The same day Maytha posted about the heart-wrenching story of former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Sami Al-Hajj, the Al-Jazeera cameraman detained by the American government in Guantanamo Bay for 7 years, a group of us went to go see Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay.
I am one of those annoying people who do not let movies just be movies. Even pop culturish bubble gum flicks mean something, reflect the societies they are produced and consumed in. Just as KABOBfest stands for a certain time, place, and political culture, so do Harold and Kumar. In fact, they do more so since far more people know Harold and Kumar than read us... duh.
In this sense, I enjoy blockbuster American films such as this more than I do foreign and indie films. They provide me a window into the American media diet and the range of popular discourses, even if they tend to be simpler plots with uninteresting characters.
This movie was in many ways about stereotypes, both smashing some and bolstering others. It also, in a direct way, was about the war on terror.
There are two currents within the film: the ideas that stereotypes are inadequate ways of seeing the world and that everyone is subject to them runs throughout. Harold and Kumar are taken for terrorists, Kumar, "the Arab," and Harold, "the North Korean," are caught with a bomb-resembling bong on a flight.
This happens after Kumar is "randomly" selected by airport security. He questions just how random the selection was. That won a progressive point.
When they get to the island prison, they are placed in cells next to angry Arab/Muslims who praise the attacks on America. Kumar and Harold reject their views, saying they are nothing like them. It was probably scripted to offer a disclaiming condemnation of terrorism. I saw this is analogous to Sikh groups saying basically "we're not Muslims, do not attack us" after the spate of 9/11 hate crimes.
However, the stereotypically-redneck prison guards "torture" the prisoners by feeding them "cockmeat" sandwiches. When Kumar calls that gay -- reinforcing homophobia -- the guard retreats, saying on those doing the sucking are gay. This speaks to the latent homosexuality in homophobia. The movie is written to show both the stereotype and its opposite -- a postmodern technique.
Clearly, stories such as Sami Al-Hajj's and the testimonies of human rights organizations show that Guantanamo Bay was far from a laughable place.
The terrorist-fighting government agent out to get them, played by Rob Cordroy, uses every weapon and stereotype to get them -- offering a black man grape soda, throwing a bag of coins at Jews, and using a translator to communicate to Harold's English-speaking parents. His character is a stereotype of the gung ho American conservative. His opposite is the brainy liberal government agent who challenges him. Both are white.
President Bush is portrayed not as a malicious warmonger, but as a cool dope-smoking dude who lives in fear of Dick Cheney and under the oppressive thumb of his father.
Its formula is thus to both offend and please simultaneously, which allows them the greatest audience. It takes no hard stances, but furthers a general postmodern multicultural sentiment that does acknowledge that white does not make right.
Thus, the war on terror is an annoying agenda -- for breeding right-wing dickheads like the guy who wants to marry Kumar's ex-girlfriend -- but is not one without merit. Guantanamo Bay is bad in so far as it punishes the innocent, but the film leaves the impression that it contains America's enemies. The movie is a wishy washy moderate Democrat, uncomfortable with the American place in the world, but unable to offer any ideas for change.
Harold and Kumar remind me of a new American multiculturalism, one largely shaped by college experience and thus occurring with a certain class. Where else but at college would social relations between a Korean-American, Jew, Indian-American, and Iranian-American (Reza), develop?
Still, its a movie that could only be made in the era of Tiger Woods, Crash and Obama. While the faces are different shades, the values are the same. In Harold and Kumar, we all want love, respect and to get high.
This movie is more than niche marketing, as the box office numbers indicate a bigger draw. The face of multicultural America resonates with far more, even though it alienates the same forces this film lampoons the most -- conservative Americans uncomfortable with multiculturalism.
Samuel Huntington, the academic who wrote 'The Clash of Civilizations,' warned that America cannot be made to resemble the globe. He considered this a threat to American identity. Harold and Kumar, however, show that America can keep its identity while resembling the world phenotypically.
