Humor is an important thing in hard times. A light heart lightens all burdens as they say. In WWII we were making cartoons that made great (and sometimes racist) fun of Germany and Japan. So today it shouldn't be verboten to make fun of terrorists. Is it in good taste? Probably not, but a funny joke is a funny joke.
Four Lions, though, is a different fish all together. It's a funny film about terrorists that invites us to at least some degree empathize with the terrorists. It's a film about a small group of british/muslim terrorists who try unsuccessfully to become a serious threat. Though one member is fairly compentent the rest are idiots of almost three stooges porportions.
As I said before, a funny joke is a funny joke. Watching one of these dimbulbs buy it by tripping on a sheep is pretty funny. Specially as the rest argue over whether death by sheep is considered martyrdom or not. But, for me at least, the over all film left me feeling a bit squirmy. I really don't want to get to know my terrorist. I really don't want to know he's a good family man with a loving wife and son. This is the state of the war on terrorism where I just want to find them and point a drone up their door. Yes there are idiot terrorists in real life like the shoe bomber or the underwear bomber, but these boobs came within a hair of doing real damage. As much as I like the characters in Four Lions I can't get past they want to kill.
STRANGE SPANNERS being an accounting of strangeness of the warp and woof of my mind For those of you new here, think of this as 1/2 "Night Gallery" Our Motto: Nos somnium quisnam es futurus fatum quod insolitus tutus vos!
But don't you think the film works to debunk the myth of terrorists as sinister, highly organised, intelligent agents living amongst us (as depicted in just about all films and TV shows like "24")? As such it seeks to undermine what terrorists (and scaremongers about terrorism) thrive on: fear.
ReplyDeleteThe jihadists in "Four Lions" are shown to be inept and confused (confused as to why they are even doing what they do). We are expected to believe that the Muslim community in the UK cultivates and protects terrorists, but in "Four Lions" the jihadists are as alienated from their own culture and community as they are from western society.
Sure, the laughs in "Four Lions" are queasy and uncomfortable, and there is a definite undercurrent of sadness. These people are all lost souls who have drifted into terrorism for a variety of vague reasons: misguided religion, wanting to belong, wanting to have an identity, or just because they're easily led.
Maybe you'll never fight terrorism unless you "get to know" who you're fighting.
I would agree that was one of the goals of the film to "deconstruct" the sinister terrorist meme. I still just have a basic problem of empathizing with people who really just want to kill me better.
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