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TODAY'S GO-TO VILLAINS.
Via Steve Clemons, a good short doc on Hollywood's vilification of Arabs.
Among the many offensive images and representations in the program, the clip from Back to the Future is particularly ridiculous. The year was 1985, Muammar Khaddafi was being sold to us as the new Hitler, (this was several new Hitlers ago; since then we've had Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein again, with Mahmoud Ahmedinejad acting as the current new Hitler) and thus "Libyans" was offered as perfunctory shorthand for "villains." So as not to draw attention to themselves, the "Libyans" drive around wearing army fatigues and kaffiyehs. (You'll notice, or maybe you won't, that one of the clever "Libyans" is wearing a red-checked Jordanian kaffiyeh; is this intended as a disguise?) And then, of course, the "Libyans" are driving a VW bus, well known as preferred conveyance of your flag-burning, apple pie abjuring, third world liberation sympathizing hippie. And thus we have the marriage of two of the iconic signifiers of the betes noires of Reaganite Middle America. Unfortunately, the scene where the terrorists are reading Pravda had to be cut.
While it's tempting to dismiss this sort of thing as "just a movie," it's important to understand how this sort of casual slander, the use of cultural signifiers to indicate "bad guy," can prepare a population to believe the worst about another people or culture, and to support disastrous and destructive policies towards them.
--Matthew Duss
COMMENTS (11)
They found me! I don't know how they did it but they found me. RUN MARTY!
Posted by: Doc | January 14, 2008 11:38 AM
"Gimme a Tab."
"I can't give you a tab, you haven't bought anything yet!"
"OK, then gimme a Pepsi Free."
"I can't give you a Pepsi free, you have to pay for it!"
Posted by: Anonymous | January 14, 2008 11:40 AM
Those who strap bombs onto children (sometimes their own) to murder the infidels aren't helping their image.
Posted by: El Viajero | January 14, 2008 1:04 PM
OK, future boy, where would someone have obtained plutonium on the black market in 1985? The mafia??
Posted by: Grumpy | January 14, 2008 7:17 PM
> "how this sort of casual slander... can prepare a population to believe the worst about another people or culture"
I'm glad someone on the Left is honest enough to label "The Handmaid's Tale" for what it is - religious vilification. You did mean to apply your statement neutrally to all groups, didn't you?
Posted by: Rod Blaine | January 15, 2008 5:28 AM
The worst of it is a highly successful, critically acclaimed TV show that portrayed Arabs as soulless and often psychotic killers.
Now that I think about it, they were actually Italian.
Posted by: Mike | January 15, 2008 1:01 PM
This has got to be a joke, "today's" villains using a movie that is 22 years old. And then getting pissy that the scarves are wrong (sort of like getting the tartans wrong in Braveheart, I guess)? Too rich.
I assume that the condescending, "above it all" tone of the article, expressing wonderment that Mahmoud Ahmedinejad is acting as the current new Hitler is meant to mock the apparent insanity of the left in ignoring that some of these guys actually want to kill westerners and establish a new Islamic Caliphate. Nope, it’s all a distraction, you see, from what’s really important, stuff like demonizing Christians as Jesusland freaks.
Yeah, it’s a real head scratcher why Islamic terrorists could be used as the go-to bad guy in fictional works. I feel the same way about aliens in the movies, Earth has never been attacked by an alien, but aliens still serve as the go-to non-human species for attacks on earth. All because Bush wanted space oil.
I have to hand it to liberals, any port in a storm.
Posted by: joeindc44 | January 15, 2008 2:23 PM
And readers think I'm a blithering idiot. I'll have to send them over here if they truly want to see what idiot writ large looks like!
Posted by: John Cole | January 15, 2008 5:24 PM
If it were true that Hollywood's choice of villains is being used to subconsciously mobilize the populace, then we must be getting ready for some sort of all-out war against white males, usually rich and often British.
Posted by: Floyd | January 15, 2008 5:46 PM
Ridiculous. If anything, there have been fewer movies about Islamic terrorists than one should expect just based on the number of high profile problems they are responsible for. More likely, political correctness has probably nixed more movies involving Islamic terrorists and governments than have made it to film.
Posted by: Drew | January 17, 2008 3:00 PM
This is a piece of lefty crypto-bigotry because of course we all know (wink wink) who controls Hollywood, don't we now....
Posted by: Anonymous | January 30, 2008 1:07 AM