Monday, September 29, 2003 :::
 
Multi-culturalism gone wild...

For today's longer post, please scroll down.

A housemate rented the now very old Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, starring Kevin Costner. He was reminded of how very much fun this movie is, mainly because of Alan Rickman, the most deliciously evil screen villain of all time. He apparently has quite a life on stage in a variety of roles, but when the camera starts rolling, you can bet he's the bad guy.

What is also obvious at this late remove is how hopelessly naive multiculturalism had already invaded Hollywood by 1991. Morgan Freeman is wonderful as the Moorish sidekick, but that does not necessarily mean he is believable. At one point, he maintains that "in my country, we talk to our women." In Muslim countries? Hmmm. Kathe Pollitt, iconic leftwing activist and writer for the Nation, said some time ago that the encounter with Islam may well be the end of multiculturalism. Not if Hollywood has anything to do with it.

Moreover, the movie starts in Jerusalem, at the time of the Crusades. When Robin returns home from the Crusades to find his home in ruins, he recounts how his father warned him that it was foolishness to try to force others into "our religion." Well, now, while the Crusades were ill-conceived--I am here trusting St. Francis of Assisi, whose name I took for my confirmation--they were indisputably defensive. That is, Muslim Arabs had, uninvited, occupied lands that had been Christian since shortly after the Resurrection, and forcibly converted everyone there with great brutality. Europeans arrived, much too late, to save their co-religionists.

The movie also has them as Turks, although their day was not to come for a couple of hundred years after that. Oh, well.

::: posted by A Mind That Suits at 4:09 PM


0 comments

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

What doesn't kill me, makes me laugh... usually.