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Mighty Big Lie
Front Page Magazine ^ | June 29, 2007 | Phyllis Chesler

Posted on 06/29/2007 10:46:02 AM PDT by Cecily

Hollywood has spawned a series of propaganda films all packaged as entertaining adventure stories replete with big budgets, big stars, bright colors and amazing technical effects.

For example, George Clooney's 2005 film, "Syriana," features a CIA plot to blow up a soft-spoken, highly sympathetic Saudi Prince who, doggone it!, was just about to free all the women in his country and usher in a modern era. Obviously, only dirty American oil politics is holding progress at bay in the otherwise peace-loving and tyrant-free Arab Middle East.

In 2006, Brad Pitt (Angelina Jolie's real life partner) and Cate Blanchett starred in "Babel," a pretentious but "high concept" adventure story set in four geographical locations, including Morocco, where the Muslim terrorists are depicted as soulful and sympathetic--surely the equals of Syriana's murdered Saudi Prince.

Liberal, eternally guilty Hollywood has found its new Indians: Muslims, mainly Muslim terrorists, but also the great, silent majority of Muslims, who are very photogenic, and who merely hate infidels. If the Muslim terrorists are brutal--well, by God, we drove them to it. We exterminated our own native Indians of color and then put the survivors on reservations where, dishonored and demoralized, they beat their women and drink themselves to death. The fact that Muslims are not native American Indians does not change the boilerplate mind-set: People of color are the victims, Caucasians are their victimizers. Hollywood rides to the rescue!

"A Mighty Heart," starring Angelina Jolie, is yet another propaganda film masquerading as an action drama. The film is presumably about Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter whom al-Qaeda, led by British-born Ahmed Omar Sheikh, kidnapped, tortured, and gruesomely be-headed on video, a copy of which they subsequently provided to the media. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed has confessed to the be-heading.

(Excerpt) Read more at frontpagemag.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: phyllischesler
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If CAIR likes it, you it know it must be a giant economy size piece of dreck.
1 posted on 06/29/2007 10:46:04 AM PDT by Cecily
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To: Cecily

I watched Babel a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t feel sympathetic towards terrorists one whit after watching the movie. In fact, the movie made them look rather stupid! The movie was kind of dumb too, imho.


2 posted on 06/29/2007 10:50:26 AM PDT by marvlus
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To: Cecily

Went to see the new DIE HARD Wednesday evening and the trailers featured a flick titled THE KINGDOM, featuring Jamie Foxx and Jennifer Garner as FBI agents kicking ass, at least it looked that way, in Saudi Arabia. But will it be a whitewash too?


3 posted on 06/29/2007 10:59:33 AM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

To: VfB Stuttgart

I’m curious - how well, exactly did “Syriana” do at the box office.

Americans cried and cried over the fate of Daniel Pearl. If Jolie thinks they are going to embrace a movie blaming the West for Pearl, I think they have completely misread the American psyche. I’m sure it will do well with the 15% of the deranged cretins at DU or KOS, but the average American will not go see it.

I’m also predicting that SICKO isn’t going to do with business Moore thinks it is.


5 posted on 06/29/2007 11:09:47 AM PDT by Right Cal Gal (Remember Billy Dale!!!)
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To: marvlus

The only people I felt bad for were the people who paid full price to see that pant load of a film.
I had it from Netflix....Terrible.


6 posted on 06/29/2007 11:10:53 AM PDT by Holicheese (Zap Razdowler Rules!)
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To: Right Cal Gal
Syrianna Box Office Totals
7 posted on 06/29/2007 11:14:09 AM PDT by ravingnutter
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To: Cecily

Marked for BOYCOT.


8 posted on 06/29/2007 11:27:09 AM PDT by pabianice
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To: ravingnutter
So a 50 mil. budget and a 94 mil. world wide gross. How much of the box office goes back to the film maker? Did the budget amount include the advertising? Did this film break even? What have the DVD sales been like?
10 posted on 06/29/2007 11:33:24 AM PDT by chmst
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To: Cecily
Propaganda films are nothing new.

“Them”, “Day the Earth Stood Still”, “Failsafe”, “Dr Strangelove”, “Our Friend the Atom”, “Sweet November”, “Volunteers”, are all propaganda films of different types.

11 posted on 06/29/2007 11:50:12 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: Rummyfan

how was the new Die Hard ?????


12 posted on 06/29/2007 11:56:11 AM PDT by advertising guy (If computer skills named us, I'd be back-space delete.)
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To: chmst

Don’t have a clue, you have to sign up on the website to get further info, such as DVD sales and I don’t want their junk mail. I just found that info in a Google search.


13 posted on 06/29/2007 12:12:30 PM PDT by ravingnutter
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To: advertising guy

It was way over the top, but if you like Bruce Willis it’s very enjoyable. Just suspend belief for a couple of hours.


14 posted on 06/29/2007 12:15:32 PM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: DBrow
THEM a propaganda film? C'mon! It was B-movie sci-fi, followed by a host of other A-bomb spawned monsters, from giant preying mantis' to Godzilla.
15 posted on 06/29/2007 12:18:52 PM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: Rummyfan

Isn’t that what the movies are for?


16 posted on 06/29/2007 12:22:10 PM PDT by tajgirvan
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To: Cecily
It does sound like an awful film, full of lies and half-truths. It marks Jolie clearly as a "useful idiot".

However, I thought the author of the piece went overboard here:
I also remember Cynthia Ozick's powerful and poignant argument about the anti-Semitic nature of William Styron's novel since he chose a Polish Catholic to represent the Holocaust in his novel "Sophie's Choice" which was also made into a film. Of course, as a novelist, Styron absolutely has the right to do this. And yet, his failure to be true to the truth of the matter, in effect, ends up de-Judaizing the Holocaust. Millions of film-goers have been persuaded that the Holocaust did not happen mainly to Jews and did not decimate the world's Jewish population by nearly a half. Other people suffer too--goddamm it, the Jews complain too much. (I wrote about this in these pages in an article titled "The Rights of History.")

I did not read the book, but only saw the movie, but I do not remember anything close to a statement that the Holocaust did not mainly happen to Jews. This like the Brits who claim that Saving Private Ryan did the Brits a disservice by not depicting their service on D-Day, even though the film was not an attempt to tell the whole story of D-Day. Sophie's Choice was telling a story of some fictional people during the Holocaust who happened to not be Jews. IMO, the author undermined her own credibility when she went off on that diatribe.

17 posted on 06/29/2007 12:28:59 PM PDT by Sans-Culotte
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To: tajgirvan
Which one, THEM or LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD?
18 posted on 06/29/2007 12:30:00 PM PDT by Rummyfan (Iraq: it's not about Iraq anymore, it's about the USA!)
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To: Rummyfan

“THEM a propaganda film? “

It made the point several times that nuclear testing must be stopped, and stopped soon.

That was the whole point of the movie! A movie that bad without a political message would never have been distributed as widely or talked about so much.

I’ve never seen footprints like this..better call in a moulage team...


19 posted on 06/29/2007 12:30:12 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: ravingnutter

I’m very obliged and thank you kindly!
I was intrigued by the “poll” that asked “when will you see ‘Syriana’? The highest percentage - almost 30 - answered “never.” Hee hee hee.

But...but...it had George Clooney! We’re supposed to LOVE George Clooney!

(Personally, dude, I’m only 53, but I prefer your Aunt Rosemary).


20 posted on 06/29/2007 12:44:50 PM PDT by Right Cal Gal (Remember Billy Dale!!!)
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