Comments on New Humanist Blog: When is a biopic not a biopic?

This film is great news. Yes, it will be an overly...

2009-11-05T09:49:05.202Z

This film is great news. Yes, it will be an overly deferential whitewash - but it will be criticised for that, and in making this criticism all the bits of Mo's life they left out will be brought to light.

The end result will be millions more people - both infidel and Muslim - being made aware of the subject's little foibles.

That's a good thing.

Weren't movie makers back in the day petrified of ...

2009-11-03T12:42:31.109Z

Weren't movie makers back in the day petrified of showing Christ on screen and what he might look like? Isn't it in Ben Hur where you just see the crowds, or the back of a guy who is meant to represent Christ without ever showing his face? They could do the same in this case, if they could find any actor bold and daring enough to be Mohammad's backside.

Interesting about Jewel of Medina. I didn't realize how limited a publication that wound up being. I'd heard about it, but when my library here in Canada wound up with four copies of it anyway, I figured whatever problem there was had been solved.

I too was disappointed when Samuel Beckett so blat...

2009-11-03T09:05:19.463Z

I too was disappointed when Samuel Beckett so blatantly left out the main character from Waiting for Godot. Clearly, this marks the play as Not A Real Play About People Called Godot.

Seriously though. On the one hand, it's sad a film with pictures of Mohammed in it is off limits. That said, there's no reason not to try and make a good film without him in it, even if it happens to be about him. For reference, Dantes Divine Comedy contains no single explicit reference to the Vatican, while still being highly critical of the Pope at the time (and also good enough to keep people reading it for 700-odd years).

Sounds more like using religion for a cheap gimmic...

2009-11-03T08:48:14.940Z

Sounds more like using religion for a cheap gimmick to me.

We watched "The Messenger" in my History of Islam ...

2009-11-03T05:15:09.735Z

We watched "The Messenger" in my History of Islam class at UM and Muhammad isn't shown at all. It goes something like this: Actors address the camera directly, "What do you think, Prophet?" Bells chime a la Tinkerbell, and the questioner nods. "Good idea, Prophet!" he says. I believe Ali is treated in the same manner.

But you know, Jytte Klausen maintains that depicting the Prophet Muhammad has never been blasphemous before. She says depictions of him are for sale in Middle Eastern markets today. It was not the depictions but the nature of them in the Jyllands-Posten cartoons that offended people who actually saw them (most protesters had not seen the drawings). Heretofore noncontroversial illustrations of Muhammad were also deleted from her book by Yale Press.

You never see Niles's wife in episodes of Fraser.

2009-11-03T01:00:34.947Z

You never see Niles's wife in episodes of Fraser.

Whether you want to call it a biopic or not, it wi...

2009-11-02T22:38:07.164Z

Whether you want to call it a biopic or not, it will be interesting to see how they manage to make a film in which the main character is absent. The more I think about it, the less convinced I am about the feasibility of this film.

I think the censorship issue is more interesting, though, and more depressing. Regardless of the intentions of the people behind this film, it's a near certainty that someone will decide to take offence at it. It's also a safe prediction that whoever decides to take offence will be pandered to rather than being told to grow up.

I thought you weren't allowed to put an image of M...

2009-11-02T17:32:35.080Z

I thought you weren't allowed to put an image of Mo up for anyone to see.
It'd be a rubbish film without the main character in vision.