Disappointingly xenophobic
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jacksflicks — 12 years ago(September 07, 2013 10:27 AM)
Well, it's an old thread, but I can't let that whopper go by. Albanians are majority MUSLIM, Christians making up about 17%. Couldn't you just look it up before posting such stupidity and making a fool of yourself and misleading others?
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cyanide-af — 13 years ago(February 19, 2013 04:33 PM)
You are totally right! This istanbul is unknown to me and yet I have been living here and precisely in the areas film takes place, which are ironically where tourists happen to be most of the time! and women who cover their faces are usually arabs coming as tourists not Turkish women.
Additionally Turkish people are annoyingly helpful they wouldn't leave you alone unless they are sure you do not need any help! and finally by the police presence in that area (Sultanahmet and Istiklal St.) you cannot even set off a firecracker let alone kidnapping and driving like crazy! The whole movie was bunch of crap put together to dumb down the audience! -
quetzalcoatl2012 — 13 years ago(February 23, 2013 09:34 PM)
I'll be honest, I couldn't read your whole post. That's because you bitch about racism towards Turks when it's insanely obvious the bad guys are not from Turkey.
soooo, yeah, no point in listening to someone bitch who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about. -
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largo-9 — 13 years ago(March 10, 2013 04:26 PM)
I guess you may be reading much into it. I am an atheist Turk and I didnt even watch the movie but honestly such action packed blockbusters always need a villain and if the plot is taking place abroad then surely the villain got to be a foreigner (or simply Muslims when you consider the spirit of this age). We Turks are always an easy option for the westerns -historically speaking -actually I am bit of surpised at the fact that they do not use us more. This is probably because we did not come head to head with USA as we did with most European nations in the last centuries.So the American audience is kinda indifferent towards the 'supposed' evils of our ways. Nazis, Japanese and Reds are outdated so it is the Muslims time (Serbs and ex-soviet thugs are still fair game) I would love to say "it is just a movie" but when you read some responds to your post, it is also obvious that it is not that easy to say that as well. I dont believe the makers of this movie had a "hidden agenda" to just trash muslims etc. but I can also argue that, intentional or not, it is these type of movie making or speeches or books that draw ire from Muslims all around the world and strenghtes the notion that all westerns see themselves as evil, uncivilized and barbaric stereotypes. And then the Americans wonder why the people that they are liberating actually fight against their liberators. Would you, if you were a muslim, trust a group of people who you think see you as something a bit more advanced than wild animals?
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lunamuna — 13 years ago(March 15, 2013 03:21 PM)
@Largo-9
You start off by saying that I am reading too much into it but you finish by concluding that xenophobic portrails of Muslims in the media are leading to increased tension and misunderstanding between Muslims and the West. I would agree with your latter statement. While it is true that this is just a typical hollywood action blockbuster, not some kind of intellectual study of Turkish culture, I don't think that this kind of portrail of Muslims is inconsequential. If this movie were just one example, then it would not mean much. But it is not just one example, it is part of a continuous flow of every-growing inaccurate and Islamophobic films. People may think that I am getting worked up about nothing but I don't think most people can see the forest for the trees. We are so used to seeing the Muslim as a terrorist, a frothing at the mouth raging fundamentalist (eg. Argo), or a faceless woman shrouded in black, that we have become immune to its distastefulness. We can look back at WWII Nazi propaganda regarding the Jews and feel disgusted by it, yet we cannot see the shocking parallels within todays media portrail of Muslims. And it's not just in films. It's in political rhetoric, right-wing newspapers, it's even in the graffiti in our local areas. Last year I found an anti-Muslim cartoon sticker posted opposite a local mosque near my house in the UK. At my previous residence, in London, I was witness to the EDL paying a visit to my local area to protest against Muslims living there.
In that respect, I guess this movie is but a drop in the ocean of the much wider and pervasive scourge of modern islamophobia.
My politics blog: http://politicasomnia.blogspot.co.uk/ -
Artemis_Rules — 12 years ago(January 13, 2014 07:23 PM)
Its not because of movie like these that Islam have a bad rep.
Its because of thousands of minorities gets slaughtered each year in muslim countries, yet nobody talks about it. If EDL protest islam, then it gets all media coverage. If turkey passes a law that makes it harder for non muslims to live in turkey, it gets no attention.
Study this and watch how liberal try to make it seem like muslims are made the victim, though its usually the non muslims who are the real victims. othodox Christians/ catholics, Buddhist etc.
Islam is an ideology on par with Nazism, and just like My country fought the nazis when they were here, we shall fight islam. the very name means submission, and when you understand that, you understand that the followers of that religion have the same mentality as the christians did during the crusades.
Just look at a country like england. muslims speakers that wants to have sharia law, allow stoning, are getting allowed to speak in england, yet ELD is almost seen as a nazi organisation.
religion is like a prison for the seekers of wisdom -
spookyrat1 — 13 years ago(March 16, 2013 08:17 AM)
Did I watch a different movie or something? The villains in this movie were the same as the villains in the first movie, Albanians, only they were relations out for revenge. Was this a major problem with the first film? Yes the majority of the Albanian population is Muslim, with a fair sized Eastern Orthodox minority, but I didn't see Islam as portrayed in a bad light. Similarly, I didn't see the film as being critical of Turkey either. I think the producers just wanted a different environment and Turkey geographically is relatively close to Albania
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Matthor — 13 years ago(March 18, 2013 05:59 AM)
Finally someone gets to this point, a movie sequel with the same villains as the first? Perish the thought!!..
Not to mention that the first movie dealt with people trafficking which is a big problem in Eastern Europe and commonly perpetrated by Eastern European crime organisations. Colour me crazy but a fictional Albanian mafia fits that bill pretty nicely doesn't it?
Seriously, at what single point in the movie was any thing related to race or religion either negatively or overtly shoved in our faces?? I mean the closest they come to actually properly alerting you to the fact that there might be muslims in the movie, besides the covered women, is the shots of the mosques and the call to prayer which most of the movie going population would probably not even register.
I think the OP just needs to still their bleeding heart for 90 mins and enjoy Liam
Neeson kicking seven shades of crap out of the bad guys again. After all it is just a movie, a work of FICTION, not a social commentary or anything deeper than a thinly veiled excuse for guns, explosions and car chases. -
lunamuna — 13 years ago(March 24, 2013 10:44 AM)
Sure it's just a movie. But it's one of hundreds with a similar theme. Did you know that people outside of America and Europe actually watch Hollywood movies ALOT?? There's basically two major movie makers in the world - Hollywood and Bollywood. Very few countries have a movie industry to compete with that. Imagine if whenever there was a movie that featured your country, your people, people who share a religion with you, they were portrayed as criminals, terrorists, extremists or faceless (in a literal and figurative sense) women in black?
The reason people watched this movie and didn't pick up on any negative stereotypes with regards to Muslims, is because it's not something they care about. If you watched a Bollywood movie which portrayed America completely inaccurately, or portrayed Americans as gun toting villains who bomb their way through most of the world, then you would probably be on imdb bitching about that too.
The problem is Americans rarely get exposed to foreign films. Meanwhile, for the rest of the world, that is pretty much ALL they are exposed to. Don't you think this would build resentment? In the current political climate where America has basically been plundering the Muslim world for the decade, extremism is growing and we are being increasingly polarised into 'us vs. them'. Americans/Europeans are being conditioned to view Muslim people as rabid frothing at the mouth fundamentalists and Muslims are picking up on that.
My politics blog: http://politicasomnia.blogspot.co.uk/ -
done_holding_back — 13 years ago(March 18, 2013 11:09 AM)
The movie was very culturally inaccurate, there's no arguing against that. But if you use the word "racist" on IMDB you're going to have a bad time, too many emotional people on both sides of the discussion.
But yeah, they didn't try very hard to portray Turkey as anything more than Ubiquitous War-torn Arab Country #14. -
spookyrat1 — 13 years ago(March 21, 2013 03:23 PM)
"culturally inaccurate"
Let's see. Apart from the fact that it was a completely fictitious movie with a prepostrous plot, who or what was portrayed as "culturally inaccurate."
Was it America or Americans?
Was it Turks or Turkey?
Was it Albania or Albanians?
May be it was France or the French in that little bit in the beginning?
"they didn't try very hard to portray Turkey as anything more than Ubiquitous War-torn Arab Country#14"
LOL! I know Kim let off a couple of hand grenades but this is ridiculous. You must have mixed up Taken 2 with Lawrence of Arabia at the DVD store!
I'm not sure whether Turks nor Albanians would appreciate being categorised by you as "Arabs", since they aren't Arab countries, though I'm sure both countries have Arab minorities just as the USA does.
Who did you say was being culturally inaccurate?
"What are you going to do?"
"What I do best." -
done_holding_back — 13 years ago(March 22, 2013 07:01 PM)
I'm not sure whether Turks nor Albanians would appreciate being categorised by you as "Arabs", since they aren't Arab countries, though I'm sure both countries have Arab minorities just as the USA does.
I didn't call them Arabs. I said Turkey was portrayed as etc etc. You telling me that Turkey is not an Arab country is you agreeing with me. But I think you already know this.
Anyhow, you sound like someone who will just disagree with me until I give up so I'm going to skip to the end. You're right. I'm wrong. I retract all statements and concede.