Valley of the Wolves

I’m not really sure how I feel about the hottest movie in Turkey (and know spreading through Europe). This isn’t really breaking news; but the Turks made this total piece of anti-U.S. garbage that crosses a Michael Moore film with Rambo.

The movie basically starts with a fictionalized version of a true event (Sulaymaniyah controversy) where we caught a secret Turkish military team in Iraq, supposedly going to assassinate a Kurdish politician. We hooded them, briefly interrogated them, then ejected them from Iraq. That offended Turkish pride; to mid-eastern culture (see ethnocentric egomaniacs), this slight was unforgivable — especially if you ignore that they were operating in a war zone (unauthorized), hadn’t bothered to inform us, and what they were doing there, as many Turks have.

In the movie, and for retaliation of this slight, a team then goes on a vendetta against the sociopathic American military character (Sam played by Billy Zane), and the Jewish Doctor that not only tortures Iraqi’s, but also harvests organs and ships them to the west (played by Gary Busey). And eventually the American religious fanatics (the Iraq war was another Crusade to them) are then given their just deserts, and peace is restored to the region by the divine benevolence of the lead characters.

The movie is called “Valley of the Wolves – Iraq” ~ http://www.valleyofthewolvesiraq.com/.

And you can read about it at one of the following:
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20060214-104958-5445r.htm
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/02/13/news/journal.php
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2006/02/valley_of_the_w.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4700154.stm

On one hand, it is like a Rambo movie; silly and extreme. There’s a lot of American bad movies that show the good American soldier dodging bullets and going after the evil Muslim terrorists. So isn’t this just tit for tat? Have you ever seen the old cartoons that made mockeries of the Japanese, Mexicans, Native Americans, or Blacks? How about a Jerry Lewis film where he was wearing coke-bottle glasses with buck-teeth inserted, and was mocking the Japs? TV shows like Hogans Hero’s? Heck, even shows like ’24’ have elements of “we do no wrong, and everyone else sucks”. So shouldn’t the Turks and Muslims be allowed to stupidly mock us, in the same way that all countries do, and we have been guilty of as well?

On the other hand; we did most of that during times of war (or immediately afterwards), and most was 50 years ago. And we had far more legitimate reasons to be pissed off at the Germans and Japanese than the Turks or most Mulsims have at us (even if they are too ignorant to know it). Rambo and many films do look at the other side too, as our government is often the villain, or our actions abroad are often mixed or more complex (even in the simplistic genre). This movie appears to have none of anything vaguely looking like introspection or complexity. In French, Middle Eastern, and many Asian cultures, they don’t think highly of introspection and reflection — they more look at how the U.S. is all wrong, and they are all right; taking our shallowest of genres to new lows. While we kind of bombard ourselves with self-doubt, or produce both pro and anti U.S. movies — so even if one is biased, there is at least some balance in the set. Many other cultures seem to miss that. Lastly, this is the most expensive Turkish movie ever made and one of the most successful; and follows a series by the same name (and with a similar plot and the help of actress Sharon Stone). Very few Americans confuse Rambo with reality. This movie premiered with the wife of the prime minister (of Turkey) endorsing it, and Turkish parliament leader Bulent Arinc praising its “realism.” The movie is the biggest block-buster, and the ignorant throngs exit the multiplexes singing its praises and bragging about how it finally shows “the truth”. Um, excuse me? We’d usually mock those that claim far more realistic movies are reality — not celebrate them.

The ethnocentric Turks are mad because by getting involved in Iraq, it makes it harder for them (and others) to continue to abuse the Kurds. Thus we are bad for stopping that, just like we are bad for not ignoring terrorism against ourselves or the Jews. Muslims actions against us don’t count, only our response does.

We have elements of racist, bigoted xenophobes in the U.S.; the negative stereotype of the “redneck”. But if the KKK produced a film as blatantly attacking the Muslims or the Turks in specific, it is highly unlikely to get the funding and attention that this movie has. And if one was made, it wouldn’t be as popular, there would be protests as well as praises, and we’d mock the idiots that thought it was truth. It seems the Turks and many Europeans and Muslims are falling far below our lowest expectations. No need for them to feel slighted by us ejecting their hit squad, this movie does far more to shame them than we ever could, and if they don’t get it, that shames them even more.

So movies like this, or anything by Michael Moore, remind us of how stupid, ignorant, and hate filled some people are. I suppose it is better that they exist; so you can gauge the depth of the problem, rather than not (and not knowing). But that it is as popular in Turkey, and sweeping across Europe is reason for pause. It certainly should be a reminder to the anti-Americans inside this country, that there are a lot of ignorant people that hate everything we do, no matter what we do, and are completely incapable of any balance or reflecting on why we did it, or what they did. They are like the French; to them it is part of their tribal culture of “us versus them”. To them, Saddam is the good guy, because he is a Muslim (so he can murder 100,000 Muslims per year); and we’re the bad guys because we’re not (and we stopped that, and the cost of a fraction that many lives). Saddam had institutionalized torture in his prisons and ethnic purges on regular basis, we had a scandal were a few dozen people may have been abused, and the perpetrators of that abuse were quickly caught, tried and punished — but to them, we’re the worser. To them, we’re the religious fanatics. To them, 9/11 was justified. To them, we’re wrong for everything bad in the world that we don’t stop. And we’re wrong because even if we try to do good, we didn’t do it exactly the way they wanted. That degree of bigotry and self-centeredness is scary stuff to me.

How do you think they and the rest of the world would respond if we had riots and people got killed over this film; which is 1,000 times more offensive than a few comics? What if we started burning the Turkish flag, stopped the billions in aide and support we give them, started chanting, “Nuke Turkey”, and started boycotting Turkish goods? Imagine if we started releasing the worst, one-sided, anti-Muslim propaganda film, making a mockery of their lack of education/balance and stressing their 7th century tribalistic and anti-Semitic (holocaust denying) view of the world, and it became #1 box office smash of all times? I’m not sure what they or the rest of the world would do, but I could never support such tripe, just like I can’t support theirs. They should be free to produce the garbage, but with freedom comes responsibility. And we are all responsible to call one-dimensional hate-films, what they are.

So what do you do? You certainly don’t want to cause a major incident over one bad film. The Turkish government has been mostly an ally, even if the Turkish street hates us. But that reflects on them, and their ignorance. The reality of their actions surpasses our worse stereotypes; so no need to make a film mocking them, we can just watch theirs and watch their reaction to it and it mocks them far worse than we ever could. We can watch to see if they release a film that counter-balances that point, or reflects on what they did wrong (as we usually do), or if like little children they think only other cultures make mistakes. So no reason to burn a bridge or anything; you can do nothing, turn the other cheek, and demonstrate that we are better at following Muslim and Christain and Jewish ideals than they are (tolerance). And you can hope that they can learn some shame and humility by us being more tolerant, and letting little slights go. Hey, even if has never worked for us with the America bashers before; it is still the right thing to do. Someday, if they mature, they’ll be as embarassed by that movie as we are or should be about ours.

You can’t change others, you can only change yourself. So I see events like that as giant blazing example of “how not to”.