The reviews are in: ‘Zero Dark Thirty makes me hate muslims’

The film Zero Dark Thirty is now showing in theaters nationwide and reactions are starting to appear on social networks. Here are some collected on the tumblr site dapsandhugs:

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Here are some more that I found:

Responses to ‘Zero Dark Thirty’

Storified by Mondoweiss· Thu, Jan 17 2013 08:17:14

#PanicMode when two Muslim ladies come in to @ZeroDarkThirty 30 minutes into the movie. #shadyDarian Greb
The Muslim behind me constantly reminds me why I loved #ZeroDarkThirtyStephen Peter
@ZeroDarkThirty If you’re a woman you need to see this film. If you’re an American you need to see this film. If you’re Muslim, not so much.Joe Fitrzyk
That awkward moment when you are sitting next to an entire Muslim family at #ZeroDarkThirtyZeke
A woman catching Bin Laden is the biggest F you to the Muslim world #ZeroDarkThirtyMichael DeWitt
Should I be concerned that the Muslim dude in front of me in Psych class is watching a Osama Bin Laden video on his laptop? #zerodarkthirtyMark Baldwin

While the film has obviously found its supporters, backlash against it continues to grow. Yesterday, director Kathryn Bigelow defended her film from charges it promotes torture in an Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times . Bigelow claimed artistic license writing, “those of us who work in the arts know that depiction is not endorsement.” While this is obviously true, the film goes further than depiction. As Deepa Kumar wrote the film promotes extra judicial killing and the drone warfare that has become the hallmark of the Obama administration’s “war on terror.” Not sure? Check out this tweet from the official film Twitter account:

Update: The tweet has been deleted from the Zero Dark Thirty Twitter account.

(h/t @shishibean)

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I haven’t seen the film yet, so I will withhold judgment of the film itself, and Kathryn Bigelow is right that depiction is not endorsement. But she does seem to be a big time War-on-Terror buckle bunny, so I’ll take her protestations with a grain of salt.

Who needs Pam Geller when you have
Katherine Bigelow and Mark Boal.

And isn’t Argo producing the same effect for
Persians? Why is Argo virtually free of criticism.

This link is to a Turkish article about Argo’s
propaganda: http://www.crescent-online.net/2012/11/argo-hollywood-as-extension-of-cia-propaganda-zainab-cheema-and-maksud-djavadov-3400-articles.html

Very important post. I had no idea it pushed buttons like this, apart from the torture issue. The vast majority of Iraq war era films did not promote Islamophobia, I don’t think. “Stop Loss” last one I saw.

New legislation allows this direct conflation of entertainment media with government propaganda. Thank you, Obama. It use to be less direct.

As I noted on another thread about this, Steve Pieczenik’s podcast about this is well worth listening to:
“HOLLYWOOD FILMS SECRETLY DICTATED BY THE CIA”
https://stevepieczenik.com/talks/archive.html#.UPg4B6XQHoE

Scroll to the bottom of the podcast list.