'American pie' used to rile militant muslims?

Great Debates
1

Maybe this is MPSIMS, in a way. But I don’t see it as either mundane or pointless. Maybe not worthy of debate though, but time will tell.

So I read a very interesting column today in the newspaper. It’s in Swedish and that particular comment is not online, so I see no reason to post a link.

The columnist said that the movie American Pie is played to young, fundamental muslim men, in order to show how perverted the US really is. Supposedly, it’s part of indoctrinating them. Since the local tv stations carry no American programming in, say IRAQ, newspapers are censored, Internet is unavailable ASF, these young men believe what their leaders tell them.
And when they show American Pie as an example of what entertainment, culture and drama is like in the US, no doubt, they get convinced that this is indeed a depraved society.

As I said, maybe this is not something that we can debate - but it sure explains some of the hatred shown towards ‘the great satan’ in that part of the world. This might be one reason they have their views…

Any thoughts, fellow dopers?

BTW - I trust the guy writing this. I don’t think it’s an UL or hyperbole.

2

Well, I just hope they see the sequel to round out their education on Americana 101. I wouldnt doubt they would do that. Japanese tourists still think that that they can get gunned down in the streets because of movies. Germany posted a warning to all german citizens regarding visiting the US because of the “rampant violence”
The terrorism school make use of the most ignorant of people and feed them full of fear, crap and rationalize it with religion. Theyll use anything to demonize their enemies (US) and if they dont find anything useful, they would just make them up. They pretty much use the exact same tactic the tabloids use to sell newspapers.

3

TG: BTW - I trust the guy writing this. I don’t think it’s an UL or hyperbole.

Well, I think the rest of us are going to need a cite. Saying that “American Pie is played to young fundamental[ist] Muslim men”, without telling us where, when, by whom, to whom, under what circumstances, etc., gives us pretty much none of the information we need in order to determine whether this purported practice actually has a significant impact on views of America in Muslim countries.

(Fundamentalist Muslim authorities screening for young Muslim men an American teen-sex flick with, IIRC, an R rating and acres of bare starlet skin? Is anybody else thinking this sounds a little implausible? “Oh, but they’re doing it to indoctrinate them! They know it will only convince the young men how depraved we are!” Mmm-hmmm.)

4

Question: In which Moslem country is this indoctrination supposedly taking place?

You should at least tell us who the columnist was, even if his column is in Swedish and isn’t online.

I don’t find anything at all on Google on the subject of Moslem indoctrination of young men using American Pie, so we must at least consider the possibility that your columnist is either misinformed, or is making it up. If we knew who he was, that would be useful information.

Because before we can discuss whether this sort of indoctrination is a good idea or not, we have to establish whether it even takes place, and I’m sorry, but “I trust him” isn’t good enough for me.

Even the most trustworthy columnist can get hold of the wrong factoid occasionally.

5

His name is Richard Guston and he works out of Paris. He says:
“The movie is often shown to militant muslim groups in the Paris Area.” This is a link to the newspaper: http://w1.sydsvenskan.se/. The column is not online.

6

Its no more improbable than these terrorist calling americans depraved, indecent and morally corrupt while they plan to murder innocent defenseless civilians, encrypt their messages on pornographic pictures, visit nudie bars and drink themselves into the proper state of zealotry just before piloting a plane into a skyscraper.

7

TG: [Columnist Richard Guston] says: “The movie [American Pie] is often shown to militant muslim groups in the Paris Area.”

snicker Wow, those sheltered Muslim youths living in the rustic innocence of Paris must be terribly shocked by its depravity.

It probably would indoctrinate them into the belief that Americans make crappy movies, though.

8

The term “Great Satan” had to come from somewhere.

This is a tragedy, it really is. You’d think that Freddy Got Fingered would be a better movie to make people hate America.

9

And say, TG, wasn’t the effectiveness of Hollywood teen-sex flicks as an anti-American indoctrination tool supposed to depend on the fact that “the local tv stations carry no American programming in, say IRAQ, newspapers are censored, Internet is unavailable ASF, these young men believe what their leaders tell them”?

How the heck is that supposed to apply to young men in the environs of Paris, who one assumes have plenty of other sources of information on American culture?

10

::sigh::

Oh, Kimstu. If you think I’m making this up, just go ahead and say so. You might have find a pleasure in thinking it’s a joke. I don’t. I really don’t think it would do any good to translate the whole thing to English for your benefit. It seems, however, as if you’ve never been to Chateau Rougue in Paris.
If you had, you might think diferently.

But I’m sure you see our quint rustic European ways as something of a joke all together. Seeing that we never experienced terrorism before 9/11.

11

Looks like a job for our pal Snopes.

Stranger things do happen but I’m still incredulous that it would used as a tool for recruiting muslim youth to kill pastry sodomizing Americans. I bet Stifler’s mom (mrowr!) would be responsible for more defectors than martyrs.

12

We don’t think you’re making it up, TG, but is it possible Richard is having his leg pulled by someone? Maybe it’s a joke that he missed?

Anyway…I don’t see anything offhand on Google, and if he’s not some sort of conspiracy theorist, then I guess we may as well assume that probably at least one militant Muslim group in Paris is screening this.

Given that, I don’t know what else to say. “Gee, those wild and crazy Moslems”? I mean, there are so many other American films that I could think of that would make better anti-American propaganda. How about Wag the Dog? That would be perfect.

And actually, they don’t have to rely on Hollywood for anti-American propaganda–all they have to do is read the news off the ticker. Monica Lewinsky, etc.

But using a raunchy borderline soft-porn teen film like American Pie is just…strange, somehow. I sense organizers who want to see the flick but who are embarrassed to admit it, so they think of an excuse, “Ah, I know–it’s anti-American propaganda!”

The whole thing just sounds a little fishy, because to us, the flick is an odd choice for anti-American propaganda. Why not use any of a hundred or so other borderline soft-porn teen films in the “must lose virginity by such-and-such a date” genre, or the equally popular and raunchy “Spring Break” genre? The answer is that American Pie is the most famous, so that’s why I’m thinking that somebody, somewhere, just wanted to see it, and the only way he could get his hands on it legitimately, given his probable political agenda, was to claim that it was for “anti-American purposes”.

Actually, they’re probably all sitting there green with envy at these American teenagers with their booze and their cars and their beautiful girls, and are also learning some interesting things about American band camp.

I wonder if their version is dubbed, or if it has subtitles? Thinking of the relevant line of dialogue and wondering how (or even whether) it’s translated into Arabic…

13

Can’t we blame Canada for that one?

:o

14

TG: If you think I’m making this up, just go ahead and say so.

I don’t. But your first two posts seem to contain a flat contradiction. You start out by saying that anti-American indoctrination via screenings of American Pie works because fundamentalist Muslim countries (“say, IRAQ”) have heavily censored media. Then we ask where these indoctrination screenings are supposed to be taking place, and you say…Paris. Huh???

I’m sure you see our [quaint] rustic European ways as something of a joke all together

Um, the reference to the “rustic innocence of Paris” was meant to be sarcastic. It’s precisely because I don’t think of European cities as rustic and unsophisticated that I’m baffled as to how fundamentalist Muslims living there could keep their young men ignorant of any information about America outside of special screenings of Hollywood teen-sex flicks.

15

Besides, don’t you think that they could be watching raunchy French sex comedies, and learning how depraved Europeans are? I somehow doubt that Muslims living in Paris would be shocked about how open about sex Americans are.

16

Thanks Lemur, that was what I was trying to get at.

17

Not entirely, I’m afraid.

18

I thought Iraq wasn’t a fundamentalist Muslim country

19

e-l: I thought Iraq wasn’t a fundamentalist Muslim country

I think TG is kind of conflating “Muslim country at odds with the US” and “Muslim fundamentalists”. But since it seems that these indoctrination screenings are supposed to be taking place in Europe, I’m not sure why Iraq is even in the OP in the first place.

20

Some other films Al Quada uses to…er…educate their disciples:

Road Trip
Men in Black II
Gladiator
Lord of the Rings
Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones

sometimes they also show clasics like:
Animal House
Caddyshack
Weekend at Bernies

Rumor has it they are very excited for the release of Minority Report on DVD so they can…uh…show how paranoid American society is…That and they like Tom Cruise…they think hes a credit to the Great Satan.