Spielberg "Vengeance" Update: Steven's Stockholm Syndrome Worse Than I'd Earlier Diagnosed

DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL.COM ^ | JULY 1, 2005 | DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

[CHARLITE]

A New York Times article, today, confirms everything I've written and worse regarding Steven Spielberg's upcoming "Vengeance" movie. It is now a certainty that Mr. "Schindler's List" will expend the capital he earned on that film to now HUMANIZE(!) Palestinian terrorists who murdered the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972.

It's bad enough that Spielberg ran the script by Arafat-fan Bill Clinton--Arafat ordered the Olympic athlete massacre--and other assorted Clintonistas who drooled over Arafat, like Mike McCurry and Dennis Ross.

Worse is the revelation that playwright Tony Kushner (a self-avowed socialist and gay activist) is praised for "humanizing the film's hunted Palestinians and giving a fuller sense of their motivation." Can you imagine if someone did a film humanizing Mohammed Atta and giving a fuller sense of his motivation?! Or perhaps he can do "Schindler's Other List," humanizing the Nazis and giving a fuller sense of their motivation. Unbelievable. We don't need more psychobabble about understanding the terrorists and why they hate us. Who cares why they hate us? A better question is: Why don't we hate them enough to quit doing crappy, Stockholm-Syndrome movies like this?

If the Times doesn't make Spielberg's intentions--which I correctly predicted, last summer--clear once, it makes them clear twice. Kushner was hired by Spielberg "to humanize what he felt was too procedural a thriller," as written by another screenwriter.

Spielberg released a statement calling the Munich Olympic massacre "a defining moment in the modern history of the Middle East," as if he's proud of that. It wasn't a "defining" moment. It was an EXTREMELY TRAGIC moment!

One hint Spielberg is playing for the wrong team: "Vengeance" is being shot in Pan-Arabist Malta, which criminally prosecuted columnist Simone Endrich for criticizing Palestinian terrorists, homicide bombings, and the Maltese Prime Minister for participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. So glad Spielberg picked such an even-handed locale for "Vengeance."

Other signs Steven Spielberg is glorifying the Munich Olympic terrorists: He

* is concerned the project may be "misconstrued in the public mind" (if "Vengeance" denounced the terrorists, instead of humanizing them, there would be no reason for concern);

* is being advised by "a Hollywood spokesman who specializes in crisis communications" (if the film were against terrorists, there would be no need);

* is worried about "jeopardiz[ing] his tremendous stature among Jews" and that "admirers of his Holocaust work could misunderstand his new film and regard it as hurtful to Israel";

* released a short statement not just to the Times and Ma'ariv, but to Arab television network Al-Arabiya; and

* is "studiously avoiding the most glaring potential trap: drawing a moral equivalency between the Palestinian attack and the Israeli retaliation," his advisors tell the Times. Morally equivocating terrorists and their victims is not a glaring trap or something that needs hard work in order to avoid. It's a no-brainer, but not apparently in this film, which apparently will do exactly this kind of moral equivocation he needs to "work so hard" to avoid.

Unfortunately, Spielberg's idea of "Israeli assassins find[ing] themselves struggling . . . slowly giving way to troubling doubts about what they were doing," is nothing new. Been there, seen that. Another gay socialist Jewish screenwriter (just like Spielberg's Kushner) wrote a similar Mossad-assassin-has-doubts-about-killing-Islamic-terrorists-and-becomes-sensitive-guy thriller. It's called "Walk on Water," and I doubt Spielberg can improve upon that dreadful celluloid spittle.

Given all this, it makes the disappointing, Oscar-winning Munich Olympic Massacre documentary, "One Day in September," look almost appetizing.

Just two years after the Munich massacre, Yasser Arafat and company were rewarded with a Palestinian U.N. mission. One wonders what they'll get after Spielberg releases this propaganda piece, later this year, just in time for holiday gifts.

[Borges]

It's being in Malta? That proves it! Someone is divinating about a movie that hasn't been made yet.

[Nathan Zachary]

I guess Spielberg finaly confirmed the rumor which has followed him most his career, he IS nuts.

[Paul Atreides]

Tom Cruise hasn't converted him, has he?

[Ron in Acreage]

He's done nothing but profit on the holocaust,WW2, and others.

[Borges]

Wrong. He accepted no money for Schindler's List and has given millions to establishing the Shoah Foundation.

[Ultra Sonic]

Steven Spielberg = Ribs Veep Get Lens

Nifty anagram that means nothing, just like Bergy boy.

[Eastbound]

'Monica's doing WHAT??'

[caspera]

If Tony Kushner, author of the execrable "Angels in America" which tried to pin the entire blame for AIDS on the Reagan administration, wrote the screenplay, that does in fact prove it. Hiring Tony Kushner to write a screenplay about a military operation is like hiring Al Sharpton to rewrite the screenplay for "Snow White." Nothing good can come from it.

[Borges]

Israel is one of those topics where otherwise liberal Jews become conservative. (Natalie Portman, Alan Dershowitz...Spielberg himself). So I'm withholding judgement before I see it.

[Hetty_Fauxvert]

This article is ridiculous: there's nothing in it but rumors and second-guessing. Let the movie come out, and at that point it will be judged on its merits, or lack thereof.

[CHARLITE]

"Hiring Tony Kushner to write a screenplay about a military operation is like hiring Al Sharpton to rewrite the screenplay for "Snow White." Nothing good can come from it."

Super comment, caspera. Absolutely perfect. "Nothing good can come from it" is the only conclusion. This one simply has to be an apologia piece for the "downtrodden" Palestinians.........no different from Michael Moron, Ward Churchill's rendition of 9/11 as something that "America brought onto itself."

This Speilberg movie will "illustrate" how the Israeli athletes "had it coming to them."

I'll read reviews, but won't spend my money on it.

Thanks for your excellent comments!

Char

[Shortstop7]

Oh....that is supposed to be impressive?

Why can't he support his country?

[Borges]

I was responding to an assertion that he has 'profited' from the Holocaust. I don't know how charity work on behalf of Shoah Survivors is incompatible with supporting your country. Care to explain?

[Borges]

This Speilberg movie will "illustrate" how the Israeli athletes "had it coming to them."

I'd bet the farm it won't.

[Borges]

Nice pat dismissal without rebutting any of my points. And isn't it FR etiquette to ping someone when you mention them in your post? Keep up the hyperbole like your idol Debbie. Like she said how can it not be sympathetic to terrorists ...it's being filmed in Malta.

[Borges]

Notice not even Freepers who hated 'War of the Worlds' as a movie aren't making the claims she and you made about it trying to lower American morale. I'm only responding to what she wrote and stating that assertions such as those that she made in this case are broad brush smears at best. I'm saying nothing about her personally.

I don't regard calling the Middle East situation a 'Tragic Standoff' a terror sympathizing statement. Furthermore was he talking about that or the WOT (which he supports if I'm not mistaken). It's amusing that you think anyone who happens to like movies must be a paid sycophant. Look it's really pointless arguing with you about a movie that neither of us have seen (since it doesn't yet exist). Notice that even FReepers who hated WOTW as a movie didn't make the claims that Debbie made about it being some ploy to lower morale which, now that I have seen it, I can legitalemtaley claim were simply preposterous. And no I'm not 'Justin Raimondo'. I'm a Russian born Jew who has been accused in other threads of having more loyalty to Israel then to the U.S. But thanks for asking.