Arabs Reviewing Movies: Harold and Kumar Escape...

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.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Arabs Reviewing Movies Part 1-Iron(ic) man

So, I'm a comic book nerd (Shout out to Ragtop). In my 25 years on this planet, I spent about 6 dipping in the alternate reality of comic books. I found it interesting to delve into a place where Earth exists in a different time warp and people have shit like tentacles coming out of their back and spiderwebs coming out their orifices (keep them pants on Peter Parker!). Everytime I see a "remake", or a comic book/childhood cartoon movie come out, I get this childhood-like trance surrounding the film. I'm saying, NO MATTER HOW CHEESY IT IS, I am there. I didn't go see Elektra or Daredevil, and ironically enough, those two ended up together in real life. Those movies sucked so thank God I didn't waste my doe on it. I didn't really read into those characters anyway.

ANYWAY....I had a lazy friday and I went to catch a matinee on my own. So I rolled up into my local multiplex to catch the 1:45 screening of IRON MAN. I watched the first trailer ages ago then I laid low, I didn't feel like catching the dopest special effects in preview format. I told you, I'm a nerd like that. Now, I had heard that there was a Ghostface Killah scene. where the Wally Champ was going to play a Sheikh from Dubai (I would have loved to see how they totally fucked that one up). Last week, I found out that they cut the scene out completely (thank God), although it would gave my mind a pop-culturegasm and my two worlds of music and nerdiness would have been fulfilled. But I digress.

Let me start by saying, Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor...to play a meglomaniac asshole. He's likeable in his arrogance and you want to immediately roll a doob and kick your feet up and listen to him rant away about asshole things (you know he would have bogarted your spliff too). He intertwines witty jokes with social commentary and references to the state of the world over an iced-out glass of scotch. There is a slew of 'stars' in this film, from the high-pitched fervor of Terrence Howard to the Emirates-trim beard of Jeff Bridges, things in this film were well-thought out from the script writing to the casting picks.

This is an introduction film. If any of you have followed the Marvel pattern (if you are a nerd) then you would see that they drop sequel-prone mega-money bangers. There's usually Part 1: The sparsed-action story theme, Part 2: The Mind-fuck super twist and Part 3: The Conclusion blockbuster. Now this is where it got interesting. I knew the film has a Middle Eastern twist. But boy, did this double entendre me in the midst of my experience.

Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) is a multi-billionaire son of a multi-billionaire weapons manufacturer and is now the leading maker of bombs worldwide. Under the guidance of his father's life long partner (Jeff Bridges), Stark is now entering the next phase of bomb-making. His newest weapon, the Jericho, will be unleashed in Afghanistan to aid curtail the Terrorist Threat. You know, the same one that exists in real life. The Afghanistan I mean.

So they have spectacles of these bombs exploding and Stark selling a shipment to the army, telling his partner "It's gonna be Christmas early this year." I'm not going to give a way too much but it draws out into a kidnapping (what do you expect from Hollywood Muslims?), a freedom moment and a patridge and palm tree.

My main issue was this: How fake it felt to watch Iron Man save an Afghani Man from the grasps of a Pseudo-Terrorist. As the man's son looked up to Iron man with 'you are my hero' eyes, i felt like the biggest asshole in the world. The Wars that have infiltrated into the East have become nothing but a sub-plot; we are the new Vietnam. First of all, what about some accuracy? We can deliver action jam-packed films with a little bit of cultural coding for Jihad's Sake Batman (wrong movie). The Afghani Militants, part of a secretive society called the TEN RINGS, allllllllllllllll but one speak EGYPTIAN. Now, I know I know, these could by the Muslim brotherhood brothers, but really? Like, you couldn't find a single afghani? What about home dude in the Kite Runner (I'm kidding, geeezz)? Ahmed Ahmed also have the 'idiot arab' scene, where an attempt at adding humor to the scene is made at the expense of the terrorist characters being too dumb to realize Downey Jr. is building an Iron Man suit and not what they demanded him to do.

My main issues with most these films that deal with deterring terrorism is that they are REINFORCING IGNORANCE which in turn breeds MORE DESTRUCTION AND VIOLENCE. But this is the world we hath been giventh.....Jack Shaheen shout-outs.
Cultural Counseling is the new thing, get with the program Hollywood. Oh wait, you are the program. I just think its so played out, going to see a movie and catching some slip-up like that. Massive minus points go to the Assistant Producer. I mean, imagine an American Character being played with a British accent. Someone would make a huge uproar about it and its all over TMZ. The film, by the end, did address the obsession with weapons and the need for violence to exist for people to stay rich. So I do give it points.

Otherwise, Iron man saves the day and the Afghanis got nothing to thank him for but freedom. And those millions of craters left in the mountain side. And for some reason, everyone is talking Egyptian.

I remember growing up on He-Man and one thing that stayed with me till this day was the last two minutes. They always had a public service announcement scene at the end, where the mythical characters are in a normal room (lab, bedroom, city). The last two minutes are dedicated to education, messages, life lessons. I would learn something. Kids aren't learning shit but how technology makes reality look realer than life.



Where's a real super hero when you need one? I'm sure a kid in Afghanistan or Iraq or Palestine would really appreciate some back-up right about now.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Ha ha... Illegal Prison Camps are So Funny!

The "ethnic" guys who spent all night trying to find White Castle made a new movie in which they do something more miraculous than find the fast food chain in New Jersey. They escape from Guantanamo Bay.

Though I laughed at the parody of airport security and American xenophobia, I am caught in the classic conundrum over slapstick humor forays into serious, timely issues -- and America's extra-territorial holding pen/torture booth for "suspected illegal combatants" is no laughing matter. Does the commentary get lost in the sauce? Probably. Though I may see it because I still do not believe pre-judging art is a good idea. but I am well aware this will be just another vapid cultural product from the nation that so easily forgets it is in war.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

The Unrecognized

I mentioned this video (by Adalah) once before as an afterthought to this post. I am posting it again because I want to bring your attention to the awesome woman interviewed near the end of the film.

Please click here to stream the video from the Adalah site so you can actually read the subtitles.


After all of the lawyers and such who give their professional information about the situation of the Bedouin in the unrecognized villages in Israel, and all of whom speak with varying levels of proper, Modern Standard Arabic, we hear this woman. She is Amal ElSana AlH'jooj, the Director of AJEEC, The Arab-Jewish Center for Equality, Empowerment and Cooperation. She speaks with passion that would blow all the rest out of the water, and in dialect, and comes across with simultaneous rawness and eloquence regarding the most fundamental problem driving just about the entire conflict here. She is speaking of the Palestinians inside of Israel, but the sentiment applies to the whole darn thing. She hits it right on the nose:

First of all, and this is a fundamental point, the state must start changing its attitude toward Palestinian citizens of Israel. This is a difficult issue. The state must stop seeing us as a security threat. The state today sees us as a security and demographic threat.

To this day, when an Arab woman gives birth, it frightens the Israeli Interior Minister and the Israeli Foreign Minister. This is the first thing that must change.

Secondly, the state cannot consider itself a 'democratic' state in the Middle East while 72,000 of its citizens are without drinking water.

Either the state decides to be democratic with equal rights for all, or it is not democratic. If it is not democratic, then we will know how to relate to it. But Israel can't have it both ways.

In completely unrelated news, I would also like to bring your attention to my new phrase of the day: 7elli 3an 6eaz aboui. Used to express 'leave me alone.' Translates to 'get off my dad's ass.'

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Ha ha... Israeli Assassins are Hilarious!

This June, 'You Don't Mess with the Zohan,' is planned for release. The movie is about a top Israeli Mossad agent who fakes his death in order to become a hair stylist. He grows tired of the "fighting" (or killing, he should say), which his mother says in the preview, "has only been going on for 2,000 years."

From it's trailer, it looks part-Borat, part-Bruno, part-Munich, and part-Sandler.

Right... it looks like another made-for-dumb-Americans movie.

Maybe it won't be as dumb as it looks?

The 2,000 years quip is very annoying. Interestingly, the most significant thing in that region about 2,000 years ago was Jesus was 8 and Palestina was occupied by the Romans, and the Jews then resisted. I'm not sure I see the connection, other than now the Palestinians are fighting an Israeli occupation. 2,000 is just a big number that seems to imply ancient origins.

Anyways, the film is sure, at least, to piss off many Zionuts. They may take offense to the portrayal of the Mossad as anything other than a brave, righteous service. The movie will probably balance it out by making Palinuts like me pissed. The best we could hope for is to rile up some of the pro-Israeli-types.

On a positive note, unlike many Hollywood movies portraying Arabs, this one actually has several Arab actors, such as Mousa Kraish and Sayed Badreya as well as the comedienne Maysoon Zayid, who makes an appearance (thanks for tossing us the bone and forcing me to go see it now). The lead actress is Emmanuelle Chriqui, who is of Moroccan-Jewish descent (yes, that is Arab, too). I know you were not wondering, but Adam Sandler is not an Arab in any way shape or form.

I am a bit concerned about some of the minor characters. Just because I have an eye for details, I noticed the film cast several non-Arabs for the three "Angry Palestinian" roles. There are also three "Arab Boy" and two "Arab Girl" roles. Though most the major parts are for Israelis, the random ones include "Israeli Fan" and "Israeli Dancer." It seems the writers could not picture an angry Israeli. Palestinians have got that on lock.

The "Angry Palestinian" bits are played by a WASP, an Italian-American and an Indian-American.

KABOBfest is offering to review the scenes with the angry Palestinians.

We, as a blog made up of more than a few angry Palestinians, feel that we could really offer some useful feedback about what an authentically angry Palestinian is like -- frothy, irrational, and belligerent for no reason whatsoever because Palestinians have no reason to be angry. That whole dispossession of more than half of them in 1948 to make way for Israel... just a minor inconvenience. And the Israeli presence in Gaza, the West Bank, and Jerusalem, just kind of a nice 40 year-long courtesy call. And they should be thanking Israel for bringing them some really friendly neighbors in those picturesque settlements that really beautify the landscape. Of course, they were so kind as to just clear out all those unsightly, useless olive trees... those giant weeds.

We'd do that for free even.

Though our offer is unlikely to be take up, we thought it might be important to reach out and build bridges to Hollywood... especially so later when we bash the film, we can do it in a particularly bitter, vindictive way.

I know it seems like an innocent, shameless comedy. Taking it too serious runs the risk of squeezing the humor out of it -- if there is any. I hope there is a sliver of decent representation, and some critique of Israel. I hope.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

O Jerusalem? Oh Puh-leez!!

Hands down – O Jerusalem is the absolute worst movie of 2007. And yes, I’m taking Norbit, Blades of Glory, and even Oriental Riders #3 into account.


The script is ass, the casting is bogus, and in regards to their acting - I've seen donkeys fake better orgasms than that. Seriously folks, you'd be better off staying home and conducting a self-circumcision than shelling out nine bucks for this hershey-squirt of a film.

To begin with, it's horribly Zio-centric. For a story that aims to be "told from the alternating viewpoints of the Jews, Arabs and Brits," it sure spends a disproportionate amount of time developing the humanity of its Jewish characters - at the expense of "Arabs and Brits" (who apparently have a 1:2345 ratio of people with reason and morality).

But that's not even what irks me the most. After all, I know better than to expect a major theater to play a non-biased movie about Israel (Paradise Now being the only exception - with limited engagements, of course). But given the film's synopsis, which claims to “meticulously re-create the historic struggle surrounding the creation of the State of Israel in 1948,” I did - at the very least - expect a movie devoid of historical fabrications (lies of omission, however, are a given in Hollywood - aaaaand, interestingly enough, Israel).

Who knows, maybe Elie Chouraqui (producer/writer/director) doesn't know the meaning of "meticulous." Hell, I get paid to write and just learned what "gynoplasty" means - so it could happen. Just in case, here's what Dictionary.com defines it as:

me•tic•u•lous [muh-tik-yuh-luh s] – adjective – Taking or showing extreme care about minute details; precise; thorough: a meticulous craftsman; meticulous personal appearance.

Phhhheeew! Now that we've got that cleared up, allow me to share with you some of the many things that are NOT meticulous about this film:

• Dressing inner-city Arabs as wretched goat herders during the British occupation – when in reality they wore shirts and ties – is not meticulous.
• Recreating 1948’s Jerusalem as a chicken-shack/donkey village – though it was a huge and pretty modern city for its time – is not meticulous.
• Neglecting to mention why Palestinians and other Arabs were against partition, making it seem as though they were just selfish Jew-hating bastards – is not meticulous.
• Portraying the Irgun as a terrorist organization, but passing the Haganah off as a force of moral soldiers – is not meticulous.
• Re-creating King Abdullah's palace as a mere tent in the Jordanian desert – is not meticulous.
• Asserting that King Abdullah was a proponent of Zionism for the sole reason of fulfilling Muslim prophecy (???) - is not meticulous.
• Claiming that Irgun terrorists felt so sorry for what they did at Deir Yassin that they gave up arms and apologized to the Haganah - is not meticulous.
• Scripting a Jordanian soldiers/Haganah henchman hug-fest after a cease fire was established - is not meticulous.

And believe me - the list does go on. In fact, some of the fabrications, subplots, and story-lines are so ridiculous that I couldn't stop laughing during the film's saddest and most heartfelt moments. For instance, when the lead Jewish character offers his dying love-interest a cigarette and she refuses because it's Shabbat - but had no problem picking up an Uzi and gunning down a whole slew of Arabs just moments before… now that's fucking hilarious!!

Seriously - historical fiction is one thing, but when a story is grounded in an alternative universe's past… that's just plain ol' fiction. O Jerusalem is liberal-Zionist (yes, an oxymoron) propaganda at its best! I advise you only watch it if you're constipated and need incentive to shit.

(Special thanks to Sharen, Dunia, Samar, and Chaim for their input in writing this review)

Read More...

Collapse Post...

"The Kingdom": Film Review

After a student-group-sponsored, free, advanced screening of "The Kingdom" at my school, my friend who attended the viewing with me and I decided to write up our own reviews of the film to anchor the effusive criticisms that poured out of mouths like a broken faucet...lest we find ourselves in hours upon hours of arm-chair philosophizing. I mean we grad students for reals yo! We got over 1000 pages of dense, overly-pontifical writing to comb through per week and we have been trained to run our mouths for hours upon hours!

So, we went into the film deseperately clinging to every ounce of childlike optimism we had left bodies, hoping that damaging and stereotypical imagery in the trailer didn't necessary constitute a damaging, stereotypical film. Unfortunately, our hopes died in the cinematic cemetary of warm-hearted idealism within the first minute of this eeriely-reminiscent of "Delta Force" action-drama. Here is my friend "Abu Mack" (that's right, his name does mean "Mack Daddy")review, mine will be posted shortly:

"Delta Force IV"

"The Kingdom", the new Saudi-Arabia-we-explain-it-all action flick, from the first few seconds of the preview: a condensed panorama of minarets, missiles, angry brown eyes, and falcons, always falcons. This movie, which should be called Delta Force IV: is plain evidence that the business of entertaining America has not moved beyond Chuck Norris and Not Without My Daughter. I thought we all had agreed these were cultural embarrassments never to be repeated again? Even the worst mistakes deserve a sequel I guess.

Basically, the movie is a Middle Eastern Studies grad student's wet dream paper topic. The symbolism is so clumsy it knocks you unconscious with a club foot: the most innocuous arabs are the ones you should fear the most (24), you can never tell the good arabs from the bad arabs, the only good arab is the one who kills his own people with impunity. American military and civilian bases in Saudi Arabia are ahistorical apparitions that are good and wholesome, like baseball/ Saudi Arabia has a dark, evil history full of malice and oblique camera angles. Arabs don't know what technology is and need America to help them sort out their own internal problems. And the most parano-hygienic people on the planet are dirty, sweaty monkeys at the end of the day.

At least it was a university screening which I didn't have to pay for, meaning I could complain without funding anything objectionable, conscience clear. The sound quality was terrible, running every racist double entendre through an echo chamber until it was a triple or quadruple entendrementendre. A fratboy in the row in front of me kept floating taco farts our way. And during the most brutal, video-game, dehumanizing scenes of America-on-Arab violence, the COLUMBIA student audience cheered with glee. When the mopy, mouse-like Jennifer Garner, in a sweeping gesture of imperial feminism, drove a dagger into the crotch of a Saudi fundamentalist-- after a sensuous brawl that resoundingly drove home the point that domestic violence is a staple of arab lands-- the students yelled as if a touch-down had been scored. Where? not in this flop of a movie. I was reminded of Noam Chomsky's words about spectator sports and mass entertainment preparing a nation for war. It's so interesting, with American moviemaking, how the women characters are portrayed as soggy wet blankets (the emotional cores of films), who commit violence out of an always "defensive" mother instinct, who stick by their fallen husbands, take mercy on the innocent bystanders, just as they obliterate a whole section of the same society aged 18-35 and male. And Jamie Foxx, as the irreproachable black athlete-hero, whispers vengefully to an American victim, "I'm going to kill them all", he allows all the personal and political capital he generated in his previous, progressive films, to cloak the inhuman message of this movie behind the impenetrable barrier of race.
Please make sure this movie goes straight to video, preferably Saudi bootleg.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Driving To ZigZigland Trailer

Apparently this is not a movie about driving in the un-lined streets of Damascus, like the title would lead one to believe:



For more info on the film check out the website here.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Why you're supposed to hate 300, and why nobody cares

There are many types of films. But when it comes to my money, movies can fall only under two categories: those worth the 10 bucks for at the theater, and those only worth waiting for on DVD.

Or TBS if they're Gigli.

Then there are those films I've been told I really need to see but preventing this, is the political and moral divide existing between my pocketbook and those involved in the making of said films. This is not a short list, mind you, but one that certainly includes anything involving the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Frank Miller and Mel Gibson.

Unfortunately, the aforementioned are often responsible for those movies America will probably love and I will probably hate; thus I must absolutely watch.

So what am I to do if I want to hold on to my convictions (read: hold on to my money -- I just found out I'm part Jewish, it makes perfect sense) while continuing to keep my finger on the pulse of American mainstream society at the same time?

A friend of mine asked me if it was okay to watch Apocalypto while it was on the big screen last year; something about the unfair portrayal of the Maya, a boycott, and Mel Gibson being crazy.

I had just watched the film with several friends with whom I'd taken a Yucatec Maya language course the previous summer. We were curious to see if, four months later, we could understand the movie without checking the subtitles too much.

I was able to report that the movie was gorey, historically inaccurate, and who does Mel Gibson think he is, using postcolonial Yucatec language in a precolonial context and did he really think nobody would notice?

Man, he really is crazy.

So I recommended that if she still wanted to see it, she get a bootlegged version. This conversation, I can now trace back, marked the birth of a third category of films: those I can’t morally condone paying for but are worth watching so let’s allow piracy distribution to let them distribute their way into my computer somehow.

I don't know how it happened so easily with the movie 300, but it did. (Okay, I do know how it happened but if I told you I'd have to kill you, and I'm a pacifist so things could get pretty complicated.) But here I am, in Guatemala, watching a homosexual God-king mentally sodomize an impossible set of abs that I’m supposed to believe are not computer generated.

Can I just go down on the record saying that fellas, please breathe out. At least one heterosexual female out here thinks that abs that abnormal are not kute.

They're abnormal.

And not kute.

I'd like to think that that was Frank Miller's point -- that killing machines are sooo not sexy and that he and I are finally beginning to agree on something. But according to at least one online source with a bazillion, gazillion members, at no other time have I ever been so wrong.

Below is a very condensed list of the Facebook groups on American college campuses that popped up soon after 300's release:

"AFTER I SAW 300 I WANTED TO KILL SOMEONE"
"After I saw the movie "300" I wanted to go kill something!"
"After I watched 300, i definately wanted to go outside and stab somebody"
"After 300 i decided i want to be a spartan warrior"
"After seeing 300 I wish I was a Spartan"
"After seeing 300, everyone wishes they were Greek like me."
"Actually Duncan, to be honest, watching 300 made me feel less manly"
and
"After seeing "300", I joined 300 "300" facebook groups"

How's that for keeping my fingers on the pulse of American mainstream society?

Before I continue with the serious problems I have with 300, allow me to admit that it is a visually stunning film. Almost every scene looks like it came out of an exceptionally drawn comic book.

Duh.

But, I do appreciate that. I can't say I came out of it wanting to kill someone, and I certainly didn't want to be Greek. (Seriously, Greek?) But yes, the cinematography was breathtakingly worth my time. In short, I recommend watching it -- but get yourself bootlegged copy. It's a moral imperative.

Miller would like us believe that anyone who wasn't Western in 480 BCE was abnormal, deformed and/or animal-like -- lobster-clawed; mindless turbaned drones; burn victims from the womb which rode atop massive rhinoceroses (rhinoceri?) -- don't forget about the rhinoceri.

Not unlike the rhinoceri they ride on today.

These monsters are the ancestors of those we -- Team America -- are "up against" in the Middle East right now --

"the sixth-century barbarism that these people actually represent."

After all,

"the contention that all cultures are equal and that every belief system is as good as the next, is utterly reprehensible. We have to understand that some cultures are superior and some cultures are inferior. Our culture in the West is superior than their culture."

"Free" Greeks going up against barbaric Persians in the battle of Thermopylae should serve as a reminder that history is repeating itself today and we must back, not question, our fearless leader if (SPOILER ALERT:) the western civilization the Greeks sacrificed 299 Spartans for, is to be saved.

Yes, one survived. Even if he came home missing an eye.

Not unlike our troops today.

I was curious to watch 300 to see if I could re-prove (see: Sin City) to myself Frank Miller is an asshole. I'd been warned by equally insufferable graduate students who, for fun, can critically analyze an ice cream scoop by using the words "Foucauldian," "discourses," "panoptic," "essentialize," "constructionist," "gaze," "hegemony," "poststructural" and "postcolonial" all in the same breath, who, after watching Miller's latest installation came back reporting that the movie 300 proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Frank Miller really is an asshole.

I suppose that in order to catch the connection one would have to step away from 300's hypnotic cinematography that has you rewinding each time to say, "Fuuuuuckk.... that shit was awwwwwwwesome!" and first question why a film would want to depict all Greeks as humans while depicting almost every Persian as deformed and animal-like.

Of course, in order for anyone to believe this might be untrue, one would first have to believe that Persians in 480 BCE were actually of the human species. I think it's safe to say that they were. Their descendants, who don't have lobster-like qualities, are still around today and are actually quite hott. I get mistaken for one all of the time at airport security checks.

We call them "Iranians." And a rose by any other name would look just as hott.

(That's two "t's.")

Azadeh Moaveni, author of "Lipstick Jihad", wrote about 300 in an article for Time shortly after the movie came out. She described how Iranians all around Tehran were convinced that the CIA funded Miller’s latest project in order to prepare the American psyche for war.

Iranians may not be wrong about Miller's intentions. But how effective has 300 been at beating drums for a war with their country?

Does it take someone with a trained critical eye to decode Frank Miller's larger project?

Does it take actual Persians to catch on to Miller without having to hear him spew out his orientalist diatribe on NPR?

Catching up with an Iranian friend on the phone this morning, I asked him if he'd yet seen 300.

He hung up on me.

Actually, it was more like an awkward pause that lasted 2 seconds but it felt much longer which made me think he had hung up on me.

“I refuse to watch that movie,” he finally replied.

On the other end of the spectrum, my Lebanese friend, Matt, says he watched the movie, thoroughly enjoyed it, and admits he didn’t read that deeply into it.

“I just couldn’t get over their abs!" He raved. "I thought they were spray-painted on, but no – they were real."

Matt is currently a college student majoring in economics at one of the country's top universities. Matt is also from a country bombed out last summer because of nut jobs sharing Miller’s political ideology who differ only slightly from Miller in that they:

A) actually have their finger on the button
and
B) probably can’t draw

I've had plenty of undergraduate males from other leading universities concur with Matt's take on their new favorite movie.

"The lead actor was just on the cover of my Men’s Health magazine where they show his work out," says another one of our best and brightest. "Now I can’t wait to get started at the gym."

Speaking of gay, there exist entire groups of Persians mostly pissed off that the wardrobe department made Xerxes look like a homosexual: bejeweled face, liquid liner, fabulous eyebrows, and an eye shadow combination which I swear looks like it came straight out of my MAC makeup bag.

The humanity.

But I think all of their anger is quite misdirected. I say that what we should really be pissed off at instead is that Rodrigo Santoro’s eyebrow plucking secrets never made it into any Cosmo article.

Those eyebrows were art. Infallible, apolitical art.

Comic book fans have told me in no uncertain terms that the day Frank Miller drew better webs on Spiderman's costume was the day Frank Miller became a God. Certainly, if taking issue with Frank Miller's irresponsible depiction of Persians does not score as high a moral imperative than does the pre-Miller depiction of Spiderman's costume, then ... well, I envy you.

I really, really do.

I hope you never lose that.

So in short, this KABOBer's review of 300 recognizes that Frank Miller's latest installation seethes as an orientalist allegory for the U.S.'s wars in the Middle East -- a blatant propaganda tool to raise support for yet another war, perhaps this time with Iran.

But to think that the average viewer is really taking all that away from this movie would be giving Americans too much credit. We're just not that bright, Frank.

We're just not that bright.

Read More...

Collapse Post...

Private: On War, Lack Of Peace, And Sharing Spaces

The olive tree-dotted Italian hills forming the backdrop for the film Private are deceptively similar to those of the northern parts of Palestine, even more closely resembling those around Nablus and Qalqilia. It goes without saying that the film could not have been shot in Nablus or Qalqilia.

A few weeks ago, my visit back to Wisconsin coincided with the Wisconsin Film festival. I had the opportunity to see Private; directed by Saverio Costanzo, and starring renowned Palestinian actor, Mohammed Bakri, alongside Areen Omary, Hend Ayoub, Lior Miller, and Tomer Russo.

The film is about a chapter in the life of a Palestinian family: An intellectual, Shakespeare-reciting head of household, Mohammed (Bakri); a pragmatist mother, Samia, who fears for the life of her children, believing that there is nothing worth risking their immediate safety; a rebellious teenage daughter, Mariam, of the political, resilient freedom fighter variety; and two teenage boys, one of whom is Karim, an intelligent, deeply secretive, reclusive, mischievous, up-to-no-good son (he reminded me of my brother Mohammed). The family also has a little girl and a little boy, whose lives become wholly shaped by the conflict in their home.

The family lives in a two-story home on the outskirts of town. The area is steadily losing land to the crawl of a Jewish-only settlement. One day, Israeli army soldiers take over the home and ask the family to leave; when they refuse, the Israelis restrict them to the lower level of the house, taking over the upper level, getting comfortable in it, and using it as an outpost to protect the settlement. At night, the soldiers confined the family to the living room, locking them inside, imposing some curfew in the house itself.

Having been in similar situations myself, I focused on the specific events, and failed to recognize the symbolism immediately. But as I ran the events through my head over and over again, it became clear how the events of conflict inside one house accurately and powerfully depict all the major phases in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The different events and interactions that take place during the film are a scaled-down version of the different types of interactions between Palestinians and Israelis.

Mohammed plays the politics of non-violent resistance. Almost a pacifist, his persistence and refusal to leave his home infuriates the leader of the Israelis, and makes him feel like a failure who is unable to accomplish a mission assigned to him. It pushes him to the edge in the process. On the brink, the officer loses control, becomes violent, and irrational. Eventually, he starts to ask himself questions that could enlighten him to the new reality.

Though increasingly politicized and angry, Mariam becomes very intrigued with the Israeli soldiers occupying her house; she begins spying on them by sneaking around the upper level of the house. This process leads to a certain amount of intimacy developing between her and the soldiers; she comes to discover the human side of the young soldier, and the fact that they resented being there in the first place.

The transformation of the Israeli soldiers themselves is also significant through out the film, however, like in reality, it does not play out in their behavior. They are still soldiers fulfilling a political and ideological agenda, no matter how much they regret their roles. Their masters are a step removed from the consequences. The masters are fundamentally insensitive to Palestinian suffering, but also they are ignorant of, or at best oblivious to, the suffering of their own foot soldiers carrying out the Zionist project.

One of the most powerful transformations is that of the two teenage boys who develop very different responses to the situation imposed on them. Though it goes without saying the generation ‘under-occupation’ in Palestine developed many different responses to the conflict, the two sons showed the very opposite and extreme reactions.

Jamal wanted to escape the conflict and wished he never was a part of it. He loved football and enjoyed the company of his friends. Karim, the secretive one, on the other hand, develops a violent reaction to the occupation of his home; turning the weapons brought by the Israelis against them, at all time aware of the danger his actions posed to his own family, directly or through the threat of retaliation.

The film is a chance to contemplate the reality of the situation and the pragmatism of any lasting resolution. Israelis are now here, and are not going anywhere. Most of those here did not chose to come to Palestine, rather were born there. We must accept to share our land with them, and even learn to like them. Palestinians are not leaving Palestine, are not surrendering, and are not giving in. They will fight to stay, they will fight to live, and will fight for equal rights. If Israelis seek to live in peace, they must understand that they are the foreign object, and have the obligation of building coexistence. They also, no doubt, must relinquish their racist ideology of an ethnically pure nation in Palestine. Once they accept to live like every one else, with no special privileges, they will be surprised how easy and forgiving life can be.

For those who could approach this film with an open mind, it is a must; it is definitely a powerful perspective on the conflict. If filming a range of the inevitable issues facing life under occupation could be done, Private did it.

Read More...

Collapse Post...