their clout has likely diminished with the rise of Internet-based movie reviewers. But they still can rally support for indie films that lack the budget of their bigger peers, and their raves can help underline enthusiasm for great popcorn movies like this summer’s The Dark Knight. Many movie critics, like the Associated Press’ Christy Lemire, provide sober analysis that helps movie fans make sense out of their local film marquee.
But critics do their audience a grave disservice when they rally their thoughts against the few films that dare to depict the very real threat of terrorism against Western culture.
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Christian Toto is a freelance writer and film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also contributes movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show and runs the blog What Would Toto Watch?
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33 Comments
1. Typewriter King:This is the very first time I’ve heard of the film, and I consider myself well informed. Yet you describe a nearly eight million opening weekend, which means it out-earned ‘Redacted’ by a factor of over 100. That’s simply astonishing.
But not as much as the critics. The motion picture commentariat, recall, hailed ‘Syriana’ as a deep movie that…’made you think.’ In fact, as long as there’s moral ambiguity, or, sans the muddling, Westerners aren’t vindicated in the end, the reception tilts more favorably.
Without a deviant in the flock, I recall the whole lot opining the opening sequence of ‘Team America’ was, when the butt of the joke was the protagonist ’saving’ Paris by causing more damage than the, well, I’ll call them terrorists. From there, the flock clucked, the movie fell apart.
A brutish troglodyte such as myself only knows one way to interpret this behavior, if I may be excused for being a jingoistic superpatriot.
Gumption is compelling on the big screen.
Sep 20, 2008 - 2:07 am 2. TomJW:Any group that didn’t enjoy or understand ‘Team America’ should be supervised in a group home. If critics like a movie, I avoid it. If they damn it, I’ll take a look at what ii is. Yeah, even idiots get it right some times.
Sep 20, 2008 - 4:52 am 3. Bob:Roger Ebert, certainly never mistaken for a right-winger, gave “Traitor” three stars, which is the equivalent of a Thumbs Up™. Unlike the other critics, he doesn’t obsess on the fact that the film portrays some Muslims as terrorists. His bow to political correctness in his review was as follows: “Of course the great majority of Muslims are against terrorism and any form of murder. Others, as we have seen, are not.” This is a pretty accurate (thank goodness) and realistic recognition that, for all our good will to peaceful Muslims, if we pay any attention to the news, we cannot ignore that there are a significant number that have no qualms about using any methods, including extreme violence. Hollywood often defends itself by saying that it is just portraying real life. When it bends over backwards to avoid portraying any terrorists as Muslim, perhaps it is actually acknowledging the danger that cinematic honesty may create (think Theo Van Gogh).
Sep 20, 2008 - 5:11 am 4. Rubicon:Hollywood “IS” portraying real life. However, the real life Hollywood portrays is “THEIR” addled version or view of real life. Since many Hollywood personalities spend much of their time in rehab, Vegas, court, hospitals, jail, nightclubs, Hollywood itself, fights, car wrecks w/ paparazzi, divorces, mocking & attacking anyone who believes in God or anything Hollywood does not believe in.. & that means what the Hollywood crowd & their leftist buddies see as real life, most Americans see as a total fiasco.
Sep 20, 2008 - 9:56 am 5. ito:I did watch the movie when it came and I was honestly worried I might see something like Stop Loss.
Sep 20, 2008 - 9:59 am 6. DavidN:Watch it if you have the chance. The ending is golden!
You briefly mentioned two other movies which did well among the recent spate of Hollywood’s we-hate-the-war-on-terror symphony. I saw Vantage Point on DVD a month or so ago. It’s a good movie, intelligent and interesting, but it does its best to skate around the subject of the assassins being Muslims. They don’t pray to Mecca or anything like that, don’t speak in Arabic, don’t act in any way shape or form Muslim or Arab, except for one guy who’s a suicide bomber. There’s even a character among the good guys who turns out to be a traitor, and there’s no explanation of the betrayal. So the movie is pretty squeamish about Islamic terrorism, truthfully. The Kingdom is a better picture, in many ways. For one thing, the cast is superb. Jamie Foxx, Chris Cooper, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, and an Egyptian actor you never heard of named Ashraf Barhom are all terrific. Barhom is especially good, working well with Foxx especially, and you really feel for his character, trying to solve this terrorist crime and hold his country together while it’s splitting at the seams with violence and hatred. Each of the other characters is stellar: Cooper is wonderful as a bomb expert, Garner’s very good playing a forensic expert, Bateman’s good too. The interesting thing is the ending. I will try not to spoil this for those who haven’t seen the picture, but there’s no way I can do this without letting a little bit of the ending out. After the final confrontation (a violent chase and shootout, as well-done as I’ve seen in recent years) there are two scenes that are viewed alternatively, cutting back and forth. One is with the family of one of the bad guys, the other is between several of the protagonists. They both tell each other that they’ll kill all of the opposition, the implication being that the war on terror is really a Hatfields and McCoys sort of thing, where neither side can ever win, or stop.
I find all of this fascinating, frankly. Hollywood is full of prejudices. Frankly the ruling clique has a lot of contempt for the middle Americans who they make movies for. Those in the movie biz, in addition, despise TV and those who have to make a living working there, though they might say differently. One reason they despise it is the success of shows like Jerry Springer, 24, NCIS, the Unit, etc. None of these shows has had it’s movie counterpart since 9/11, and my guess is it won’t happen any time soon, because the movie studios are too squeamish about portraying Arabs as villains. To see an Arab terrorist as a bad guy, you have to go back to the Schwarzenegger vehicle True Lies (which also had an Arab good guy, ignored by those who criticized the movie for portraying all Arabs as terrorists). I am still waiting for something that portrays the cause of the people who want to destroy this country clearly, and without any squeamishness, as evil.
Sep 20, 2008 - 2:44 pm 7. bgates:In a cinema world that all too often stereotypes Muslims as one-dimensional bad guys, Traitor dares to take Islam seriously
I take it the movie is playing somewhere besides Earth.
Jerry Springer, 24, NCIS, the Unit, etc.
Sep 20, 2008 - 4:02 pm 8. ZEITGEIST:Jerry Springer?
[...] CRITICS AND HOLLYWOOD: giving terrorists a pass, as [...]
Sep 20, 2008 - 4:39 pm 9. EvilDave:mmm, just read the plot of Traitor on Wikipedia.
Sound slike the plot of Sleeper Cell a HBO/Showtime series a few years back.
The first season was incredible. The second, didn’t get into it.
But watch Sleeper Cell if you can.
Sep 20, 2008 - 5:54 pm 10. Grimmy:Strange, since Dark Knight was a stridently pro-Bush movie, as I – and others – have noticed. From the pro-torture and “don’t give in to their demands” to Batman willingly taking ok the hatred of the public for protecting them … Bush all the way. I guess they didn’t realize it.
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:11 pm 11. Bugs:Jerry Springer is famous for his subtle, nuanced treatment of Muslims and their culture.
I think DavidN is correct about “movie” Hollywood’s relationship to “TV” Hollywood. The TV people tend to do a better job dealing with complex subjects than the movie people. A TV series has a long time to explore complexity, present different points of view, accommodate changing characters and political situations. It’s expansive. A movie, on the other hand, is compressive; it has to say everything it’s going to say in one “episode.” Too much complexity, too many points of view, too much ambiguity can make a movie feel wishy-washy and unsatisfying. Some movies do accomplish this, but I think the writers have to work harder to pull it off.
On the other hand, if movie writers try to tighten things up with a simpler protagonist/antagonist formula, they risk offending any groups whose members appear as “bad guys.” That kind of controversy is risky; you don’t want your movie boycotted before it even comes out. In this case, it’s safer to rely on Hollywood’s stock villains: big business, the government, the military, mad scientists, conservatives – or some entity that combines all of them. These groups have real power over our lives, they are often misunderstood and resented by the public, they tend appear impersonal rather than having a “human face,” and – most importantly – they don’t fight back. Easy pickin’s.
I think film critics, like most of us, have totally conventional political ideas. They love to write about movies, but they know there’s a price for doing what they love in public. They’ve developed the same PC instincts the rest of us have. They know what the taboo subjects are, and they’ve memorized the formulas they have to recite in order to ward off angry victim groups. I really don’t believe that THEY believe every word they write about these subjects. They write them with as much thought and sincerity as they say “bless you” after somebody sneezes.
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:18 pm 12. kcom:“The Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s Scott Von Doviak uses his review slot to blame the film because it ‘unwittingly fans the flames of anti-Muslim sentiment.’”
I’m just curious if Scott Von Doviak reviewed the spate of anti-war bombs (no pun intended) that came out one after another last year and this year. Did he ever question whether those films were “unwittingly fanning the flames of anti-military sentiment”?
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:27 pm 13. Steven:Note to Hollywood: So depicting real islamofacist terrorists is fear-mongering or “fanning the flames”, but movie’s about environmental disasters due to man-made circumstances (i.e. anthropogenic global warming) isn’t?
Oh, okay, I think I understand now…
Sep 20, 2008 - 6:55 pm 14. Javelin:I remember those spate of terrorism movies from the 80’s and 90’s, B and explotative some of them. But they had no qualms against having the terrorists be straight up Arab scumbags like “True Lies” or “Delta Force”. Now, it seems the terrorists have to be Russian Nazis or Canadian Mounties or some other arcane group.
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:52 pm 15. mike:Hollywood doesn’t have a clue of what the real world is, neither does Congress. Will it take a truck bomb blown up in downtown Beverly Hills to wake these idiots up?
Sep 20, 2008 - 7:56 pm 16. Javelin:Whinig about critics is even more tedious then the critics themselves. I checked the two top critics from IMDb list and both of them liked it. There are thousands of critics and sifting through reviews to find a couple who don’t like a movie is a grade school exercise in blog laziness. This is about as revealing as O’Reilly searching through Daily Kos comments so he would have something to whine and feel righteous about when he play cultural warrior(his news show).
Steven, the movie was made in Hollywood, the blog is about critics, so think first.
Sep 20, 2008 - 8:10 pm 17. Javelin:“The final segment of Traitor deals with the terrorist organization’s ambitious plan to set off bombs across America during the Thanksgiving holiday. This involves money men, obedient suicide bombers, and sleeper cells willing to do anything to advance their cause. While not as deep and morally provocative as Syriana, this thriller does have plenty to recommend it including insights into terrorism and the agencies committed to stem the tide of violence. Don Cheadle is convincing as the Muslim with no place to call home, and Guy Pearce puts in a stellar performance as an FBI agent who defies the stereotype of the law-and-order zealot.”
Sep 20, 2008 - 8:14 pm 18. fred:http://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/films.php?id=18346
Thank you for posting this information about the film. I won’t be seeing it, just as I have not exactly been forking over a lot of money for Hollywood’s fare in recent years – when they put out garbage like this. Just another one of their missives that will bomb at the box office.
Evidently, Hollywood has money to burn doing political advocacy in recent years.
Sep 20, 2008 - 8:19 pm 19. bbbeard:I saw this movie because I like Don Cheadle, but I fully expected to see “Hollywood” terrorists, and I mean that in the worst sense. And I was right. Anyone familiar with the war against the Islamofascists would be disgusted with this portrayal. The terrorists are only “real” if you believe (a) that Islamofascists think they are fighting for “freedom”, (b) our founding fathers were “terrorists”, (c) the KKK is the Christian equivalent of Muslim extremists [remember the Reverend Nathan Bedford Forrest?], (d) the next terror attack will come from soccer moms and redneck Muslims, so there’s no point in racial profiling, (e) “the war in Iraq has created a whole new generation of terrorists” [yeah, right, DEAD terrorists], (f) government efforts to thwart terrorism are a joke, and so on. All these memes are set forth in the movie without challenge or balance.
And the writing was execrable. The plot — including the ‘explosive’ ending — hinges on such idiotic and inexplicable behavior on the part of all concerned that even the death of the bad guys loses any redeeming quality.
All you need to know about this movie was that it was written and directed by Jeff Nachmanoff, who also wrote the awful climate-change movie “Day After Tomorrow”.
Sep 20, 2008 - 10:18 pm 20. boqueronman:Here is a heads up for a movie now scheduled for U.S. release in late January 2009. It has already been released overseas; I saw it yesterday. The movie is “Taken” starring Liam Neeson. It’s a European production put together by Pierre Morel (The Transporter) and Luc Besson (The Transporter, The Professional and La Femme Nikita) The story is not complicated. Neeson is a retired CIA operative whose daughter is kidnapped in Paris for sale as a prostitute. It takes about 10 minutes of screen time for set up and by the end of the movie Neeson has laid waste a sizable portion of Paris and killed most of the bad guys within a 10 mile radius. Every time you think he’s going to lighten with, say, with his old French spy buddy and his family (who has admittedly betrayed him to the suits), not by a long shot. Admittedly, no “terrorists” per se, but killing, maiming and torturing of “swarthy,” including Arab, bad guys abounds. Anyway, if you feel that Hollywood politically correct multiculturalism has just not delivered sufficient red meat good guys vs bad guys material, this movie will definitely keep you going for a while.
Sep 21, 2008 - 7:22 am 21. PJ:You mean it’s an anti-terrorism movie, not an anti-American movie?! Crap, I’m going!
Sep 21, 2008 - 7:34 am 22. Steynian 252 « Free Mark Steyn!:[...] FILM CRITICS Shut Their Eyes to Terrorism …. [...]
Sep 21, 2008 - 3:44 pm 23. Random Screen Name:“THE KINGDOM” was cool. Peter Berg is a tough mainstream filmmaker and the movie was fair and open about the US/Saudi relationship.
The only really successful movie about the War on Terror is Chris Nolan’s “DARKNIGHT RETURNS.” People will accept a message about being tough on Terror if it’s presented as a metaphor.
Looking forward to Luc Besson’s “TAKEN,” I’m jealous you’ve seen it. Besson has a history of treating French Arabs fairly, the romantic lead in “ANGELA A” is a European Arab. A lot of pimps in Europe tend to be “swarthy” guys, so draw your own conclusions about the guys getting thumped by Neeson in “TAKEN.”
Sep 21, 2008 - 4:34 pm 24. schnargley:I appreciate the effort Hollywood takes to present all points of view and not be so dogmatically one-sided. Americans need to understand the world they live in, the various cultures and narratives with which people are acclimated into, and that “bad” “good” are just obsolescent words, relative terms depending on where one happens to be standing. Arabic-Islamic suicide bombers are people with feelings, hurts, dreams too. It is not Hollywood’s job to foist US propaganda on the owlrd. There has been far too much of that.
I am hoping for a movie depicting, for example, Adolph Hitler’s stormy romance with Eva Braun, replete with torrid love scenes, and a look at Hitler’s human side, like his quirky, tender way of joking with her and his closest associates.
Sep 21, 2008 - 7:57 pm 25. seguin:You had me fooled until the last paragraph schnarg. I was starting to foam at the mouth.
Sep 21, 2008 - 10:26 pm 26. My movie fast — WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH?:[...] updates will return later today. For now, please check out my new article over at Pajamas Media about how both Hollywood – and movie critics – are less than eager to explore the biggest danger [...]
Sep 22, 2008 - 5:13 am 27. submandave:Consider the source. This is the same crowd who thought that screening “Passion of the Christ” was going to result in a huge ant-Semitic backlash by fundamentalist Christians. All their concern is predicated upon the assumption that the masses are mindless sheep who just knee-jerkingly follow whatever thoght or meme is placed in their head, and given their close association with the left and Democrat party I can understand why they think this way. (Sorry, I coudn’t stop myself)
Sep 22, 2008 - 7:17 am 28. Dirty Harry’s Place… » Film Critics: Terrorists? What Terrorists?:[...] buddy Christian Toto has a terrific piece up over at Pajamas Media that points out how film critics are just as politically-correctly-ignorant of the threat we face as [...]
Sep 22, 2008 - 9:18 am 29. Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Film Critics: Terrorists? What Terrorists?:[...] buddy Christian Toto has a terrific piece up over at Pajamas Media that points out how film critics are just as politically-correctly-ignorant of the threat we face as [...]
Sep 22, 2008 - 3:36 pm 30. Kateliz:I’ll tell you what fans the flames of anti-Muslim rage. 9/11. Thats what. Muslims in this country have some serious explaining and appologizing to do. And I haven’t heard a word of it yet. (And don’t be telling me that the US deserved it, NOBODY is buying that anymore.) So a movie about Islamic terrorisim that actually portrays the terrorists as Muslim??? WOW? What are we coming to? What will they think of next?
Sep 22, 2008 - 7:01 pm 31. smoothjim:mike:
Hollywood doesn’t have a clue of what the real world is, neither does Congress. Will it take a truck bomb blown up in downtown Beverly Hills to wake these idiots up?
Sep 20, 2008 – 7:56 pm
Why? What did plane bombs in downtown NY and Wash DC do to wake most of those idiots up?
Yes, generally speaking, most of them are already starting from some point of self-loathing. They’re hardly interested in their own semi-opiated self preservation; why do you think they care for yours?
Sep 23, 2008 - 2:14 pm 32. Javelin:Witness the humanity-is-the-disease undertone to the socio-economic backbone of the AGW movement.
submandave:
Sep 24, 2008 - 9:47 pm 33. Critics afraid of terrorism - the cinematic kind — WHAT WOULD TOTO WATCH?:Your gross generalizations are as dishonest as they are stupid. Good to see that Mel has fellow believers on this blog, tune up your Jewdar!
[...] address the situation in my latest column for Pajamas Media. Not all movie critics parrot these arguments, thankfully, but enough do to merit [...]
Sep 25, 2008 - 6:07 am