The Cheap Arabist / Islamist Propaganda film "The Visitor"

[Righting]

The cheap Arabist film: "The Visitor"

 

A pen-pal of mine was recently "forced" to watch that film ('The Visitor' - http://pajamasmedia.com/phyllischesler/2008/06/16/help-the-vistor/), by taking a flight in Latin-America as this was the "featured" film on board.

 

It was probably chosen because of its 1) Embedded "immigration" issue, 2) criticizing-America, popular with post Obama election ever more.

 

This is what she had to say about it:

 

A. It is a total reaffirmation of "we Arabs are always innocent victims".

 

B. 'Mouna' (mother of "Tarek") is a "bad" actress, she tries so hard to pose as "gracious", yet she never projects it, but rather a time-bomb, waiting to explode every minute.

 

C. Richard Jenkins, playing "Walter", the American professor who all-of-a-sudden falls in love in Tambor-drumming, apologizes again and again for the FED's arresting 'Tarek', an illegal immigrant, especially when he has been deported, he apologizes to Tarek's mother for US' (so called) "treatment"..., yet you don't hear any apology from Tarek or his mother for what Arabs did to Americans that caused Americans to be wary of Arab immigrants more than of any other immigrants...

 

D. Somehow an Arab ("Tarek": Haaz Sleiman) stars in African type of (drumming) music, how come? Is this an attempt to "dress" Arabs as Africans, thus alienating some Africans (those carrying a grudge) against whites?

 

E.If Arabs hate it over here, Why still come and immigrate, legally or illegally? And what is the big "horror" played in the film for a LEGAL deporting of an illegal alien anyway?

 

F. Another apparent attempt of alienating is posing "Tarek" as an "immigration" issue, thus another effort is being made by Arabism (the divider) to gather some Latinos' support against mainstream America.

[hulagirl]

I saw that film. I had to wonder, as well, what the horrible problem was with deporting an illegal Syrian from New York! Especially since, I think, the setting was very shortly after 9/11. Tarik’s wife was sure crabby wasn’t she?? Here that professor was being so nice to take them in and all she could do was give him stink eye all the time. Oh well!

[supremedoctrine]

This was nonetheless a very good movie with its heart in the right place, not the wrong place. Yeah, quite mush-brained in the story it “chose” to tell, the liberal slant it couldn’t resist putting on it, but if this one story is the exception that could just as easily have happened as not, why smear the film as propaganda? I took it as a human drama, not as improbable as you might think in its storyline and plot.
And the whole point about the title is that the college professor had become every bit as much a disinterested visitor in his own life as the Arab was an enthusiastic and highly interested visitor in America and the potential it held for him.THe two meet somewhere in the middle, on common ground that serves both their emotional and human needs for connection. Besides, the mother, in a bit you seem to have missed , admitted that she ignored the all-important letter she should’ve notified her son about, and that’s what put him on the list for deportation. So basically it was her fault, and maybe that’s why she looked so dazed and sad throughout the film, or as you laughably put it, like a “time-bomb waiting to explode”, while all the while
‘pretending’ to be “gracious”. That last ‘observation’ especially is the most off-the-wall misperception I think I’ve ever read from anyone about a film they supposedly have seen.

[Righting]

At least I liked the fact that Tarik's mom is shocked to see Tarik's girlfriend to be (so) black, exposing racism (n that world that tries to lecture us about tolerance...) is reality.