The problem with the new crop of terrorist movies isn't that they are "too real" for the public to handle, but that they are too phony to connect in any meaningful way with the current war on terror.
The biggest releases from Tinseltown for each of the last two weeks – "The Sum of All Fears" and "Bad Company" – focused on diabolical plots to explode devastating nuclear devices on American soil. In both films, however, the terrorist killers bore no resemblance to the real-life Islamic fanatics who have promised to destroy the United States.
In "Bad Company," Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock lead the CIA in battling a vast, vague group of Yugoslav extremists who want to plant their stolen nuke beneath Grand Central Station. The script never gives precise answers about their ideology, but hints strongly that they're Serbian Christians.
In "The Sum of All Fears" it's a wealthy cabal of neo-Nazi, Euro-trash industrialists who purchase a misplaced Israeli bomb and use it to blow up the Super Bowl in the hopes of launching nuclear war between America and Russia. Tom Clancy's 10-year-old novel that inspired the film featured Muslim crazies as leaders of the dire conspiracy, but Arab-American pressure groups pushed Paramount Pictures to change the identity of the villains – conveniently enough, there are no Neo-Nazi "defense" organizations to protest their negative characterization on screen.
Director Phil Alden Robinson dutifully wrote to the radical activists at the Council on American Islamic Relations: "I hope you will be reassured that I have no intention of promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs, and I wish you the best in your continuing efforts to combat discrimination." Of course, Mr. Robinson failed to mention that Osama bin Laden and his distinguished colleagues proved far more potent than Hollywood ever could in "promoting negative images of Muslims or Arabs."
Apologists for "The Sum of All Fears" and "Bad Company" eagerly point out that both films had been scripted and shot before Sept. 11, but sane observers already knew that Middle Eastern terrorists represented by far the most likely source of deadly attacks on America. After all, Islamic fanatics had previously killed American citizens in Somalia, the East Africa embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, Khobar Towers, and the first World Trade Center bombing. Bin Laden formally declared war on the U.S. with a 1998 "fatwa," announcing that American civilians anywhere on earth represented legitimate targets.
Hollywood's refusal to take Muslim threats seriously, even in fictional projects attempting to achieve a "ripped from the headlines" immediacy, represents the sort of willful blindness normally associated with political correctness. Even in the midst of a worldwide war, our cultural and political elites demand that we avert our gaze from the excesses of global Islamism, and pretend that we are merely threatened by a handful of unrepresentative wackos.
For those who insist that Islam is no more dangerous than any other great religion, can you name another faith community on earth that regularly celebrates the random slaughter of civilians? In the official press of even "friendly" Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, gleeful commentaries appeared after Sept. 11 expressing joy over the death of thousands of Americans. Every time some "martyr operation" succeeds in murdering Israeli children, women or old men, giddy celebrations and triumphant banners break out throughout the Muslim world.
Another uncomfortable question involves the unique Islamic imperative to impose theocracy. From Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, from Iran to Nigeria (or at least that part of the country controlled by Islam), theocratic regimes impose a brutal, medieval version of Koranic law. Five hundred years ago, many (if not most) Christian governments also featured theocratic elements, but today it's only the Muslim world that attempts to impose its faith by rule of law and the force of the state. Pakistanis regularly receive the death penalty for "blasphemy" if they question any detail of the Koran, but when is the last time that a Christian, Buddhist, Jewish or Hindu nation seriously punished its citizens for a similar crime?
Terrorist movies could play a positive role in our current conflict by reminding the public of the dangers we face, but by creating cartoonish movie villains, Hollywood distracts attention from genuine bad guys and adds to the confusion of the moment. In "The Sum of All Fears," the archfiend even reveals his true colors by displaying a Swastika inscribed on the back of his wristwatch.
During previous world wars, Hollywood made no attempt to fudge the identity of the enemy – no one produced topical movies in 1942 which represented the most dangerous enemies of America as a band of sore losers from the Spanish American War. Since many Americans get their news and views from entertainment media as much as from broadcast journalists, Hollywood's twisted take on terror can seriously mislead the public, making the real and deadly threats we face seem as silly and insubstantial as recent big studio fantasies.