INVASION BEFORE CONTROVERSY
...ures. The film lived in obscurity over here seeing that most of the film was being shot on location in Spain and Israel. Nonetheless, with the article’s publication and harsh evaluation of the script’s historical authenticity, the movie has finally landed itself on the list of top films to see in 2005. The New York Times’ willingness to report on these religious films is unknown to the public. Poland, on the other hand, expresses its concern for the Times’ reporting on works of art that aren’t fully done. “The New York Times went way out of its way to create a controversy around a film that is still not finished, is nine months from release, and does not, as The Passion of The Christ did, center around major religious, or even historical, figures,” he said (Poland). While it isn’t clear if the Times has an agenda to grind, the facts remain that the news organization should look at itself and evaluate the ethical questions that arise from publishing articles that have an undone foundation. The point that the New York Times has a responsibility and loyalty to the readers to report any news that affects the masses is a valid one. The news outlet has all the rights to pursue leads and stories that invoke thoughts that lay dormant most of the time in our everyday lives. The means by which to seek these stories are to find both sides and objectively report the event that transpired. What the New York Times did was acquire the script to ‘Kingdom’ through illegal venture and decide to create news by gathering views from scholars who would give them nice sound bits for their piece. They were practicing with direct malice towards the hard working individuals who were making this film by trying to take credit away from the project. Reporting the news is one thing. The creation of news in under to stir up controversy is another. Failure to reveal the truth about the origin of the script’s arrival into the New York Times hands raises question the motives behind the article. Was this piece designed to be informative news or persuasive entertainment? In the case of informative news, the citation of the source that provided the news group the script builds credibility to the story. If for entertainment purposes, the citation would give readers the opportunity to decide whether the story has any validity behind its claims of the script being “offensive and a replay of historic Hollywood stereotypes of Arabs and Muslims” (Waxman). I know that there has been a long standing alliance between the reporter and the informant that they employ to supply the insider news. Nonetheless, this isn’t a probe into Congressional hearings about drugs that could affect the whole country. This is the illegal critique of copyrighted material and the circulation of said material to others. How is this different than internet piracy? ‘The Passion of the Christ’, since opening in February, has taken a worldwide gross of $609,490,164 (Nash). There is no denying the fact that movie was helped by the controversy first started by the New York Times article. The article in question did state that the film would create uneasiness against Jewish sects around the world and led to Anti-Semitic violence. The rationalization that people would create violence over a movie has been stated before and found to be unimaginable. In no known case has a movie been found guilty of producing violence from an individual that viewed it. Poland goes on to further illustrate the point by criticizing the statements by Mr. Abu el-Fadl by stating “he makes essentially the same arguments that some Jewish political groups made about The Passion of The Christ before it came out and did more than triple what observers expected at the box office.” The arguments that the Jewish groups made are the same ones being used to accuse ‘Kingdom’ of being Anti-Muslim and influence others to boycott the film. Yet, the arguments are invalid if no violence stems from the movies. No one film can produce enough hatred within someone to commit a crime and Poland goes on to say “the New York Times crusaded against that film, but as of this date, I don't believe there has been a single anti-Semitic hate crime reported as a result of the film” (Poland). One of the most import lessons you learn as an adult is to question the bias or motivation behind the information presented to you. The mainstream entertainment press has lived with a symbiotic relationship with the entertainment conglomerates for decades. Many of the major entertainment (or regular) news outlets are in other divisions of the same corporations, themselves. Entertainment Tonight is owned by Paramount/Viacom/Blockbuster. Entertainment Weekly is owned by Time/Warner, as is CNN (Moore). Does this influence content? Probably, but other news outlets are still businesses and the first priority is profits, a difficulty for print media at a time the internet has nibbled away at the market. Poland credits the New York Times piece coming at a time of the “journalistic dog days of August” and only succeeds as creating “news rather than reporting it” from an objective point of view (Poland). The New York Times, while steadfast participants in the profit game, should not stoop so low as to scoop an unfinished piece of work to try and compete with the new wave of internet sites like AICN to try and underhandedly stir up controversy that wasn’t there to begin with. The fact that the Times knowingly distributed copyright material just to “fill the journalistic void caused by the absolute silence around this film” also puts into question the paper’s credibility when dealing with issues on honest journalism (Poland). The best summarization of this kind of journalism comes from Poland: I guess the Bush Administration would call that a "preemptive strike" (Poland). Criticism comprises the personal opinion and analysis on a specific product (movie, album, etc.) or topic. When an audience reads a critique of a specific film, they expect the reviewer to give an honest opinion that will anticipate their own possible viewing experience. As with any writing, a reader must take into account the author's personal tastes and biases. The New York Times, with publishing this piece on ‘Kingdom’, has set another precedent that they have some sort of schema against films with deep religious connotations. With the world set deep in the throws of international bloodshed in the Middle East, the Times creatively tried to tie in real time events with the situations depicted in the film’s plot. Mrs. Waxman quoted Laila al-Qatami, a spokeswoman for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in Washington, as saying "My real concern would be just the concept of a movie about the Crusades, and what that means in the American discourse today" (Waxman). The war depicted i...