Posted on 12/30/2014 10:57:20 AM PST by Kaslin
In July of 1870, King Wilhelm sent Foreign Minister Bismarck an account of his meeting with a French envoy who had demanded that the king renounce any Hohenzollern claim to the Spanish throne.
Bismarck edited the report to make it appear the Frenchman had insulted the king, and that Wilhelm rudely dismissed him. The Ems Telegram precipitated the Franco-Prussian war Bismarck wanted.
Words matter. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much greater impact can a motion picture have? We are finding out.
Egypt has banned "Exodus: Gods and Kings," the $140 million 20th Century Fox biblical epic. Cairo's culture minister Gaber Asfour condemns it as "a Zionist film" containing "historical inaccuracies."
The depiction of enslaved Jews building the pyramids and Moses parting the Red Sea to enable the Jews to flee and drown the Egyptian army is false, says Asfour. Historians date the pyramids to around 2540 B.C., 500 years before Abraham, the father of Judaism.
Paramount's "Noah" was banned in Egypt, Indonesia and Malaysia, for taking liberties with the Quran.
Islamabad is in an uproar over the Showtime series, "Homeland," where Pakistani intelligence services are portrayed as colluding with Islamists trying to kill ex-CIA director Saul Berenson and station chief Carrie Mathison. In the season's final episodes, the U.S. cuts ties to Pakistan and closes the embassy.
The Showtime series "maligns a country that has been a close partner and ally of the U.S.," a Pakistani embassy spokesman told the New York Post, and "is a disservice not only to the security interests of the U.S., but also to the people of the U.S."
The 2014 "Homeland" finale was aired just after 140 Pakistani school kids were massacred in Peshawar by the Taliban.
Islamabad is "a quiet picturesque city with beautiful mountains and lush greenery," said one Pakistani, yet is "portrayed as a grimy hellhole and war zone where shootouts and bombings go off with dead bodies scattered around. Nothing is further from the truth."
Angrier than Egypt or Pakistan is North Korea over Sony's "The Interview." Why would a film company owned by the Japanese, who are not beloved in Korea, think it would be a great fun to make a comedy out of a CIA plot to assassinate North Korea's head of state?
The North Koreans are serious people. They massacred half of the South Korean cabinet in the Rangoon bombing. They have brought down airliners and sunk warships without warning. They have plotted to assassinate South Korea's president.
Their megalomaniac ruler, Kim Jong-Un, just had his uncle-mentor executed, along with his family. Kim has atom bombs and seeks to miniaturize them to put atop missiles able to reach the United States.
He is the most erratic and dangerous ruler on the planet and this assassination-comedy is just the thing to set him off.
Says Adam Cathcart, a North Korea expert at Leeds University, "In North Korea it's more or less a fait accompli that the Americans are trying to kill our leader." To sustain its Stalinist dynasty, says the Washington Post, Pyongyang has created a "personality cult that is anything but a laughing matter."
In retaliation for "The Interview," North Korea, says the FBI, hacked into Sony's computers, published confidential emails and threatened retaliation against any who showed the film.
The North has repeatedly denied it hacked into Sony. But it now appears the U.S. has retaliated by disrupting Internet service in North Korea, much to the cheers of the War Party, which wants President Obama to put the Hermit Kingdom back on the list of state sponsors of terror.
North Korea is now using racial slurs to describe Obama.
There is an aspect of reckless immaturity here.
While the Wall Street Journal thinks it would be fun to send DVDs of "The Interview" by balloon into the North, the Washington Post says possession of the film there would be regarded as treasonous, and could bring a death sentence.
No one denies Sony the right to produce a comedy about blowing up Kim Jong Un. Nor was anyone denying theaters or Internet sites the right to show it. What Sony seemed to want was to produce a movie that made the assassination of a dictator appear hilarious, but to be exempt from any consequences.
But we live in a world today where if you produce cartoons of the Prophet with a bomb for a turban, or disparage Islam in videos, books or movies, you can get yourself and others killed.
Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was butchered in Amsterdam by an enraged Muslim for "Submission," a 10-minute film that excoriated Islam's treatment of women.
In this weekend's Washington Post, Joe Califano, a confidant of President Johnson, writes of how the new film "Selma" demeans LBJ's crucial role in enacting the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
To enrich itself, Hollywood is playing games with religious beliefs and historical truths -- and making enemies, not all of whom believe in turning the other cheek.
Pat is dead wrong on this one.
Show a movie and get another Benghazi? Buchanan is showing mawkish fear. And these antisemites say Jews are cowards — hrumph!
Concur. Ultimately, Buchanan's basic Jew-hatred always gets the better of him. Too bad.
It's ironic because on the other hand, movie makers do everything possible with historic consultants to be authentic.
There is merit to being able to discern what's real history or current events and what's fictions. British historical dramas still do that quite well.
This whole mess could've been avoided if Sony had used a fake country name and a fictionalized leader for their satire.
“Pat Buchanan” is a “Raised inside the Beltway” “Insider” Anti-Semitic A$$HOLE Punk.
Pat Buchanan is an historian, and a very good one. I'd expect him to respect the distinction between fiction and historical accuracy.
What the Hell is Buchanan talking about here? Is he really saying that Hollywood should not portray foreign countries in fictional ways? That every historical movie has to be accurate? He’s crazy.
Pat: See, there is this thing called FREEDOM. If you allow yourself to be intimidated by thugs and monsters, you forfeit your FREEDOM.
Grow up, Pat.
Pat Buchanan is a surrender monkey.
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Umm Pat, it wasn’t the Koreans. And if it was it’s not Hollywood’s fault dictators can’t take a joke.
That's akin to doing a remake of "Tora, Tora, Tora!" and using a fictionalized country to stage an attack on Pearl Harbor so no one offends the Japanese (some of whom think that WW2 never happened).
“This whole mess could’ve been avoided if Sony had used a fake country name and a fictionalized leader for their satire. “
I agree 100%. This was common until recently. (The Three Stooges in Moronica. The barbershop scene where Hitler and Mussolini are trying to get higher than each other was quite close to the truth. Everybody got it and Hitler and Mussolini couldn’t complain without admitting that the portrayal was them.) It probably causes no end of discomfort to US personnel who must deal on a daily basis with other countries, especially if the portrayal of the country is real, as with Pakistan. We have freedom of speech but if my son was in prison in some hellhole I’d be darned careful how I spoke about that hellhole, even if it was somebody else’s son they might take revenge on him. These are not nice people.
I don’t see a single mention of Jews in the article. What is it that you see?
I think Hollywood is playing with irrelevance.
“And if it was it’s not Hollywood’s fault dictators can’t take a joke.”
This sort of thing has happened before in the late 1800s, early 1900s. Some American newspaper wrote a satire involving the Chinese. The piece was mailed back to China where it was widely reprinted and was not taken to be humor. Westerners were attacked in the streets. IIRC it was part of the Boxer Rebellion.
Freedom isn’t for the risk averse.
Suing Hollyweird for making historically inaccurate films? They’d never do that. Would they?
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