The Siege

Submitted by Jeffrey Bale (United States), Jan 6, 2005 at 17:40

One film you seem to have overlooked, Daniel, is "The Siege" with Denzel Washington and Bruce Willis. Despite having a dopey subplot in which a female CIA agent becomes the lover of the main Arab terrorist, the film actually sought to deal directly with the inevitable tension between effectively cracking down on terrorists and preserving basic civil liberties. (There were also a few action films in the 1990s with Arab villains, either terrorists or the military forces of Arab states.)

Still, I think that these examples only reinforce your point - that ever since 9/11, Hollywood has been even more "sensitive" to PC and Islamist pressure groups than it was beforehand. In the immediate aftermath of the tragedy, that made some sense in an effort to avoid a mindless backlash against all perceived Muslims, but over three years (and dozens of terrorist attacks) later it seems absurd to worry about "offending" the sensibilities of Islamists and Islamist sympathizers, who openly declare their hatred of us day in and day out. There's nothing wrong with portraying Islamists as villains, provided that one doesn't portray all Muslims as Islamists.

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