(Ir)religiosity

This is something that crosses my mind every now and again.  I’ve watched many an episode of South Park and I’ve seen my fair share of risque comedians, movies, and television shows.  And, I’ll be honest.  I laughed at the jokes.  We all have at some point.

But I wonder where — in our post-9/11 world, as the cliche goes — the line should be drawn.  How, if at all, do we distinguish between humor and the perpetuation of hurtful and racist stereotypes?  For what its worth, in drawing out this line of thinking, I’m not so much interested in political correctness as much as I am interested in the implicit promotion of fear mentality, xenophobia, and cultural jingoism.

I bring this up because I was disturbed — and, a little angered — when I read this article about Adam Sandler’s new cult comedy, You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (ironically, the article is titled, “You Don’t Mess with the Racism”).  Now, to be honest I haven’t seen the movie (I guess I’m being that guy, who critizes something without having watched or read it) so I’m giving the author the benefit of a doubt.

Here are some selected excerpts from the article ( I highly suggest reading it in its entirety):

“You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, Sandler’s new flick, takes Hollywood chicanery and stereotypes that denigrate Arabs to an unprecedented level—surpassing hit flicks like The Kingdom, The Siege, and every Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris movie that came before it. I group Zohan with other shamelessly racist action movies because a film should at least be minutely funny to be categorized as a comedy.”

“What makes this movie even worse than many of the unfavorable movies made post-9/11 is Zohan’s disarming presentation; it is a comedic approach to understanding the inner workings of the substandard Arab people. Like the job stealing Mexicans, the liquor store robbing Blacks, and the H.I.V. infested gays, negative stereotypes in Zohan strip down the Arab people to rocket-propelled grenade wielding animals that senselessly thirst for Jewish blood.”

“What Sandler, and cowriters Judd Apatow and Robert Smigel, fails to understand is that before there was Hamas, Yasser Arafat, Fatah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or any resistance movement, there was the dispossession of the Palestinian people, whereby 780,000 indigenous Palestinians were displaced from their homeland by Jewish gangs and terror groups. Flash forward 60 years and the Palestinian people are living in squalor in demolished towns and refugee camps enduring a 40-year occupation that strangulates their economy and diminishes any semblance of normalcy or a proper life. What we are to believe by watching this film is that if everyone would just stop “hating” (which Israelis are depicted as clearly willing to do, while Palestinians resist it vehemently) Israelis and Palestinians could effortlessly live together in harmony. But “hate” has little to do with a conflict rooted in a people’s desire for basic human rights and an end to oppression.”

Admittedly, this can seems dismissively harmless at first, especially to white yuppies, like myself.  But what I — and likely most everyone who has the privilege of blogging — will never understand is the plight of the Other who has incidentally become the punchline of “harmless joke.”  Maybe I’m wrong — I am of course, biased because I will always take the side of those on the underside of power and history — but I’d rather put and end to the implicit, unmentionable status quo of xenophobia and racism and instead embrace the worth of the Other.  But that’s just me.

What do you think?  Is this more harmless humor, or is it a damaging perpetuation of the status quo?

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