The Sum of All Fears et Charlie Hebdo
I watched the movie version of The Sum of All Fears• last night. Normally I’m resigned to Hollywood’s changing books to be more in line with Hollywood thinking, but coming so soon on the heels of the Charlie Hebdo massacre I can’t help but think that this is part of why Hebdo happened.
Note that spoilers follow. The biggest spoiler? Hollywood is filled with cowards, and it is hurting us.
The short version: In Tom Clancy’s• The Sum of All Fears•, Islamic terrorists, angry that there is finally peace between Israel and Palestine, decide to detonate a stolen Israeli nuclear bomb in the United States, killing the President and Vice President as well as a whole bunch of other people, in order to trigger war between the United States and Russia.
In Hollywood’s The Sum of All Fears, it’s a secret cabal of right-wing internationalist neo-Nazis. The only Arabs involved are ones who don’t know what a nuclear missile looks like or why something dug up from the ground decades after it was buried might still be warm.
It isn’t just that they switched from non-PC Arabic villains to standard right-wing villains. Nor that their standard right-wing villains are oxymoronic right-wing socialists. The central idea of the book’s was that some Muslim extremists would be disappointed if the Israeli peace process succeeded, and that those terrorists would become even more violent.
It’s an important concern and one that applies to our search for peace today, in the real world.
To emphasize this, there was also a secondary plotter who was an East German angered over the downfall of East German socialism and the unification of East Germany into democratic West Germany.
The movie’s central idea, to the extent that it had one, was about villains who are unable to pull off any kind of terrorism despite Hollywood trying to show them how so often as the rehashed go-to villain since at least Boys from Brazil. We don’t have to worry about right-wing socialists, as by their nature right-wing socialists are too stupid to carry out the sort of finely-tuned conspiracy necessary for movie terrorism. Something Islamic terrorists have been doing for decades.
Watching it in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo massacre, the sheer cowardice of that change is disappointing, to say the least. It isn’t just that succumbing to the demands of terrorism encourages terrorism, or even that they’re confusing socialism with the right-wing, but that excising real terrorism from our mass media conceals the reasons for terrorism in real life, and makes it more difficult to discuss what can be done to reduce or stop terrorism.
For all that it’s a popular thriller, Tom Clancy•’s book asked some important questions about the Middle East peace process that were still relevant when the movie was made. The movie, on the other hand, not only reproduces the five-decades-gone National German Socialist Workers Party as its villain, but whitewashes its history.
- Charlie Hebdo Writer Holds Up Muhammed Cover on Sky News; Network Cuts Away and Apologizes: Andrew Kirell
- “I do apologize,” the anchor continued, “for any of our viewers who may have been offended by that.” (Hat tip to Ace at Ace of Spades HQ)
- Al Qaeda branch claims responsibility for Charlie Hebdo attack: Holly Yan, Josh Levs, and Salma Abdelaziz at CNN
- “Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula claimed responsibility Wednesday for last week’s rampage that killed 12 people at France’s Charlie Hebdo satirical magazine.” (Memeorandum thread)
- Leftists become incandescent when reminded of the socialist roots of Nazism: Daniel Hannan
- “On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia. There would be no come-back, he wrote, for capitalists nor priests nor Tsars. Rather, in the place of debased, Jewish Bolshevism, the Wehrmacht would deliver ‘der echte Sozialismus’: real socialism.”
- Liberal Fascism
- The story of how the National Socialist German Workers Party and the fascist government takeover of businesses became defined as a conservative movement by socialists and leftists who believe the government should control businesses.
- Oxford University warns authors not to write about bacon, pork to avoid offending Muslims: Jessica Chasmar
- “The largest university press in the world has warned its authors not to mention pigs or pork in their books to avoid offending Muslims and Jews… A spokesperson for the Jewish Leadership Council said, ‘Jewish law prohibits eating pork, not the mention of the word, or the animal from which it derives.’”
- Saying ‘all is forgiven,’ Charlie Hebdo puts Mohammed on the cover of its return issue: John L. Micek
- “READER WARNING: This piece includes a rendering of the Prophet Mohammed that some might find offiensive.”
- The Sum of All Fears•: Tom Clancy
- “Peace may finally be at hand in the Middle East—as Deputy Director of the CIA Jack Ryan lays the groundwork for a peace plan that could end centuries of conflict. But ruthless terrorists have a final, desperate card to play: they… hope to rekindle cold war animosity and prevent reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.”
- The Sum of All Fears
- “The Sum of All Fears is the best-selling thriller novel by Tom Clancy, and part of the Jack Ryan series. It was the fourth book of the series and was also later turned into a film.”
More Charlie Hebdo
- The definitional war on satire
- What is satire if it isn’t about current, hotly-debated events and puncturing overblown narratives?
- Twisted censorship from France
- “I abhor censorship of every kind… unless it goes against the narrative.”
- Intermediary journalism and disdain for television viewers
- The media relishes its role as intermediary between the plain facts and the interpretation of the facts; they’ve been afraid of losing this position ever since the rise of television.
More Hollywood
- Was Weinstein treated better than Spacey because his accusers were women?
- Both Weinstein and Spacey got a pass for a long time. We know more about Weinstein because he was caught earlier, and that’s it. Maybe it’s past time to drain the swamps of Hollywood, the entertainment industry in general, and similar cultures of deception such as in Washington DC.
More media cowardice
- The January 6 witch-hunt
- If there’s a witch-hunt starting, I’ve decided it’s best to identify as a witch.
- The Silver Blaze Media and the Gaslight Election
- This isn’t just the Gaslight election, it’s the Silver Blaze election.
- Intermediary journalism and disdain for television viewers
- The media relishes its role as intermediary between the plain facts and the interpretation of the facts; they’ve been afraid of losing this position ever since the rise of television.
Remember: Trump reassures crowd after assassination attempt fails. (read more…)