White House Down -Three Paragraphs/Ideas

[August1991]

First, why can't Hollywood have a Muslim as a bad guy. I'm tired of bad guys with British accents, or white-trash Republican bad guys. I'm also tired of reasonable, decent (black, Nicotine-using) Democratic Presidents under attack. Why can't the reasonable guy under attack be a Thatcher-style WASP woman, with a blue hat?

Second, the CGI leaves on the tree look good but they are still obviously fake. When I saw the helicopters fly through the streets, I saw "video game". Nevertheless, the CGI people took on the task of depicting helicopters flying through Washington streets in broad daylight. I'm a video guy: worth admission.

Third, I enjoyed eating the popcorn. It's a summer, stupid movie. It's best seen abroad without subtitles, or drunk. Test your knowledge of a foreign language as you distinguish between "launch" and "explode". (Yes, I know that another movie is based on a similar scheme: "Olympus Has Fallen". Who cares,)

Edited July 23, 2013 by August1991

[The_Squid]

First, why can't Hollywood have a Muslim as a bad guy.

You are amazingly out of touch.... Or really don't watch many movies.

Just off the top of my head:

Iron Man

True Lies (that's going back a bit...)

24 (tv show)

Zero dark thirty

Syriana

I'd say Holywood has portrayed Muslims as the bad guys plenty of times... To the point of stereotyping...

[Michael Hardner]

Or the edgy Four Lions, where the main characters are Muslims, good guys and bad guys all at once.

[Scotty]

No, he has a point. Hollywood does shy away from the obvious. Everyone knows that if any group is going to attack the White House it's either going to be some kind of redneck cracker militia or Muslims. Most terrorism is committed by Muslims, but Hollywood goes out of its way to find a reason why Eurotrash will do it instead.

[bleeding heart]

Or the edgy Four Lions, where the main characters are Muslims, good guys and bad guys all at once.

A very dark comedy, and an excellent movie.

[dre]

I just wouldnt watch a move called "Whitehouse Down".

[August1991]

You are amazingly out of touch.... Or really don't watch many movies.

Just off the top of my head:

Iron Man

True Lies (that's going back a bit...)

24 (tv show)

Zero dark thirty

Syriana

I'd say Holywood has portrayed Muslims as the bad guys plenty of times... To the point of stereotyping...

Zero Dark Thirty was a pseudo-documentary. It would have been absurd if the movie portrayed an attack on a Colombian drug lord.

I have never watched 24 but I thought that in every episode, Kiefer Sutherland defends America against a variety of bad guys. Or something.

Iron Man? Which one? (I vaguely recall watching/dozing through one of them on a flight somewhere.) But fair enough. Iron Man fought a Muslim at some point.

Syriana. I may have seen bits and if I recall correctly, the plot is convoluted. But anyway, with a name like that, it's hard to see how Arabs/Muslims would not be involved. (Were they really the enemy?)

True Lies? Never heard of it. But as you say, maybe I'm out of touch.

You forgot Argo. But like Zero Dark Thirty, it was a pseudo-documentary and it portrayed Iranians not as bad guys but as Keystone Kopps. (And not in a "The Great Dictator" way.)

I'd say Holywood has portrayed Muslims as the bad guys plenty of times... To the point of stereotyping...

On the contrary, I would argue that Hollywood portrays numerous stereotypes (bad guy or good guy) but it largely now avoids Muslims, Arabs and Islam.

Hollywood had no problem dealing with Nazi Germany. It was confused in dealing with Soviet Russia. But it has largely avoided dealing with Islamic fanatics.

Edited July 25, 2013 by August1991

[Black Dog]

Shorter August 1991: "Hollywood doesn't portray Muslims as villains except in all these movies I haven't bothered to watch."

On the contrary, I would argue that Hollywood portrays numerous stereotypes (bad guy or good guy) but it largely now avoids Muslims, Arabs and Islam.

Hollywood had no problem dealing with Nazi Germany. It was confused in dealing with Soviet Russia. But it has largely avoided dealing with Islamic fanatics.

You obviously slept through the 80s when Muslims/Arabs were the de facto villain of choice, from Delta Force to Back to teh Future.

[Scotty]

You obviously slept through the 80s when Muslims/Arabs were the de facto villain of choice, from Delta Force to Back to teh Future.

I don't think you can reference movies more than 30 years old in response to someone saying Hollywood avoids (note present tense) portraying Arabs/Muslims as terrorists.

[bleeding heart]

I don't think you can reference movies more than 30 years old in response to someone saying Hollywood avoids (note present tense) portraying Arabs/Muslims as terrorists.

???

There were some mentioned in this thread.

On this very page.

Edited July 25, 2013 by bleeding heart

[Scotty]

???

There were some mentioned in this thread.

On this very page.

Only Ironman and 24 actually count. Syriana has good Arabs and bad Arabs, as well as evil Americans and good Americans. It's not really about terrorism. Zero Dark Thirty is not a fictional movie (ostensibly) So tone movie and one tv show which have shown arabs as terrorists at one point or other (Ironman's sequels featured Americans as the enemy)

[The_Squid]

Those were off the top of my head... I'm sure you can find more if you really care so much about it.

The question in the OP was why Hollywood doesn't show Muslims as "bad guys".... So Syriana doesn't count because it had some good Muslims??? I suppose you think all good ones are a work of fiction, eh? And Zero Dark Thirty doesn't count because... ummm... I still don't get why... if Hollywood was afraid of portraying Muslims as the "bad guy", then they wouldn't have made the movie.

Anyway, the OP was a silly premise that was shown to be untrue.

[guyser]

Stop Loss

Saving Jessica Lynch

Lions for Lambs

Black Friday

American Soldiers

The Kingdom

Flight 93

Delta Force

Rules of Engagement

The Siege

Babel

...last but not least.... Alladin .

Yea..world needs more Muslim bad guys.

[The_Squid]

A few more that came to me for August1991's viewing pleasure:

Jarhead

Three Kings

Green Zone

Munich

[Black Dog]

Black Hawk Down (yes it was based on true events, but we can also look at the how these people are portrayed).

Currently on the small screen: Homeland.

[Scotty]

A few more that came to me for August1991's viewing pleasure:

Jarhead

Three Kings

Green Zone

Munich

Three of them set in the middle east for God sakes. You can't have military movies set in the middle east and not feature Arabs! Munich, well, again. Come on! Again, a historical film where you can't have anyone else as the enemies.

The point August was making was that when Hollywood does an action movie where it can have any kind of terrorists or bad guys it avoids using Arabs/Muslims. Obviously war movies set in the middle east or historical movies about the hunt for those who killed Israel's athletes don't have that kind of option.

Edited July 27, 2013 by Scotty

[dre]

Three of them set in the middle east for God sakes. You can't have military movies set in the middle east and not feature Arabs! Munich, well, again. Come on! Again, a historical film where you can't have anyone else as the enemies.

The point August was making was that when Hollywood does an action movie where it can have any kind of terrorists or bad guys it avoids using Arabs/Muslims. Obviously war movies set in the middle east or historical movies about the hunt for those who killed Israel's athletes don't have that kind of option.

I see the exactly opposite. Since 911 there has been a constant barrage of films where arabs are maniacle evil pshycopaths.

[August1991]

Interesting thread.

When I posted my OP, I was thinking more about this:

CREATING CG TREES

Trees were something else that took a lot of effort, and we underestimated that in the beginning. We went into the show knowing the White House would feature prominently and would be difficult to match photorealistically. We knew the helicopter and all the dynamic effects would be difficult. But we thought of the trees as a peripheral.

At a certain point, as we were building up our library of trees, we realized they're actually quite difficult to do in a believable way. And even though the focus of all these shots is the helicopter or the White House or an explosion, half or more of the screen space is actually filled with trees. They're always there and they deserved a lot more attention than we initially thought they would.

Link

But somehow fake trees and fake bad guys just seemed to mesh.

Edited July 27, 2013 by August1991

[The_Squid]

Three of them set in the middle east for God sakes. You can't have military movies set in the middle east and not feature Arabs! Munich, well, again. Come on! Again, a historical film where you can't have anyone else as the enemies.

The point August was making was that when Hollywood does an action movie where it can have any kind of terrorists or bad guys it avoids using Arabs/Muslims. Obviously war movies set in the middle east or historical movies about the hunt for those who killed Israel's athletes don't have that kind of option.

That is not what the OP said... you are changing the goalposts to suit your argument.

I haven''t seen any examples of movies from the other posters who agree with Aug1991... Show us specifically how Hollywood has an issue with Muslim bad guys... I've shown lots of examples where this is simply not true.... and then you move the goalposts to not include any movie set in the Middle East. Well if Hollywood was so scared of Muslim bad guys, these movies wouldn't have been made in the first place!

Show me some evidence that a movie purposely excluded Muslims as bad guy characters because Hollywood is being politically correct. So far it has been conjecture devoid of any evidence and there have been plenty of examples shown how this is simply not the case.

[August1991]

Show us specifically how Hollywood has an issue with Muslim bad guys...

I just watched "Olympus Down" and the bad guy was a North Korean, I think. There were no references to the Koran, or Mohamid. Bad guys spoke Korean and the movie presented subtitles to show what the good/bad guys were saying. In fact, there was a sexy Korean bad girl too - who, in the KLM version I watched, spoke good subtitled French.

Correct me but I have never seen a Hollywood movie where bad guys (or sexy girls) speak Arabic and the movie presents a subtitled translation.

Olympus Down? I rest my case.

Edited July 31, 2013 by August1991

[sharkman]

deleted, it was said already.

Edited July 31, 2013 by sharkman

[bleeding heart]

Correct me but I have never seen a Hollywood movie where bad guys (or sexy girls) speak Arabic and the movie presents a subtitled translation..

??

So if, in True Lies for example, the Arab--who is simultaneously stupid and evil, in the usual Orientalist formulation--because he spoke English, this proves a PC mindset that refuses to show evil Muslims?

If he spoke subtitled Arabic, that would be a harsher (and therefore, in your view, better) indictment?

Edited August 28, 2013 by bleeding heart

[August1991]

So if, in True Lies for example...

True Lies was made in 1994.

Like the posts above BH, you miss the point of my OP - or my subsequent post:

Hollywood had no problem dealing with Nazi Germany. It was confused in dealing with Soviet Russia. But it has largely avoided dealing with Islamic fanatics.

Edited September 1, 2013 by August1991