There have been a couple in the UK about Muslims… a famous one is called “Undercover Mosque” and exposes teh crazy in extremist mosques. That’s on a par with Jesus Camp.
I’d agree that most of the “anti-christian” stuff is aimed at the abuse of power; there’s very little mocking of normal, everyday faith… just the far-out Falwell / Jesus Camp aspects.
Philip Pullman has said that his targets in Northern Lights are not the church per se, but the whole notion of fundamentalist thought (religious or political). He’s as much against hardline communism or islam as he is against catholicism. That’s the same as Monty Python.
I hear there are plans for a blockbuster movie based on Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s autobiography “My Struggle”, with Adam Sandler playing Ahmadinejad* and Mel Brooks as Khomeini.
*he has his own blog now! I wonder if they screen comments.
I’ve seen plenty of weird things on this board over the years, and “The Jews run Hollywood” is an old enough complaint, but I never thought I’d see anyone complaining the Hollywood is too positive in its depictions of Islam.
Muslims in Hollywood movies are usually depicted as trying to kill as many infidels as possible. Do they really need to be portrayed as hypocrites too? Isn’t it negative enough for you that they’re stereotyped as evil insane terrorist fanatics?
If you’re really desperate to see a hypocritical Muslim, you can watch the only recent Western movie I can even think of that has a Muslim hero – Slumdog Millionaire. The hero’s brother is portrayed as being both fairly devout and a hardened criminal, and there’s a scene of him praying right before going out to do some wrong. (IIRC he’s actually about to go kill someone.)
This is all rather vague to me. Why don’t you make it more specific, so we can keep this in GQ? Give me a list of what you think are the mainstream movies with the strongest attacks on Christianity. Do the same for Judaism, for Islam, for Buddhism, for Hinduism, for atheism, for agnosticism, for Scientology, for neopaganism, and for whatever else you think has been attacked.
It would be hard to do both simultaneously. How would you do it? A terrorist who kills infidels, but on Shabbas he goes to temple? He’s secretly moderate, but goes along with the terror cell for the hot Al Queda babes?
There are also some coming out about Orthodox Judaism- ‘Dying to be Thin’ covers the rising epidemic of eating disorders in the Jewish community and ‘Trembling Before G-d’ treats the topic of gay Orthodox Jews.
Another thought: the details of Jewish religion may not be well-known enough for it to be a good parody subject for non-Jews. Elements of Jewish culture like bar mitzvahs, or the Hasidim, do get made fun of in popular culture.
None of those movies mock Christianity. The Da Vinci Code is essentially a murder mystery which uses a (granted, somewhat implausible) hypothesis about Jesus and the Holy Grail as a motive, but neither the book nor the movie mocks Christianity or the Catholic Church or believers. It’s predicated on a hypothesis that a part of Christian doctrine is historically incorrect, but that doesn’t mean it’s mocking. There are individual characters within the RCC who are depicted as being in on a conspiracy, but the Church as a whole is not depicted as corrupt, nor are believers ridiculed for being believers.
Dogma is a PRO-Christian movie, written and directed by an avowed, practicing Catholic in Kevin Smith. Have you seen it? The essentials of Christian belief are depicted as correct in that movie, not as ridiculous.
Jesus Camp is a documentary that depicts particular group of believers exactly as they are. There is no mocking tone to it. It tries to be fair and objective. Nothing is invented or manipulated, and the leaders of the particular church in question went on record as saying they thought the movie depicted them accurately, and that they were pleased with it. So how is it mocking?
What kind of ridicule or mocking of Christian belief do you see in any of those movies? I think you’re seeing things that don’t exist (or maybe you haven’t actually seen those movies at all?)
By the way, every single movie about Jesus – from The Greatest Story Ever Told to The Passion of the Christ is an ipso facto statement that Judaism and Islam are false religions. Can you name a single mainstream movie that’s ever depicted either Judaism or Islam as definitively right and Christianity as definitively wrong?
By the way, there is nothing in the Koran or in Islam which says to “kill as many infidels as possible.” You are misinformed.
Was going to say the same thing. Judaism itself isn’t mocked that often, but Jewish culture in the United States – specifically, Ashkenazi culture in the New York, Miami and Los Angeles areas – tops the list.
The same film also includes a brief but brutal scene depicting a (Hindu) mob attacking the Muslim part of the slum.
Not a film, of course, but The Satanic Verses is surely the best known work of fiction attaching any religion - though it’s supposed to be a mockery of all closed belief systems, not just Islam.
astro, you’re being a little bit dense. Christianity is a popular film topic in the American film industry because most Americans are (nominally) Christians. If you watched Bollywood films you’d see lots of criticism of Islam (and Hinduism, to a lesser extent).
Do you really think that there are people in the US who are so insular that they do not know enough about Christians or Christianity? I’d say the opposite is true: Christianity sounds great (forgiveness, don’t judge, turn the other cheek) until you actually meet some of the people who practice it.
Seriously, the vast majority of Americans are Christians. It’s not something people learn about from “pop culture.” It’s their actual culture. Where do some people get this idea that Christians are a minority? They’re 70% of the country.
But most of these mock terrorists or arabs, not Islam. You don’t see anyone making mocking jokes about Mohammed’s wives, or his flight to Medina, or the Imam. No one would get it.