Artless Art | Sepia Mutiny

The Daily Show just posted some disturbing clips from a new anti-American blockbuster in Turkey, a pretty Westernized country. In Kurtlar Vadisi Irak / Valley of the Wolves Iraq, American soldiers (including Billy Zane) machine-gun children and sell them to a Jewish doctor (Gary Busey) who harvests their organs.

Jon Stewart compares the repugnant Turkish screenplay, redolent of Spielberg’s monkey brains, with the fact that Arabs are the go-to villains in Hollywood. One of the clips he shows is True Lies with Brit Asian actor Art Malik, middle name ‘Complicity,’ playing yet another Middle Eastern bad guy.

Art Malik (born as Athar Ul-Haque Malik on November 13, 1952) is a Pakistani-born British actor… Malik also played the villain Salim Abu Aziz opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies (1994)… He also played the role of Ramzi Ahmed Yousef in Path to Paradise, a 1997 made-for-TV film about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. [Link]

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Watch the clip, it’s at 5:30. There’s also a funny bit immediately preceding about astroturf ‘rioters’ in Pakistan torching a KFC over the Danish cartoons instead of a perfectly delectable CBH next door. ‘CBH,’ of course, would stand for ‘Copenhagen Boiled Herrings’

14 thoughts on “Artless Art”

Yep..there was an article on this in NY Times. Though the movie is supposedly fiction, quite a few facts/incidents are taken from real life incidents in IRAQ…much of it, would never make it to US Main stream media….I tried to find that article in NY Times..but was unsuccessful….either way, its good to know that the rest of the world is catching up with Hollywood in “stereotyping”..only difference is, “Amerikans” are the subject 🙂

TDS related, and hopefully not already discussed here: Stand-up comic Demetri Martin took on myspace in his Trendspotting segment. Siva Vaidyanathan of sivacracy.net was the “older guy” interviewed. Funny Stuff. Google Video link

They should have a double bill of “Forty Days of Musa Dagh” with “Valley of The Wolves”. For a Desi connection, the former starred Kabir Bedi as the an Armenian freedom fighter.

Hi 🙂

Hvae been reading your blog for the last few weeks but it is my first comment here. I wanted to point you towards Yankee Doodle’s rant on the topic.

Talking of art – nothing escapes my eagle eye. Which banner is this – seven horsemen silhouetted against a sepia (ok, orange) sky with something pink in the middle? Seems to have some devanagari script faintly superimposed as well. It doesn’t seem to be on your banners page (although if it is, my eagle eye comment will look stupid).

See banner 11.

Bugger.

Manish,

What is banner 11 about?

It looks majestic. Very David Lean like.

Here’s the original Kush. Or something like it.

Grady Hendrix of KAIJU SHAKEDOWN fame (and a fan of the mutiny) appeared on MSNBCÂ’s Â“Scarborough CountryÂ” to discuss the Turkish film. Video clip here, more details on his blog.

It is crude anti-Americanism, but perhaps gives a taste of how America is perceived by some people around the world. Given that America has produced vulgar films full of Yankee jingoism, hubris and lies in the past, stereotyping entire cultures and races, wilfully distorting history and reality.

Americans should take it on the chin and reflect on why they are perceived as uniquely arrogant and mendacious across the entire world. It would do Americans good to reflect on this.

Americans are diverse, and quite a few Americans are quite good people, and American culture has contributed quite a lot of good things to world culture

Time to rent Midnight Express?

Here’s the backstory behind the film:

The $10-million movie, the most expensive ever produced in Turkey, is based on the July 2003 arrest by U.S. troops of 11 Turkish soldiers serving among coalition forces, who were held for two days with bags covering their heads. The incident threw a monkey wrench into Turkish-American relations. The U.S. has yet to offer an explanation for the incident.

Some other tidbits – a German state government is trying to suppress the movie:

The premier of the German state of Bavaria has called upon German cinema owners to stop showing the Turkish movie Valley of the Wolves — Iraq, which depicts U.S. soldiers in Iraq as murderous villains. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag, Edmund Stoiber described the film as a “racist and anti-Western hate film” and charged that it was intended to sow “hate and mistrust against the West.”

And the US government has warned servicemen against attending showings (although this makes sense from a prudential standpoint):

According to today’s (Monday) Washington Post, the U.S. Army has warned service members abroad to stay away from theaters showing the movie and “avoid getting into discussions about [it] with people you don’t know.”

Suraj on February 17, 2006 at 7:41 pm said:

Yep..there was an article on this in NY Times. Though the movie is supposedly fiction, quite a few facts/incidents are taken from real life incidents in IRAQ…much of it, would never make it to US Main stream media….I tried to find that article in NY Times..but was unsuccessful….either way, its good to know that the rest of the world is catching up with Hollywood in “stereotyping”..only difference is, “Amerikans” are the subject 🙂
Manoj on February 17, 2006 at 9:07 pm said:

TDS related, and hopefully not already discussed here: Stand-up comic Demetri Martin took on myspace in his Trendspotting segment. Siva Vaidyanathan of sivacracy.net was the “older guy” interviewed. Funny Stuff. Google Video link
Vikram on February 17, 2006 at 11:16 pm said:

They should have a double bill of “Forty Days of Musa Dagh” with “Valley of The Wolves”. For a Desi connection, the former starred Kabir Bedi as the an Armenian freedom fighter.
RCK on February 18, 2006 at 10:37 am said:

Hi 🙂

Hvae been reading your blog for the last few weeks but it is my first comment here. I wanted to point you towards Yankee Doodle’s rant on the topic.
Bong Breaker on February 18, 2006 at 5:27 pm said:

Talking of art – nothing escapes my eagle eye. Which banner is this – seven horsemen silhouetted against a sepia (ok, orange) sky with something pink in the middle? Seems to have some devanagari script faintly superimposed as well. It doesn’t seem to be on your banners page (although if it is, my eagle eye comment will look stupid).
Manish Vij on February 18, 2006 at 5:51 pm said:

See banner 11.
Bong Breaker on February 18, 2006 at 6:09 pm said:

Bugger.
Kush Tandon on February 18, 2006 at 6:34 pm said:

Manish,

What is banner 11 about?

It looks majestic. Very David Lean like.
Bong Breaker on February 18, 2006 at 8:23 pm said:

Here’s the original Kush. Or something like it.
NB on February 19, 2006 at 12:28 am said:

Grady Hendrix of KAIJU SHAKEDOWN fame (and a fan of the mutiny) appeared on MSNBCÂ’s Â“Scarborough CountryÂ” to discuss the Turkish film. Video clip here, more details on his blog.
Ramona on February 19, 2006 at 7:35 am said:

It is crude anti-Americanism, but perhaps gives a taste of how America is perceived by some people around the world. Given that America has produced vulgar films full of Yankee jingoism, hubris and lies in the past, stereotyping entire cultures and races, wilfully distorting history and reality.

Americans should take it on the chin and reflect on why they are perceived as uniquely arrogant and mendacious across the entire world. It would do Americans good to reflect on this.
Sahej on February 19, 2006 at 3:48 pm said:

Americans are diverse, and quite a few Americans are quite good people, and American culture has contributed quite a lot of good things to world culture
KXB on February 20, 2006 at 3:55 pm said:

Time to rent Midnight Express?
Ennis on February 21, 2006 at 12:31 pm said:

Here’s the backstory behind the film:

The $10-million movie, the most expensive ever produced in Turkey, is based on the July 2003 arrest by U.S. troops of 11 Turkish soldiers serving among coalition forces, who were held for two days with bags covering their heads. The incident threw a monkey wrench into Turkish-American relations. The U.S. has yet to offer an explanation for the incident.

Some other tidbits – a German state government is trying to suppress the movie:

The premier of the German state of Bavaria has called upon German cinema owners to stop showing the Turkish movie Valley of the Wolves — Iraq, which depicts U.S. soldiers in Iraq as murderous villains. In an interview with the Bild am Sonntag, Edmund Stoiber described the film as a “racist and anti-Western hate film” and charged that it was intended to sow “hate and mistrust against the West.”

And the US government has warned servicemen against attending showings (although this makes sense from a prudential standpoint):

According to today’s (Monday) Washington Post, the U.S. Army has warned service members abroad to stay away from theaters showing the movie and “avoid getting into discussions about [it] with people you don’t know.”