The Guilt of "Innocence of Muslims"

As a rule, I stand firm against every variation of "He went on a killing spree because he played Grand Theft Auto all the time."  Works of art, be they movies, books, video games, songs or whatever, do not make anyone do anything.  James Holmes dying his hair to look like the Joker doesn't make the Batman films responsible for the massacre in Colorado, any more than The Beatles are responsible for the Sharon Tate murders, no matter what Charles Manson says about "Helter Skelter."

And yet, with that said, artists are not absolved of responsibility.  If we create art in the hope of effecting a positive change in the world, then we must also be aware of the possibility of effecting a negative change.  Yes, freedom of speech still has to be absolute--we have to protect Salman Rushdie and we have to protect the Nazis marching in Skokie--but that freedom can still be abused, a line crossed, with horrific consequences.  Particularly when art is not art, is never intended as art, but is instead propaganda, with a decidedly political purpose and the clear intention of inciting disruption.

Angry demonstrations continue across the Muslim world in reaction to an appallingly awful so-called "movie trailer" for a "film" called Innocence of Muslims.  (No, I will not link to it.)  No one knows whether a full movie was ever actually made, or whether the trailer (actually two trailers, but I only looked at one) is all there is.  My guess is the movie is non-existent, because the "filmmaker" didn't need to make a movie in order to accomplish his idiotic purpose: to enflame Muslims.  Here, courtesy of Neil Gaiman (an unexected source),  is a compelling first-hand account from one of the actors in this appalling piece of propaganda, Anna Gurji, detailing how she and everyone else involved were completely duped by the producer:

The movie that we were doing in Duarte was called “Desert Warrior” and it was a fictional adventure drama. The character GEORGE was a leader of one of those tribes fighting for the comet.

There was no mention EVER by anyone of MUHAMMAD and no mention of religion during the entire time I was on the set. I am hundred percent certain nobody in the cast and nobody in the US artistic side of the crew knew what was really planned for this “Desert Warrior”.

The atmosphere at the set was as friendly as possible. We all knew that we were doing an adventure drama for a very low budget financing. The director Alan Roberts even had plans that with this low budget product he would be able to get some more money to make a good quality version (by shooting it in the real desert and having better product in every category) of the “Desert Warrior”.

I had interactions with the man known as Sam Bassil on the set. He was very amiable, respectful, soft-spoken, always making sure that the filming was running smoothly and everyone was satisfied. He even told me the premiere of the movie was going to happen sometime soon and I would get a good amount of tickets to invite my friends and family.

But it is completely apparent from the trailer that the lines the actors spoke were (badly) overdubbed with other lines, in which this George character was transformed into a grotesque caricature of Mohammed.  It's not even subtle: the crappy overdubbing is obvious from first moment to last.  It's like Woody Allen's infamous What's Up, Tiger Lily?, except that instead of doing it for comedy, the producer (notice how I refuse to use the man's name--not to protect him but because I will not dignify his name by repeating it) did it in order to make Muslims angry.  As The Guardian's Peter Bradshaw speculates, the trailer "was almost certainly timed for the American election, in this case to incite Muslim communities and then provoke macho responses from the presidential candidates."

The reaction, of course, got out of hand.  Anyone with even a vague memory of the 2006 riots over Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed could have predicted that.  The difference is that the cartoons were published with a serious public purpose and then were distorted by two Danish imams who decided to stir up trouble (and who also goosed the issue by including trumped-up images and cartoons that had nothing to do with the Danish newspaper).  In this case, yes, there are clearly people in the Muslim world who have seized upon Innocence of Muslims to further their own political ends; but the film itself has no serious purpose, it is propaganda whose sole reason for being is to incite anger.  (I quite like The Guardian's description of it as "a bigoted piece of poison.")  The people exploiting it didn't have to goose anything because it was pre-goosed.  The producer, a Coptic Christian from Egypt with a major grudge against Islam, apparently wanted to strike a blow against Muslim fundamentalism; instead he might as well have collaborated with the terrorists, because it would have been tough to create a more effective recruiting tool for jihadists worldwide.

The producer, in short, is an imbecile of the worst sort: an imbecile who thinks he's clever.

And now, having lit a match, he cries and moans and begs for rescue because he set his house on fire.  The appalling thing is that, in order to be a truly free society, we actually have to protect him.  And to defend the piece of crap he made.

As Noam Chomsky once wrote, "If you're in favor of freedom of speech, that means you're in favor of freedom of speech precisely for views you despise."  I recognize that, I support that, I defend that.  But man does it hurt in cases like this.  As one who toils in the vineyards of the arts, I find myself incredibly riled up by this exercise in non-art.  By lying to his cast and crew about what they were making, the producer has completely perverted the purpose of art, and it makes me want to find the man and strangle him.  I won't, and I support all efforts to protect him and his family, but good lord how I despise this miserable excuse for humanity.