African Heroes

I finally got around to watching "The Last King of Scotland" and I was impressed.

Forrest Whittaker deserves all the praise he received for playing African Dictator/Supervillain Idi Amin. There was also a great cameo by Gillian Anderson. She really deserves to been seen on screen more often without playing Scully.

It was also interesting to find that the film's climax involved the backdrop of the Entebbe hostage crisis.

Despite the film's strengths, it has left me with a lingering question. Is Hollywood unwilling to produce movies about Africa without casting white actors in the lead? The only exceptions I can think of are Hotel Rwanda and possibly Invictus. Also, "The Number One Lady's Detective Agency" series for HBO usually has an all-black cast.

I guess the simplest explanation is that major film producers don't trust that audiences will show up for movies about Africa if they don't have white characters to identify with. This practice isn't limited to Africa. Similar techniques are apparent in films like "Dances With Wolves", "Lawrence of Arabia", and "The Last Samurai". Frequently when certain foreign cultures are featured, we are treated to a whitewashing of the main protagonist.

Which leaves me with my second question. How large a market is there for non-foreign produced films that feature exotic (to Americans) cultures with a "native" as the protagonist?

Muslim Punk?

The October 4, print edition of Rolling Stone has an article on a recent tour of Muslim Punk Bands called Taqwatour.

How cool is that?

I love cultural fusion.

Some of the bands mentioned include The Kominas, Vote Hezbollah (it's a joke), Al-Thawra, and Secret Trial Five.

Blind Man vs. Muslim Cabbie

First, there was a dispute over the rights of cab drivers in Minnesota to refuse service for passengers who were carrying alcohol.

Now, a blind man from Vancouver, B.C. has sued a cab company over being refused service because of his seeing eye dog.

Both cases dealt with a balancing of the religious convictions of the Muslim drivers and the rights of passengers to get a ride without too much hassle.

This discrimination might not require a great deal of government intervention, if it wasn't for the fact that the drivers were operating under a license to drive a cab. Such a privilege should come with some public responsibilities. After all, where would such religious convictions end? Should it be permissible to discriminate against passengers who carry pork? An unmarried couple?

I'm all for accommodating religious beliefs, but not at the expense of the work being done.

Donohue Has A Point

As much I might be loathe to agree with anything that Catholic League President Bill Donohue has to say, I think he makes a good point.

The right-wing curmudgeon thinks that the papers that have dropped the Opus strip have a double-standard. It seems in the past they've published cartoons that made fun of Catholics.

He's right. Newspapers should feel free to make fun of all religious beliefs with equal abandon. It's not fair that the Catholics get to have all of the fun.

Still, it seems to be overlooked that the vast majority of newspapers that carry Opus have decided to show the controversial strips. This is nowhere near the Danish cartoon controversy, where you would have a hard time finding a paper that would reprint the comics in question.

Peter Irons On Defamation

Recently blogger P.Z. Meyers has become the subject of a lawsuit based on a negative review he gave a book which attempted to take on evolutionary theory.

Now, noted legal scholar Peter Irons has weighed in on the merits of the case in an open letter to the plaintiff.

Just a little bit on Peter Irons. He's published multiple works dealing with our right and liberties as Americans, but probably his finest achievement was his work on behalf of Japanese Americans who were interred during World War II. By reopening the cases of Fred Korematsu and others, Irons helped get their convictions vacated. A contribution which made some progress in correcting an injustice made decades ago.

Opus Revealed

So, this is what the fuss is all about.

If anything, it looks like a playful ribbing of the cultural differences between Islam and Western culture. Of course it deals with generalizations, but not something that readers can't appreciate as a shortcut to humor. Yet, the main thing is that the cartoon by Berkeley Breathed isn't mean. It's nowhere near some of the barbs that the late Johnny Hart ( of B.C. fame) would make about Islam or any other belief that didn't coincide with his own. If anything Breathed makes as much fun of Americans as he does Muslims.

Even if you can't appreciate the humor of Opus, I can't see a reasonable justification for newspapers to drop this strip.

Update:

There's an article in Editor & Publisher dealing with the controversy. The reasons given for papers not carrying Opus are a combination of Islamic references and sexual innuendo. At least 25 clients have declined to publish the offending comics. Prior reports have mentioned the Washington Post as one of those papers, a really poor example coming from one of the nations flagship media institutions.

Fun With Statistics

Deltoid continues the ongoing debate over the reliability of the Lancet study on Iraqi deaths caused by the invasion.

The statistical discussion is fascinating, but it does require your full attention if you're (like me) not someone who analyzes stats on a regular basis.

O Jerusalem

Beliefnet has a new trailer up for the screen adaptation of O Jerusalem. The movie portrays the establishment of the State of Israel and the fighting that accompanied it through the eyes of two friends, one Arab and one Jew.

I just hope it's a more accurate and balanced depiction of these events than what was found in Exodus.

Orthodox in America

The New Republic has an interesting article about the growth of the Antioch Orthodox Church in America, mainly fueled by Evangelical converts seeking a more traditional spiritual experience.

It is compelling to see a church who's patriarchate is based in Damascus and has traditionally been made up of Middle Eastern Christians, attract a more diverse following. According to the article, the Antioch Church has been more open to different cultures than other Orthodox denominations like the Greek or Russian Churches.

Link.

Opus on Islam

On his website, cartoonist Berkeley Breathed reports that two of his upcoming Opus strips are being pulled by various papers, including the Washington Post. The reason appears to be because the strips deal with Islam in someway. If that is the case, it might be that the papers want to avoid the controversy that arose in Denmark after a paper published several cartoons depicting Muhammed. I would suspect that the editors don't want to deal with a bunch of reader complaints over a "comic".

I do look forward to checking out Breathed's strips when they come out to see what all the fuss is over. In my opinion he is one of America's most talented cartoonists and it was great to see him return to work after a long absence.

(Via Comics Reporter)

"Masked" Premieres Off-Broadway

I just came across the news that "Masked", an Israeli play about the intifada, has recently made its American debut. I have to confess, I'm unfamiliar with the material, but still curious about the response it will receive.