Bollywood Pursues Terrorism and Terrorists at Full Throttle
March 14, 2010 by national
Filed under Homeland Security News
Terrorist Camp in Yemen
“The Hurt Locker” may have won big at the Oscars this week, but for movie fans outside the U.S., the night was a bust. With a paltry $4 million in earnings overseas, hardly anyone saw the film. One reason: Like other post-9/11 pictures about Iraq and the global war on terror, Kathryn Bigelow’s was weighed down by dull historicity and an obsession with America’s conduct in the war. Such movies often fail to address the core issue: Islamic radicalism. Enter Bollywood.
Back in the carefree 1990s, Hollywood’s take on terrorism—”True Lies,” “Die Hard 2,” “Air Force One”—was fun and spectacularly successful. These were essentially live-action cartoons, in which the extremists were interchangeable: an evil Arab was just as script-worthy as an evil Kazakh. But even before the World Trade Center attacks, Hollywood got cold feet. Under pressure from Islamic groups tired of googly-eyed jihadi villains, it scrubbed many Muslim terrorists out of screenplays. In the name of political correctness the industry shifted from caricature to avoidance, and in the process became irrelevant.
Not so in Bollywood, however, where terrorism narratives are pursued full throttle, and where Islamic radicalism and the suffering it causes come together in extravagant form. Whereas Hollywood focuses on bumptious American bureaucrats and politicians (“Syriana,” “Lions for Lambs”), troubled soldiers (“Stop-Loss”) and ruthlessly efficient super-agents, India makes movies about actual terrorists, based on its long, painful history of domestic extremism.
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