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Posts Tagged ‘Salman Rushdie’

Edward Azlant

‘Slumdog Millionaire’: A Leftist View of a Globalized World

by Edward Azlant

Well after its phenomenal success of eight Oscars, four Golden Globes, seven BAFTA’s, and $350 million at the boxoffice, “Slumdog Millionaire” has managed to stay alive. As much an amazing longshot victor as its hero, an urchin from the Mumbai slums cum tea server at a phone call center who wins a fortune in an Indian version of “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?,” “Slumdog” has kept making news in ways deeply rooted in its own depiction of the world.

Recently the film’s British director Danny Boyle, serving as jury president of the 12th Shanghai Film Festival, confided during a panel discussion that on “Slumdog” he had shed the patronizing, “imperialist” mentality, relying heavily on a local Indian crew. Boyle also observed that while it was “regrettable” that Beijing imposed censorship restrictions on its filmmakers, he’d nonetheless love to work in China, as it would be a “challenge learning Mandarin.” Boyle neglected to mention that on “Slumdog” he’d skipped the challenge of learning Hindi, necessitating an Indian co-director, and also skipped the patronizing practice of paying Western wages, and the low pay for local child actors would fuel most of the subsequent controversies. (more…)

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Posted Jul 27th 2009 at 6:52 am in Culture, Politics, Religion, Reviews | 30 Comments

Debbie Schlussel

No Tears for Roger Friedman

by Debbie Schlussel

Sorry that I can’t cry over Roger Friedman’s firing as a columnist from FOXNews.com.

It’s not just that he ignored the age-old advice–don’t blank where you live/eat/work.  And it’s not just that as an entertainment industry writer, he was an uber-liberal who rarely wrote anything of interest and mostly gushed over the vapid celebs he covered.

It’s that left-wing politics dominated his absurd praise of left-wing propaganda on the silver screen and his apologism for extremist Muslims in showbiz. (more…)

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Posted Apr 6th 2009 at 6:19 pm in Entertainment, News | 54 Comments

Mark Tapson

The Worst Form of Terrorism

by Mark Tapson

Valentine’s Day was the 20th anniversary of the death fatwa issued against The Satanic Verses novelist Salman Rushdie by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, whose stern expression glowered down from many a wall-sized banner throughout his country, and whose declaration, “There is no fun in Islam,” is a masterpiece of comical understatement.

In another notable understatement (considering that the Islamist foothold in England is so great that it gave rise to the expression “Londonistan”), BBC arts correspondent Lawrence Pollard said recently that the Rushdie controversy galvanized “a stronger sense of Muslim identity in Britain.”  Nothing like having a blasphemer to behead to bring some people together, I guess.  “Until that time there had been assumed support for the broad principle of free speech,” Pollard adds.  “The Rushdie affair introduced the question of how far free expression should be limited to avoid offending religious feelings in a multicultural society.”

No, it introduced the question of how far expression should be limited to avoid the hysterical, worldwide, lethal mob violence of Muslims, since no one in the media, especially the BBC, gives a second thought to offending the religious feelings of Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, animists, Satanists and especially Christians, because none of those groups will kill you for it.  Indeed, taking pop culture potshots at Christianity is such a common pastime for the Western media that Christians can barely even muster the energy for an angry e-mail or two. (more…)

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Posted Feb 16th 2009 at 9:22 am in Featured Story, Media Criticism | 143 Comments