Charles Krauthammer blasts both the movie Syriana and the ideological anti-Americanism of its Hollywood producers and writers. He opens his essay with this indictment:
Nothing tells you more about Hollywood than what it chooses to honor. Nominated for best foreign-language film is "Paradise Now," a sympathetic portrayal of two suicide bombers. Nominated for best picture is "Munich," a sympathetic portrayal of yesterday's fashion in barbarism: homicide terrorism.
But until you see "Syriana," nominated for best screenplay (and George Clooney, for best supporting actor) you have no idea how self-flagellation and self-loathing pass for complexity and moral seriousness in Hollywood.
He closes with this summation:
In my naivete, I used to think that Hollywood had achieved its nadir with Oliver Stone's "JFK," a film that taught a generation of Americans that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA and the FBI in collaboration with Lyndon Johnson. But at least it was for domestic consumption, an internal affair of only marginal interest to other countries. "Syriana," however, is meant for export, carrying the most vicious and pernicious mendacities about America to a receptive world.
Most liberalism is angst- and guilt-ridden, seeing moral equivalence everywhere. "Syriana" is of a different species entirely -- a pathological variety that burns with the certainty of its malign anti-Americanism. Osama bin Laden could not have scripted this film with more conviction.
In between his opening and his conclusion is perhaps some of Krauthammer's best writing. I'm reluctant to comment on a movie that I haven't seen, but to the extent that it portrays Americans in the manner Krauthammer alleges, Hollywood bears at least partial responsibilty for inciting Muslim anger against Americans. For this alone they deserve a complete boycott of their product.
