Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)

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- Lacktavist
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Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)
OP - April 30, 2013, 04:23 PM

Greetings comrades

I am writing about 'Four Lions' as part of my MA dissertation, which (currently) focuses on reconciling political correctness with offensive comedy, especially of a religious nature, in a post 9/11 world. As you can probably guess Ill be addressing and comparing the construction and reaction of depictions of Christianity with that Islam.

Before I start fully I like to introduce myself. Im a white, male, heterosexual British born atheist. The household I grew up in was neither pro or anti religious and its only in recent years where Ive confirmed my stance on the big questions.

I am a liberal who used to take the patronising, guilt ridden, racist anti-racist, anti-intervention stance that is still the liberal mainstream, to thinking that maybe religion is pretty whack and we should care when people are being oppressed. Im a fan of Christopher Hitchens and Nick Cohen as much as I am Stewart Lee and Chris Morris, and am sincerely interested in investigating political correctness, and the current landscape of comedy.

I am aware of the Four Lions thread that was created around the time the film was announced but I wanted to create a dedicated thread specifically for my dissertation questions (cheeky I know) to make it easier to compile and chair the conversation as my dissertation develops. The first draft deadline is August, with the final near December, so it will be a thread I will be revisiting over the next months.

Ideally it would be great to get to a position where I could interview people in person, as one of my chapters will likely address the lefts perceptions and attitudes to Islam, Islamaphobia etc hence it would effective to hear as much as I can from ex-muslims.

To open up the conversation I wanted to know peoples thoughts on Four Lions aim to dismantle racial stereotypes of Muslims and Islamists, and whether in your view this is a positive or negative step to addressing Islamism? The film makes a point of Omars 'Britishness' with his middle class lifestyle, unveiled nurse wife and use of Western films as fairytale equivalents for his son, while white Barry is the nuttiest of the bombers, and the Four Lions speak with northern accents. Not forgetting that by the end of the film it is the innocent fundamentalist brother in law who is accused of terrorism and held captive in an endless sea of red tape and rights abuse by Nato forces.

For those who may not have seen it Chris Morris wrote an article for the Guardian on Martin Amis's attitude to Islam. I tried to link it but Im not allowed to post links yet :-)

Thanks very much!

Apologises if this is posted on the wrong board.

***
Edit: If anyone is interested, these are my case studies
1)Monty Python including 'Life of Brian'
2)Stewart Lee including 'Jerry Springer: The Opera'
3)Chris Morris including 'Four Lions'
4)Matt Stone and Trey Parker including 'Cartoon Wars' and 'The Book of Mormon'
- serpentofeden
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Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)
Reply #1 - April 30, 2013, 05:40 PM

i think the film was very pro-islam, dishonest and inaccurate. Ie in the way that they completely excluded how jihadists excessively quote religious scripture to advocate their actions. The film presented their positions as being solely motivated by politics. Whilst politics are the not the sole reason for militant jihadism the concept of martyrdom(ie dying in relligious conflict)is wholly extracted from religious scriptures.

If you watch any jihadist video,prior to suicide attacks, they repeat justify their forthcoming actions with scriptures. Not a single scence in the movie does this ! ..
The film just criticises individuals but completely misses the point as it doesn't look at the role scriptural militant jihadism and martyrdom play in their actions. I don't think muslim actors would have agreed to the roles either if it the script was candid about the influence and role of islam in the actions of islamic militants.
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Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)
Reply #2 - May 06, 2013, 09:57 AM

I don't agree with it being pro-Islam, for the same reason I would disagree that it is anti-Islam, because the fim makes a decided effort to avoid religion as much as possible (I am of the opinion that it should have engaged with the doctrines of Islam). The only real instance is when Omar's fundamentalist brother in law doesn't want to be in the same room as a woman, but the butt of the joke is the trivial bureaucratic nature of religion in the face of modern life e.g. concerning being in a room with a woman is a room with a wall knocked through make it one big room, or two smaller rooms?

What was the reception of Four Lions in Islamic communities? There may very well have been, but I cannot recall a controversy surrounding its release, half expecting something on par to either the dutch cartoons, or even jerry Springer the Opera.

To bring the conversation back to my initial question, I wanted to know people's opinions on the films effect of dismantling racial stereotypes about suicide bombers and Muslims, and whether it was a helpful, needed step to combat Islamism, or whether it makes it harder to openly discuss the doctrines?
- serpentofeden
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Reply #3 - May 08, 2013, 12:14 PM

yes.. on second thoughts i'd say it's more neutral towards islam and doesn't really address the doctrinal basis's for militant jihadism ... nor does the film deny that islam has nothing to do with islamic terror and islamic apologists like to propogate

i'd say most muslims I know liked the film, maybe more so as it doesn't challenge the theology behind islamic terror, so allowing muslim viewers to not feel uncomfortable watching the movie...... there was a film released recently in India called "Vishwaroopam" in which initially they were gonna show how islamic terrorists use islams scriptures to validate their actions... this lead to a backlash and pissed of alot of muslims in India and the directors were heavily criticised.. so prior to the cinematic release the parts where islamic terrorists refer to the quran were censored out.. political correctness won again !

regarding your last paragaph... i'd say the overbearing character of Barry in the film, emphasis that islam a multi-racial threat and isn't a race but a malicious ideology.
- serpentofeden
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Reply #4 - October 21, 2014, 01:43 PM

Another point I'd like to add is that the character of Barry was good, because it showed jihadism/extremism isn't limited to brown men. Apart from Barry I haven't seen no film/tv programme portray a Jihadi/extremist as non brown. I think more films/tv series should depict jihadis/extremists as white/black and as women to dispel this idea that opposition to jihadism is racism and that all jihadi are crazy bearded brown arab or asian men. Furthermore a very high number of white and black muslims have been convicted of terror offences (ie http://wikiislam.net/wiki/Converts_to_Islam). I would say a disproportional number of black and white muslims are jihadis/extremists in comparison to the number of muslims who are black or white. Maybe someone should do a dissertation on why being black or white and a muslim makes you more likely to be a Jihadi/terrorist ?

What I found interesting and showed how brown male muslims get harsher castigation was when a couple of years ago, Myriam Francois Cerrah(a white english-french woman) wrote an article defending mohammed having sex with 9 year old Aisha. This completely went under the radar and she barely received any widespread criticism for it at all. However if it was a brown bearded man who wrote this article they would have been ripped to shreds by everyone in the media. If Anjem Choudhary had wrote it everyone would have had a field day.

We have to get away from this lazy stereotype that sells well that jihadis are all bearded crazy brown man.

Another inaccuracy with Four Lions is that it promoted the caricature that all jihadis are all bumblingly stupid and idiotic, when in fact a lot of jihadis/suicide bombers are in fact very intelligent and educated. ie the 9/11 bombers alot were engineers and doctors. Hassan Al Bana, Sayyed Khutb, Osama Bin Laden, these were all very educated men.
- Nikolaj
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Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)
Reply #5 - October 21, 2014, 03:13 PM

Re: Four Lions (which I have never seen), Danish-Egyptian comedian Omar Marzouk, who is officially a somewhat observant Muslim, created the similar-themed Danish satire series "Cellen" ("The Cell"). The manuscript was written in 2008 so I don't know if he was inspired by "Four Lions".

The SBS Broadcasting company who had ordered and paid for it has never dared to broadcast it.

Trailer with English subtitles here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ms_omkPYK4

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Four Lions helpful? (dissertation)
Reply #6 - October 21, 2014, 07:32 PM

I auditioned for Four Lions. This was in the preliminary stages. At the time I followed Islam. I assumed it would be something anti-Islamic, and as such I didn't want to go to the second audition. However, when the chap mentioned that it was Chris Morris in charge of the film that sold me on it.

Yes, it's brilliant, hilarious, farcical, and neither pro- nor anti-Islamic.
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