Spielberg "Vengeance" Update: Steven's Stockholm Syndrome Worse Than I'd Earlier Diagnosed
By Debbie Schlussel
July 1, 2005
A New York Times article, today, confirms everything I've written (here and here) and worse regarding Steven Spielberg's upcoming "Vengeance" movie. It is now a certainty that Mr. "Schindler's List" will expend the capital he earned on that film <C>to now HUMANIZE(!) Palestinian terrorists who murdered the Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich in 1972.
It's bad enough that Spielberg ran the script by Arafat-fan Bill Clinton--Arafat ordered the Olympic athlete massacre--and other assorted Clintonistas who drooled over Arafat, like Mike McCurry and Dennis Ross.
Worse is the revelation that playwright Tony Kushner (a self-avowed socialist and gay activist) is praised for "humanizing the film's hunted Palestinians and giving a fuller sense of their motivation." Can you imagine if someone did a film humanizing Mohammed Atta and giving a fuller sense of his motivation?! Or perhaps he can do "Schindler's Other List," humanizing the Nazis and giving a fuller sense of their motivation. Unbelievable. We don't need more psychobabble about understanding the terrorists and why they hate us. Who cares why they hate us? A better question is: Why don't we hate them enough to quit doing crappy, Stockholm-Syndrome movies like this?
If the Times doesn't make Spielberg's intentions--which I correctly predicted, last summer--clear once, it makes them clear twice. Kushner was hired by Spielberg "to humanize what he felt was too procedural a thriller," as written by another screenwriter.
Spielberg released a statement calling the Munich Olympic massacre "a defining moment in the modern history of the Middle East," as if he's proud of that. It wasn't a "defining" moment. It was an EXTREMELY TRAGIC moment!
One hint Spielberg is playing for the wrong team: "Vengeance" is being shot in Pan-Arabist Malta, which criminally prosecuted columnist Simone Endrich for criticizing Palestinian terrorists, homicide bombings, and the Maltese Prime Minister for participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration. So glad Spielberg picked such an even-handed locale for "Vengeance."
Other signs Steven Spielberg is glorifying the Munich Olympic terrorists: He
* is concerned the project may be "misconstrued in the public mind" (if "Vengeance" denounced the terrorists, instead of humanizing them, there would be no reason for concern);
* is being advised by "a Hollywood spokesman who specializes in crisis communications" (if the film were against terrorists, there would be no need);
* is worried about "jeopardiz[ing] his tremendous stature among Jews" and that "admirers of his Holocaust work could misunderstand his new film and regard it as hurtful to Israel";
* released a short statement not just to the Times and Ma'ariv, but to Arab television network Al-Arabiya; and
* is "studiously avoiding the most glaring potential trap: drawing a moral equivalency between the Palestinian attack and the Israeli retaliation," his advisors tell the Times. Morally equivocating terrorists and their victims is not a glaring trap or something that needs hard work in order to avoid. It's a no-brainer, but not apparently in this film, which apparently will do exactly this kind of moral equivocation he needs to "work so hard" to avoid.
Unfortunately, Spielberg's idea of "Israeli assassins find[ing] themselves struggling . . . slowly giving way to troubling doubts about what they were doing," is nothing new. Been there, seen that. Another gay socialist Jewish screenwriter (just like Spielberg's Kushner) wrote a similar Mossad-assassin-has-doubts-about-killing-Islamic-terrorists-and-becomes-sensitive-guy thriller. It's called "Walk on Water," and I doubt Spielberg can improve upon that dreadful celluloid spittle.
Given all this, it makes the disappointing, Oscar-winning Munich Olympic Massacre documentary, "One Day in September," look almost appetizing.
Just two years after the Munich massacre, Yasser Arafat and company were rewarded with a Palestinian U.N. mission. One wonders what they'll get after Spielberg releases this propaganda piece, later this year, just in time for holiday gifts. |
