Captain America Versus the Unmentionable Enemy!
Well, one reason, of course, is fear. Islamists kill people who oppose them and if you’re sitting fat and happy in a mansion in Beverly Hills, you might not immediately understand why you should risk your life to encourage and glorify some other fellow’s son who’s off fighting jihadis in a lonely outpost beneath the Hindu Kush.
Another reason may well be delicacy. Even beyond any PC horse manure about “Islamophobia” (and you gotta be kidding me with that malarkey!), a popular artist may feel a reasonable concern about offending peaceful and freedom-supporting Muslims.
But I think we all know there is a far deeper problem than this. Our friends on the left, in their distorting obsession with identity politics, have talked themselves out of the habit of distinguishing between good and evil actions and beliefs. This is moral insanity. The Nazis (as Captain America takes pains to tell us) were not bad guys because they were Germans. Or because they were white. Or because they smoked their cigarettes with their hands upside-down, although that last is a killing offense. They were bad guys because their philosophy was vile and they were willing to slaughter and conquer to impose it on the world.
Likewise the Islamists. They are not bad guys because they are Arabs—they are not all Arabs, in fact. And no matter what one may think of Islam as a religion in general, there is no question that it can be and is practiced charitably and inoffensively by many.
No, the jihadis are bad guys because their version of Islam is an offense to humanity and they are willing to slaughter and conquer to enslave the world under shariah law, itself an atrocity against freedom. The American soldiers, spies and other lawmen fighting against them in defense of liberty are our real life Captain Americas. They should be celebrated in movies, songs and stories just as much, and just as often, as their fathers before them.
A postscript advertisement for myself: The Final Hour – shown above with Amazon link – and the four book Homelanders series which it concludes may indeed be the only adventure stories for Young Adults currently celebrating the battle against Islamo-fascism. They’re good books too. Read them. Now.
How about a film about a patriotic Muslim who fights against Radical Islamofascism (which definitely threatens the liberties of American Muslims as much as those of other Americans)?
How about a Muslim-American soldier who witnesses first-hand the evils of the Taliban, and when he returns stateside, vows to fight the taint of creeping Islamicization in the US, using all the skills he learned in the Special Forces?
I dunno what you’d call this (super)hero, but it’d make a powerful statement, and give Muslim Americans something with which to identify, in a context explicit in its reasoning (hero observes X injustice in the ‘Stan, and seeks to prevent it from happening at home).
You listening, Bill whittle? =^[.]^=
If he’s worried about his liberties and not about proper “submission” to Islam (and about compelling submission in unbelievers), he’s not being a very good Muslim.
Not that this is a bad thing…
The Muslim faith preaches, contrary to the current practice, that there is only one true Islam, without division. Despite the dramatic advantages and contradictions such a character could provide a writer, the outcome would likely offend the sensibilities, if not religion, of most potential Muslim audiences.
You dun know many American Muslims, do you?
Islam is no more a monolithic religion than Christianity or Judaism. There are degrees of adherence to different tenets of faith in all three (and just about any other religion you care to name), and modern, moderate Muslims, as are typical in America, have no more interest in overthrowing the US Constitution and making all the rest of us into dhimmi slaves than your average Buddhist. Caution when dealing with extreme Islam is simple prudence, but to see EVERY Muslim as constantly seeking the domination of the world is just silly.
It’s the real world, not four-color comics. Or do you not see the irony in tarring all Muslims with the “world Caliphate” brush while the Progressives paint all Christians as “fundamentalist theocrats”? =^[.]^=
I do not think the Buddhist or most other religions plan to conquer the world one head at a time. The muslims have been working at this for centuries and are not likely to play nice going forward, they are a violent religion and are not likely to change.
You are missing the point. The % of Germans who were actually nazis in 1933 was minuscule. It does not matter how many different ‘cults’ of islam there are. It does not matter how many ‘interpretations’ of shari’ah there are.
It only matters whether muslims are going to stand on the side of democracy, secularism and freedom of speach – or on the side of shari’ah, islam and blasphemy.
Every time a muslim women covers her face in public and other muslims do not stand up and say: That is the uniform of our oppressors – another stone is thrown at freedom.
Cute false narrative, but there is a historical basis, a coherent and plausible rationale to the Caliphate concept whereas the Christian fundamentalist world government you seem to fear makes no sense.
Ignoring The Handmaid’s Tale by the charlatanette Margaret Atwood, how would this work? Evangelicals try to recreate the Holy Roman Empire? What is the worst possible thing the fundies would do? Outlaw abortion, contraception, divorce, dancing? Stone gays, witches, adulterers? Burn heretics? Really?
Whereas Iran, one of the most advanced of the Muslim states, has a legal process where a doctor was going to execute sentence by dropping acid in the eyes of a man who had thrown acid in the face of some poor broad who had done something to annoy him, until she was pressured to forgive him so the UN wouldn’t crap on them or something. You want to see fags dangling from the noose? Probably can find it on youtube, Iranian courts sentencing adolescent gays to be mass hanged from cranes. Women too, all kinds of crap like that.
And no, it’s not just Iran – Egypt during the latest revolution had women protesters arrested and subjected to virginity checks. VIRGINITY CHECKS. What do you think that consists of? (and not one of them proved true it seems) You think they washed their hands first? This was allegedly so they couldn’t accuse the soldiers of rape. Paks have “honor” killings all the time. Etc., etc., etc. It goes on and on literally ad nauseam, and no better when in the West – French carbeques, Scandi gang rapes, Detroit honor killings.
Yes, not every single one of them, blah blah. It’s facile and I guess PC to say “the Christians are just as bad,” but really, it’s not true. I am not a Christian but I can see that quite clearly. Sure, whip out your individual horror stories – this abortionist killed or whatever. I won’t get to the level of scorekeeping, the point is Tillman’s killer and the others are hunted down and arrested, and the Islamic acts all have sanction of law and considered just/heroic.
Yes, I know, that’s raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacist. Whatever. Squealer was the pig in Animal Farm who could turn black into white.
Ahem: http://fawstin.blogspot.com/2011/02/infidel-1-download.html
Thanks, Tommy. And a PIGMAN movie was even mentioned in a Pajamas Media piece yesterday: http://bit.ly/pLqOjj
“How about a film about a patriotic Muslim who fights against Radical Islamofascism (which definitely threatens the liberties of American Muslims as much as those of other Americans)?”
Showtime had a pretty good series called Sleeper Cell where the lead hero was an American Muslim agent sent to penetrate terror groups. It was canceled after two seasons.
There is no such movie because there is no such Islam! This fantasy that there is a peaceful Islam and a violent Islam is just that, a fantasy. There is ONE Islam, and it teaches that unbelievers much convert (forcibly,if necessary), submit to sharia (Islamic law), or die. That’s it.
Now, there may be those Muslims who do not practice these things. But they are often harassed and even threatened by those who do, because they are considered not “true” Muslims.
***
The bottom line is that there may be peaceful Muslims, but there is no peaceful Islam.
I know that’s hard for many people to say, especially for conservatives. But it is the ugly truth.
Well, yes, there is a distinction. I’ve lived among Muslims, in their lands, as a member of the US military (usually on a lone assignment). I’ve read the Koran (& the Bible before it) & I was appreciated for the long talks in the desert (along with countless cups of tea) about culture & theology. But an appreciation of Islam does not mean that I have to accept it, & when dealing with fanatics bent on killing those who disagree, such as Islamic Supremacists (& the IRA, & Anders Breivik), the only solution is to eliminate them – they understand no other option.
And what I *don’t* want to see out of Hollywood is the political cleansing that I’ve seen in movies like ‘Sum of All Fears’. The original, excellent book by Tom Clancy portrayed the enemy who sets off a nuclear device in the US as fanatic Arabs. The movie had to change them to right-wing neo-Nazis. Michael Crichton (God rest his soul) hated Hollywood & for just cause (‘incandescent idiots’), & had the same problem with Hollywood’s movie version of ‘Rising Sun’ (among others).
Check out the movie Traitor by Don Cheadal. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0988047/
As to the indictments against Islam. I will not get into it because it is a circular argument. We need to start judging individuals’ actions instead of making sweeping generalizations. If you say Islam has taught you to live peacefully and and repsectfully, I will take you at your word so long as your action match your words.
There was Sleeper Cell, a cable miniseries, Oded Fehr was the villain, but an American Muslim (a black man, the actor’s name I forget) went undercover to stop/catch them.
Why? Because it would be stupid. Try as hard as you can, there is no way you could have an ‘islamic terrorist’ be the caliber of Red Skull, or ANY of the main villains. It just WOULDN’T work. It would be like making a movie where Batman enforces traffic laws on double parking.
There are certain comic book heroes that can only be used certain ways. If you don’t, it just doesn’t work.
Now, if you wanted a story that involved an Islamic terrorist, you could have one, you would just need an appropriate action hero. The Punisher, for example.
You’re missing the point. Movies about the current fight against Islamo-Fascism need not include superheroes at all. They only need to tell the story of the actual fight – military action, espionage, etc.
The point is that the current fight is equally as valid as the one against the Nazis because the current enemy is just as evil as the Nazis were, yet Holywood refuses to tell the story.
No, he makes a valid point. In truth, Islamists are rank (stinking) amateurs. They wish to drive out all other religions. They wish to kill all who will not submit. And they manage to even kill a few tens, here and there.
In contrast, based on the West’s record, no one can slaughter like us. If we ever decide to reciprocate against Islam, if we ever cast off our self-imposed restraints, look out. Never happen? Yeah? Let them set off some NBC weapon in one of our cities.
We go very easy on these guys, because we are more afraid of what we ourselves might do. We are afraid of us, not them. They know nothing of terror, because they have never experienced our brand of terror.
You do have a point there. If we ever get pushed to the point of really getting mad the West vs. Islam war would probably look more like the one sided Earth-Mimbari War from Babylon 5. And hopefully we, like the Mimbari, would wake up from our rage before we exterminated them entirely.
Why, if they were exterminated, problems from that end of the world would cease and the other dirt bags running around building there nukes and such might get a clue.
Marc. why wait till they set off an NBC. hell they flew planes into the twin towers. that alone should have been enough,
You not only missed my point, you also missed the point of the post to which I responded, and apparently Klavan’s point as well. Congratulations.
Actually an Islamic terrorist would be perfectly in keeping with some of the bad guys that Captain America has fought in the past. Not every supervillain is of the caliber of the Red Skull. Sometimes it’s just a drunk French mercenary who knows savate and has been hired to steal Cap’s shield by a scientist trying to reproduce the alloy it’s made from. And if that Islamic terrorist is planning to detonate a small nuke in the parking lot outside the Superbowl which the Vice President is attending, it would probably qualify for summer blockbuster treatment.
My review of the movie is word-for-word the same as yours. Same likes (many and major); same dislikes (minor and few). But add to it: fight scenes where you could actually tell what was going on!
Man, if some right-wing filmmaker pitted Captain America against al-Qaida, I’d rocket to the theatre so fast that I’d break the sound barrier!
“there is no question that it can be and is practiced charitably and inoffensively by many.”
I dispute your ‘no question’ assertion..
Charity (zakat) in islam is only for other muslims.. 20% of Zakat is mandated for Jihad.. so the peaceful hypocrite muslims can do their part for taking over the world by funding the good muslims..
Any muslims that are inoffensive are behaving that way in spite of their ‘faith’ (smile at non-muslim’s face, curse them behind their backs–taqiyya).. or there aren’t any non-muslims around to treat like dirt..
@ vangrungy
Thank you for saying this! Not even most people who are knowledgeable about Islam and speak out against the violence taught in it and practiced by its followers are willing to go this far.
I don’t know the exact percentage of charitable giving required by Islam, or how it is distributed, but your general comments are correct.
Because of the doctrine of taqiyya, there is no way to know the true intentions and behavior of those Muslims who claim to be peaceful. For example, there have been numerous reports about what is being taught in mosques. The people attending there may not have committed violence themselves, but they are sitting there listening to hatred and violence being preached week after week!
I realize this is a difficult thing to say, because it seems to be putting all Muslims into question. But it’s THEIR doctrine. I was horrified when I learned about it!
Ask yourself, when were there EVER mass demonstrations by Muslims, all over the world, openly denouncing the attacks of 9/11 in America, the one in London, the one in Mumbai, and all the rest of the bombings, attempted bombings, kidnapping/beheadings of reporters, etc.?
When were there mass demonstrations all over the world denouncing the violence and threats of violence by their co-religionists upon those who created/published the Mohammad cartoons and standing up for free speech everywhere? On and on I could go.
Where were the demonstrations all around the world by Muslims celebrating the killing of bin Laden? After all, he was not only responsible for the murder of thousands, but he misrepresented their religion for all these years!
Where was ANY of that? You know the answer:
:::crickets:::
For all those who still hang on to the comforting fantasy that there are somehow two Islams, one that teaches/supports oppression and violence, and one that does not, ask yourself why none of these demonstrations have ever taken place.
And they never will.
come on, nohing is ever that black and white. Take the issue of slavery for example. Many people believed it was an evil institution but were unable to speak out against it due to real threats of violence. You may respond that it took the civil war to change their mind, but it would certainly have helped if there had been a mechanism for everyone in the southern states who disapproved of slavery to able to speak freely about it without being cowed.
Look at race relations in the 20th century. A person who spoke up against the injustice of segregation could be visited by the KKK and even as late as the 1960′s be labeled a N-lover – a charge that could quickly silence debate.
I’m not making any assertions about Islam and its compatiblity with democracy, so don’t hit me with that strawman. I’m just saying that there are plenty of Muslims in the western world who would like to find an escape from Jihad, much the same way that southerners in the south would have liked to see an end to slavery and segregation. Why not support them instead of dismissing them?
No – they are here as part of their population bomb jihad’s – like the one they are almost ready to set off in Europe (there they openly say they will take over in 2030). They already have one entire city in Michigan. You may have heard of it – Dearborn. They chased every non-muslim out of that city.
As for slavery – piffel. I’m just not going to talk about that issue anymore. It’s dishonest. Black people sold black people – yet a free people only hate on and blame whitey (an innocent people). It’s the blacks who are the true racists because they believe they are better than a people who never owned other people.
Why is the enemy unmentionable and only “anti-war movies” get made during the last eight years? Probably for the same reason that only one war movie, the Green Berets, was made during the Vietnam War. The film critics, Ebert for instance, hated it, but it made money. Basically, from what I can see, Hollywood sat out that war, doing Easy Rider and Alice’s Restaurant, and basically bonding with the Viet Cong.
What would be even better would be for the gaming industry (Modern Warfare franchise) to stop making the enemies Russian, stop putting the first-person shooter in the position of having to shoot U.S. marines or British soldiers. Make the enemy who they are. Grow a pair.
Reasons I absolutely hated the last Modern Warfare. Also, don’t forget the conspiracy by the US General that started the whole thing.
Hollywood can’t make that kind of movie because it would require creativity on the part of the writers and producers rather than the actors and CGI artists. We are treated to Nazi’s because no one is expecting nuance. They are bad, bad, BAD. To have a jihadi bad guy, you need to have writers and producers recognize that it is your actions and ideology, not your race/complexion/gender/religion that makes you a bad guy. Behaviors not group membership. And that would also mean doing away with the multicultural drivel that says all “groups” are equally right and equally good.
I agree with Raycheetah that a anti-jihadi Islamic hero would be a pretty neat story. But I’m also pretty sure that movie will never be made.
Hard to believe that the only major movie to take on radical Islamic terrorists head on was True Lies, all the way back in the early 1990s. And that movie was a huge financial success. So why not try another? If anything, it would be more relevant now and would probably make even more money. But, because of “political correctness,” we don’t seem to want to offend anyone, even if almost every terrorist act in the world is committed by a Muslim. And please, before any of you liberals start screaming about the kilings in Norway, that was the act of a lone maniac and NOT a global terrorist movement with Islam as its foundation. So maybe we need another True Lies? Maybe to placate the politically correct crowd out there, the Arnold Schwarzenegger character could be played by a patriotic American Muslim? I smell blockbuster here! Well, maybe not, given how politically correct Hollywood is today.
Actually, there were a number of films in the ’80s/’90s that had Islamic/Arab villians – “Death Before Dishonor” with Freddie Dryer, and “Navy SEALS” with Michael Biehn & Charlie Sheen both featured Middle Eastern baddies who had to be killed in order to preserve the peace. Those movies couldn’t be made today, since the Hollywood money-men, the directors, and probably most of the actors, would be paranoid about offending some mullah who isn’t even going to buy a ticket to the picture. The entertainment industry has had a problem making films that make the bad guys really bad – unless it’s an American, usually in the military. Why? Because most people in the entertainment industry hate America. Now, John Milius would probably make a good flick based on the War on Terror – but good luck getting it financed, released or plugged…
They were so common I remember a Chuck Norris flick (I think) where the city of NY was shut down and placed under martial law. They rounded up all the muslims a la concentration camp style. Annette Benning was a CIA agent who was boinking a sleeper cell guy who she inadvertantly activates. He’s not happy about it but goes on his terror spree like a good little soldier of allah.
Also, remember Back to the Future? The Doc uses the money he gets from the Libyans (who want him to build a nuke) to build his time machine.
I thought Red Skull was an Islamofascist in disguise: as you note, he talks about a future without national flags, and he gets his power from “the gods.” Rather than attacking the Nazis, Captain America was diverted into attacking a neo-fascist religious nut.
A Google Books search for the word “justice” in Mr. Klavan’s recent book yields as the first hit:
Does this kind of rhetoric sound familiar? Sadly, it should … it is highly regrettable that PJM/Tatler lending its support to the Klavan/Breivik brand of spew.
Breivik Was Influenced By American Islamophobes Behind ‘Ground Zero Mosque’ Hysteria
URL: http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/07/25/277631/breivik-influenced-by-american-islamophobes/
Do you have any idea how stupid you sound, insisting that anyone who opposes the implementation of radical Islam here in the States is essentially in league with the mass murderer in Norway? We’re as much responsible for him as you guys are for Loughner (yes he’s a radical liberal, media reporting to the contrary) or McVeigh (who did what he did largely because he opposed Desert Storm). Stupid stupid stupid.
Actually, Brevik was more influenced by Naomi Campbell and Gandhi than by any “right-wing” source. Oh snap! There goes a narrative!
You just humped the shark, physik.
A phobia is an irrational fear of something. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to fear islam at this point in time. Therefore islamaphobia does not exist and any article that discusses it should probably be suspect.
You print that Klavan paragraph like you think it’s some mark of crazy or something. They both have been inflicting death by a million paper cuts to the west for over a hundred years and now they have joined forced to deliver the final death blow. You are one of them, you know. A killer to the age of enlightenment.
If I recall correctly, the first Iron Man movie featured Islamist terrorists, or rebels, or insurgents, or antagonists, or naughty persons – whatever you want to call them. Of course, they were “balanced” by the Muslim scientist whose family was killed by an American airstrike. And also of course, the *real* enemy in the story was a corrupt defense contractor selling arms to the semi-aggrieved Islamists with which they would, presumably, kill our own troops. So although the Islamist enemy is mentioned, he is a minor player compared to the evil Capitalist enemy. Still may we give the flick some credit for at least including Middle Eastern people who aren’t terribly fond of the United States?
Ridiculous question. Captain America has always been a World War Two hero who was unfrozen in “the present day” and went on to fight America’s enemies. Of course the origin story was going to involve fighting Nazis, and it’s a cool origin story that deserved a full movie.
Your question may be relevant in the next Cap movie when it’s set in the present day, but not at this point.
And dude, Iron Man? The movie was about him arming the U.S. military in Afghanistan, getting captured by local Tali, then creating the Iron Man suit to PWN them (and then, to go back and PWNs them some more). The Marvel movies have already given you EXACTLY what you’re asking for!!! There’s plenty of room for complaining about political correctness in Hollywood, but the current slew of Marvel superhero movies is not it.
“My real complaint, then, is not about Captain America itself but about all the films like it that are not being made. ”
Did you even bother to read what he said, or did you only hear what you wish he had said because it makes arguing against easier?
I’m in the process of writing a story with a Muslim vampire. Yeh, more damn vampires. I’m only attemptiong this after years of reading Islamic history from both sides. Anyone up to the research is welcome to try, and those cheering crowds on Osama’s death day show how Americans will react to the kind of stories Mr. Klavan suggests. Let’s not constantly concede the field to Islam. I say they know as little about us as the Left says we know about them. Time to get on with it.
Andrew,
You ─everyone at PJTV, and all regular visitors & members─ have to watch this in its entirety:
Islamic Emirate Project – Sharia Law Controlled Zones in British Cities – Press Conference
Unless the West smartens up it’ll be as impotent as Captain America fighting a national epidemic of head lice with nothing but toothpicks.
How about Vlad Tepes as an historical islam fighting super hero?
Dracula my butt… Perhaps the Order of the Dragon were the first Avengers..
How about a movie telling the story of Constantine XI and the fall of Constantinople?
(Then again, we’ve had the idiotic Hollywood take on the Crusades; I’d hate to see what would come from *that* story…)
Andrew: Your post got me thinking. Mutatis mutandis, if World War II were being fought in the present-day cultural climate, how do you think Hollywood would portray Nazism? I’m asking this as an honest question. Is Nazism so inherently evil that it would resuscitate the traditional understanding of good and evil even among Hollywood liberals? On the other hand, is there something inherent in our present culture that will not permit it to view enemies as such, no matter how odious there crimes?
I really enjoyed Captain America, and found it a satsifyingly patriotic film. The closing credits montage, animating WW2-vintage poster art, was a paean to the American fighting spirit. And however it may have been intended, I found the Buzby Berkley musical number refreshing and charming: such musical extravaganzas were invented in America, and are yet another thing to love about this country.
Well consider that the Nazis didn’t become ‘pure evil’ until after they attacked the Soviet Union. That should tell you everything you need to know about how hollywood would react today.
I have been saying for the last 5 years that Hollywood is ignoring hundreds if not thousands of stories of the men and women fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Just reading the commendation description and you have more than enough to craft a movie around the situation the recipiant was involved in.
But I am not going to hold my breath.
Worth reading and pondering:
It was those seven soldierly virtues, and that simple clear message, that Anders Behring Breivik never learned … and the result was horror.
Neither are those seven virtues, and that simple message, conveyed anywhere in Andrew Klavan’s work.
Preserving Soldiers’ Moral Character in Counterinsurgency Operations
by BrigGen H.R. McMaster
in Ethics Education for Irregular Warfare
URL: http://books.google.com/books?id=wZsXpbQZg_QC&pg=PA15
Those values only work when fighting an enemy with a similar moral code to our own. When fighting one with a vastly different moral code it does not apply. That is why we had to use such extreme measures as the Atomic Bomb against Japan during WWII, and that is why extreme measures will be required to get the current crop of enemies to stop attacking us.
American Muslims not included, the majority of Islam sees any kindess as a weakness. They will accept it, and be nice to our face, as long as we are constantly providing for them and are within view, but the minute that we are no longer around they will return to hating our guts. That is because ANYTHING is permissible when dealing with infidels as far as they are concerned. We are not one of them, we are not worthy of their respect. Until people can grasp those facts, as our predecessors in WWII did with the Japanese, this fight will continue. We are dealing with a fanatical culture that does not wish peace except through our annihilation or assimilation into THEIR beliefs, they have no middle ground.
Indeed.
In Iraq, they have been wanting us to leave. We are seriously looking at it, because of budget constraints. Now with a strengthened Iran and more Islamic Turkey and a savage Syria next door, the thought of the USA forces leaving fills them with fear.
Oh, they still hate us, though.
They are insane. Their mental processes are just totally warped.
Agreed. We should have never tried to nation build there. We should have treated them like we did Dresden and the firebombing of Tokyo. For those four planes we should have nuked four cities – one of them being Mecca or Medina.
I seem to remember Frank beating up Khomeni among others at the beginning of one of the Naked Gun movies… Does that count?
Sure, Gorby and other big commies were there besides just the religious nuts, but hey it beat him up. That has to count for something.
Haven’t seen Captain America but more often than not, Hollywood meets my low expectations.
And besides my own efforts, don’t forget that Frank Miller’s HOLY TERROR graphic novel is also coming out this Sept. http://bit.ly/o4Ejma
Shhhhhhh … Be verwee verwee carefow. It’s Wamadam, you know.
Anyone looking for a Muslim hero fighting Muslim bad guys should try the Assassin trilogy from Robert Ferrigno. In a fractured America of the near future, a former special forces soldier in the Islamic States of America fights the machinations of a self-described Muslim Messiah. There’s also missions into the Bible Belt, which is a portion of the United States that fought the Islamification of America and broke away. The Constitution and Declaration of Independence are practically religious relics. The books are quite good.
Captain America is one of those movies where the film maker is leaking information to the public — In this movie, the hydra is depicted as a government within a government with technologies decades ahead of it’s time. Any body who has read Joseph Farrell’s “Reich of the black sun” and “brotherhood of the bell” is familiar with declassified government documents that prove Nazi Germany made major breakthroughs at the end of the war and could have won if the war had lasted another 3 months: Long range rockets, fuel air bombs and planes that could travel at 1,200 mph by Dr Lipisch. The plane at the end of the movie was actually a horton brothers’ look alike. The movie makers aren’t making as many movies about our current fight because the government documents are still classified and we have no idea what is going on behind the scenes.
I’d like to see a movie about the Marines first overseas action, the Barbary War. 8 Marines lead 500 Greek, Berber and Arab mercenaries in a march across the Sahara to capture the Tripolitan city of Derna, the first time the American flag was raised on foreign soil. Pretty epic and the reasons for that war were only a little different from the one we face today.
Before that war broke out between the Muslim nation states of north Africa and America, our diplomats met with theirs and asked why they thought it was alright to commit acts of piracy against our ships and keep our people as slaves. The answer was as follows via wiki:
In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Jefferson and Adams inquired as to “the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, to which Jefferson reported the ambassador’s reply:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. [12]
Sounds familiar eh?
I suspect that the reason a movie about the real-time battle that’s going on in the world isn’t being made — whereas, when the Nazi threat was real, Hollywood was making films about it — is that, back in those days, America had an ideology based on Judeo-Christian values that encouraged a confrontation between good and evil — with the common conviction that, by sacrifice and discipline, good would win over evil. Back then, Americans/the West could discern between the good guys and and the bad guys — the guys that would subject us and our families to servitude or even death.
Today, not so much.
After a few generations of relativism and secular humanism being taught in our schools, after a few generations of fewer and fewer people hearing the Gospels and living, day by day, by their precepts, sensibilities in the West have been blunted; we’ve become too comfortable and complacent. We live in parallel universes now, a few million i-pods here, a few gazillion video games there, very unlike having a common purpose as the West did when Nazism was threatening to annihilate us. We in the West are an ADHD Civilization.
The Lord’s command has always been that we “may be one.” Our interests and activities are so fractured now, so individual, that even in one family, no one knows what others are thinking or doing, let alone what our neighbours re thinking or doing. Multiply that by hundreds of millions — and, Washington, Ottawa, London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, we have a problem: We have no common purpose in the face of dire threat. Our “self-imposed restraints” (Marc Malone above) are our lack of vision, our lack of common purpose, and our lack of courage, all virtues with which our communal and active Judeo-Christian faith used to provide us.
Kyrie eleison.
should be depicted as a cynical business (as here and in Flags of our Fathers).
I never saw the movie Flags of our Fathers, but as the book was pretty cynical about the selling of war bonds it seems the movie would have been just following the book.
The Nazi’s are the last enemy that it is politically correct to call evil. Thus the reason they get used as an invective on the internet so much. Godwin’s law basically says that if your argument is reduced to calling your opponent evil(a Nazi), then you have essentially lost the argument.
The only other acceptable bad guys in Hollywood these days are corporate fat cats or politicians or the police. Or else the villain was manipulated by one of the above so it’s never about defeating the bad guy. And this is despite notable exceptions to this rule doing really well at the box office. One of the reasons that The Dark Knight was so successful was the absolute evil displayed by the villain of the story. But even the villains in the Iron Man movies are corporate big wigs.
I also think that this is one of the reasons we see zombie stories and movies becoming so popular these days. It’s ok to use them as villains because their actions aren’t based on an evil ideology(remember there is no true evil ideology), they can’t help themselves, they are already dead.
I’m going to take exception to your use of Iron Man for your point. First of all, the hero, himself, is a corporate big wig and a positive portrayal of one. He overcomes alcoholism (twice, after he relapses in the sequel). He treats his staff pretty darn well (at least Pepper and Happy). Also, in 2, Tony fights against the government trying to usurp his idea. I don’t know how we should interpret the concept of not selling the technology that would earn him trillions of dollars when all is said and done juxtaposed against the lack of trust in government. I choose to believe the CEO actually having some morality (which is another left-wing charge – all CEOs are greedily evil) is more important than his 1-time-ever abdication of capitalism (which in-and-of itself is really practicing capitalism).
In the first Iron Man, the villain is a coporate climber. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of one example, though. Those bad guys do exist and denying them makes you the same as the people denying terrorists are Muslim. In Iron Man 2, the other corporate big wig is a jerk, but the real villain is Mickey Rourke, the Russian guy motivated by revenge. In Iron Man 2, you basically find that Tony’s father (a.k.a. another coprorate big wig) was working for the betterment of society and that the torch has been passed to Tony. I would worry about the portrayal of the military in Iron Man 2, other than Rhody.
Hollywood makes movies for its worldwide customer base, a base made up for the past decade or longer of more non-Americans than Americans.
A cartoonish movie with Muslim villains will not appeal to teenagers in Indochina, Turkey, Egypt, etc.
(It’s also the reason Hollywood no longer makes intelligent films like The Apartment.)
“Peaceful and freedom loving” and “Muslim” are mutually exclusive concepts. They have been, right from the moment Mohammed rounded up his first batch of believers. the teachings of Islam make it cognitively impossible.
America is going to lose this war. We can no more win a war against Islamic terrorism without fighting Islam than we could have defeated Nazi Germany without fighting Nazism.
Aside from the fact they departed from the original Marvel script to have Captain America fighting for a scientific organization instead of with the U.S. Army and Nick Fury’s Howling Commandos; it also decided to blur out any images of the American Flag and Nazi symbols. The Red Skull didn’t form Hydra, Baron Strucker did. This was another ‘ashamed to be an American’ movie.
Hollywood should tell the story of the muslims’ original invasion and ultimate conquest of Persia (Iran), or Charles Martel’s repulsion of a muslim army at the Battle of Tours in France, or September 11th 1683 at the Gates Of Vienna when European forces last repelled muslim armies from an invasion of our territories. Telling these stories would bring home to cinemagoers that muslims who attack, kill and enslave non-muslims have always acted this way, and are doing exactly what their religious texts instruct them to do.
This is the dumbest sophomoric crap I’ve ever read. I would have like to have critiqued some of the points you made, but I was damned if I could find any. Take a class in exposition.
Want to borrow from Ann Coulter.
Lets make a muslim version of the DiVinci Code. Do that Hollywood and altering other novels in to scripts by changing Jihadists in to some PC villian will be forgiven.