Call it reactionary politics or just plain ignorance (possibly more likely), but the pathetic silence of the Hollywood Community in the face of the ongoing repression of film artists by jihadists in the Netherlands continues uninterrupted. According to this NYT report:
The Netherlands’ main film festival, now going on in Rotterdam, canceled a showing of a short documentary denouncing violence against Muslim women that was made by Theo van Gogh, who was killed 10 weeks ago. An Islamic militant is accused of the crime.
Where are the so-called Hollywood Liberals in all this? Perhaps I’ve missed it, by I haven’t seen one of them stand up on this obvious human rights and free expression issue. Did the Sundance Film Festival think to screen his film in memoriam to Van Gogh amongst its denigrations of American militarism?
UPDATE: It may not have been at Sundance, but you can see “Submission” here at the website of its screenwriter/star Hirsi Ali.
Hollywood liberals will never mention Theo van Gogh’s murder, unless they can find some way to blame President Bush.
It’s impossible for them to bring attention to the Islamic facists because they would have to admit that there is a danger, and that the Bush Administration and Bush supporters were right on something.
It’s also impossible because to do so would to take a position that is opposite from that of the ‘sophisticated Europeans’. Disagree with the French and you’ll lose those prime theatre seats at Cannes, and your hotel will put you in an 8′ x 8′ room, rather than aluxury suite. Tell the remnants of the Marxist cinema elite that there is evil in the world, and you can kiss your fancy dinner party invitations goodbye. (Not to mention that oil-rich Muslim princes won’t let you play in their personal shopping malls.)
The wealthiest, and most politically active leftist Hollywood actors, producers, directors, etc. have said NOTHING about one of their fellow filmakers being murdered.
Will they denounce this horiffic act on the Oscar broadcast? If they risk losing their Gucci ‘goody bags’, don’t hold your breath.
thank you, roger, for pounding this drum. i agree that hollywood’s behavior ignoring van gogh’s film is shameful, and your holding up his standard is significant because you are from their in-group. frankly, i’d like to see just what he filmed that warranted such a bloody and hateful murder–slaughtering an artist as he begged for mercy. if our artists are intimidated by his death, or are immune to his pain because they disagreed with his work, then they are no longer our leading edge, our artists, and fall into the category of propagandists for one point of view. it’s a great loss to all of us. given their history supporting navajo filmmakers, i expected better of sundance.
There seems to be something wrong with the comment, sign on, sign off mechanism. I don’t know if this is going to post.
My friends in Alkmaar, northwest of Amsterdam; and with a daughter living in Amsterdam, still firmly believe that talking, negotiating, and “working things out” are the only possible answers.
I have asked them when in history that has worked, and we were unable to come up with any answers.
I wish well for my friends, and by extension, others in Europe that have yet to face hardships in winning over harsh criminality and terrorists.
While they have faced many hardships, they do not seem to understand the actions necessary to head them off before they occur.
John:
I have no problem with negotiation but the jihadis are only talkative when they are issuing fatwas.
I think that Fox should run this movie. I wonder if they would?
In truth there should be honorary mention of the film at the Oscars. I wonder how many of them would risk death for their art?
The last time I went to my liberal writers’ group meeting, a bunch of Westside liberals were yapping about the “repression” of the Patriot Act and exhorting everyone to resist, raise awarenes, blah, blah.
To date, I’ve heard nothing about this repression–I mean, murder–of a fellow writer.
I think in order to answer your question, Hollywood first needs to know “What side is George Bush on?”. It almost makes me wish Bush would champion taxpayer subsidies for Hollywood product produced on our shores. That would be fun to watch.
How can Redford and his guests “celebrate dissent” at a film festival in which little or no internal political dissent is brooked, and not even see the perfect-for-an-Indie-movie irony in that? My kid’s boyfriend had to go to Sundance this past week as a fairly closeted Republican, which is de rigueur if you’re young and ambitious in Hollywood and have to work with all those principled “dissenters”.
Who really is surprised that these “dissenters” are indifferent to Submission being suppressed, when so many of them romanticize Fidel’s fascism and tolerate his censorship? Virtually none of these “dissenters” are glad about the fact we have our first African-American woman Secretary of State and (pending confirmation) Mexican-American Attorney General. The “dissenters” are less interested in principles of freedom of speech, women’s rights, and racial equality when their particular politics are at stake. Clearly, it’s all about whose team you’re on. Perhaps Hollywood “dissenters” know that Dutch Islamist “dissenters” don’t much like Bush’s Amerika, either. Or, then again, it could be a bit of PC vogue at play here: today’s multi-culti solidarity over yesteryear’s speech and women’s issues.
Anybody know if the Academy will address the Submission travesty on the Awards show?
It’s easy for Hollywood liberals to denounce the Bush administration, Republicans, ‘red states’, churches, and anything that smacks of mainstream America for one simple reason…
They Risk Nothing..
They live in a country that despite their rants about the Patriot Act, no army will round them up and summarily execute them for their political beliefs.
Cameron Diaz can make an idiotic political statement that Bush will make rape legal, without fear that she will hear her door being broken down by the secret police. But will she have the ‘courage’ to go to the middle of Saudi Arabia or Iran and speak out against the repression of women in those countries?
Danny Glover can hug Castro and make anti-American statements, but would he look Fidel straight in the eye and lecture him about the arrests and executions of dissidents in Cuba?
Tim Robbins can write plays denouncing the war in Iraq, but will he go to the middle of the Sudan and speak out against the genocide that the UN will never acknowledge?
The true dissidents exist where they risk their freedom and even the lives of themselves and their families. Hollywood ‘dissidents’ risk nothing.
Gosh!! Why is any one suprised??? Remember all the couregeous literati who swarmed to the defense of Salman Rushdie??
Speaking of courageous literati… Criswell predicts (OK, I predict) that Gary Trudeau will have BD commit suicide because of his war trauma within six months, a year, tops.
Roger, follow the money. I recently did a small amount of bean counting for my site and I discovered that a huge portion of total revenues are from overseas, especially from the EU. Even mega hits like Return of the King got more than half their revenue from overseas. The Hollywood (Liberals???) Left doesn’t want to offend their sugar daddies which now come from Europe.
Let’s see — boo the Dixie Chicks off the stage, and free speech is under attack. Kill a filmmaker – no big deal. Bizzaro world.
“They risk nothing..”
Reminds me of a quote I saw the other day, I think it sums up most activists perfectly:
“People are more violently opposed to fur than leather because it’s safer to harass rich women than motorcycle gangs.”
Hermie that was absolutely perfect. You should send it to the LA Times.