Violence begets more violence; death and slaughter will run rampant
when men, women, and children grow up in times that are thirsty for
bloody, clouded by anger, and quick to thoughts of vengeance.
Recently I watched “Kingdom of Heaven,” the Director’s Cut, directed
by Ridley Scott of “Gladiator” fame, and I won’t sit here and not say
that I didn’t love this movie. History fascinates me, it’s one of my
loves, and one of the two majors I completed in my undergrad. I happily
sat there and watched it, admiring it for its technical achievements,
but more so for where it stood on Western and Arab relations.
On a side note, this move was touted as a historical action flick and
had 45 minutes of footage edited out because the studio head didn’t
believe a modern audience would want to go see a movie this long.This is
the primary reason it didn’t do as well as Scott would have liked and
many critics found the film to feel “incomplete.”
This bloody conflict (The Crusades), which lasted for nearly 200
years, set up the shaky relationship of these two religious powers that
continues to persist to this day. This is the primary focus of the film.
The movie, although not entirely accurate, is a fantastic
contemporary depiction that gets at the meat and bones of what this
conflict wrought. Balian de Ibelin (Orlando Bloom) was given his
father’s lands, and through cooperation and dedication, terraformed a
dusty and scarce environment into one that flourished with life and
harvest. It’s no surprise that this scene is a metaphor for the
incredible possibilities that are possible when two opposing forces work
together, and it is a superb portion of the movie.
But of course, this film is about the fall of Jerusalem and it
returning to Islamic hands under the military prowess of Saladin
(Ghassan Massoud) . Both Saladin and Balian are represented as men of
honor who try to avoid conflict with the enemy, preferring to continue a
shaky peace. Now of course, there are several players involved who are
ready for open war; both sides have either advisers or ambitious men who
would like nothing better than to see the other side killed and burned
while justifying it as God’s will. The film escalates into open war
because there was no way to reconcile; insults were lobbed toward
Saladin and Islam after his sister is murdered and his emissary killed
while sending peace negotiations.
Christians are clearly portrayed as the wrongdoers and the primary
antagonists of the film, and history can vouch for that, but this movie
is not about sympathies for one side or the other. The most prominent
scenes in this film are Balian riding out to meet the invading Muslim
armies and always thinking of protecting the inhabitants first and
foremost: a collection of Christians, Jews, and Muslims all living and
working together. Following the climax of the siege of Jerusalem, Balian
and Saladin agree to peace terms: the crusaders leave Jerusalem and all
its inhabitants can leave freely, without fear of slaughter. The terms
are accepted. Balian asks Saladin what the city of Jerusalem is worth.
“Nothing…everything.”
Then there are other movies that focus on this shaky relationship in a
way that doesn’t help show that there is any opportunity for
understanding and mutual respect to exist. The last decade in the United
States has been one of antagonism and racial profiling that’s done
little to help society try to learn about and respect people in the
Middle East. These movies, for example, are not all-out propaganda
against Muslims, but for a society that’s easily impressionistic and too
preoccupied with other interests to take time to learn about other
cultures, they aren’t far off.
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- “Rules of Engagement” is a good example of a film whose intentions
are too contrived toward showing one side, leaving another in a murky
miasma that leaves viewers internalizing poor ideas and stereotypes. Lt.
Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) is put on trial for a court martial
over an event in which he orders his squad of marines to fire down on a
group of protesters during a hairy situation at the US embassy in Yemen.
Snipers are firing from the rooftops, across from the square where the
scheduled protest–one that’s always been relatively peaceful, according
to the film–is taking place. Childers and his men are under heavy fire
while they evacuate the ambassador and his office, and he makes the call
to fire down upon the crowd because he believes they are armed and
dangerous.
The trial begins, and Lt. Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), fellow
marine during Vietnam and longtime friend of Childers, agrees to act as
his defensive attorney. The movie follows Hodges’ attempt to uncover
evidence in Childers’ favor, relentlessly pursuing surveillance evidence
from the embassy where the camera pointed down at the crowd, but
nothing is ever found. He visits the embassy in Yemen, and various other
locales, where victims of the violence, particularly the children, are
shown in a sympathetic light. One little girl who was in the crowd loses
a leg as a result of Childers’ command to fire into the crowd. Hodges
and Maj. Mark Biggs (Guy Pearce), the prosecuting attorney, go back and
forth arguing for and against Childers’ order to fire respectively,
culminating in Hodges’ climactic speech about a marine’s service to
country, his worth, and honor.
Childers is cleared of his most heinous charge and the film ends on a
positive note for marines, showing how those who serve their country go
through terrible trials that politics and ethics cannot teach in war.
Fair enough. But it also ends up doing nothing positive for the group of
people who were murdered, it being revealed that they all had weapons
and were also firing at the marines, along with the snipers, justifying
Childers’ call. The sympathetic scenes of bullet ridden children,
especially the little girl with the crutch, are all throw-away. They are
portrayed as beguiling, sending a terrible message about Arabs that
doesn’t even spare the children.
Reconciliation of two cultures, who aren’t as different as each might
think, is possible. And one can see how when comparing these two films.
Where “Rules of Engagement” is a film about law and order–the reign of
signed contracts, “Kingdom of Heaven” focuses on the spoken contract. A
man’s word dictates who he is and what makes up his character; both
Balian and Saladin were portrayed as honorable and empathetic men who
obeyed their promises. The other film laid under a mire of political
jargon and cover-ups. Sure, Childers innocence was proven and an
American hero is vindicated, but the Muslims in that crowd, the
children, never uttered a word, forever sealing their guilt. We as an
audience get nothing from them, and a film about a medieval crusade is
shown to be far more progressive than one about the judicial system in
Democracy.
Enter "Gravity Falls," a show about a pair of twins, Dipper and Mabel Pines, who are forced by their parents to go away for the summer to live with their odd Great Uncle (Gruncle) Stan at his house in Gravity Falls, Oregon. This is essentially Disney Channel's response to Cartoon Network's wildly popular "Adventure Time," but in a lot of ways this show is a lot funnier. AT tends to be a little too random at times with its humor, which is fine, especially for those who've grown up on the network's equally absurd Adult Swim block for the last decade.
GF has the advantage of mixing a kind of "Scooby Doo" mystery aura with an AT silliness. The silliness is far tamer than the Cartoon Network show, but it doesn't feel any less "epic." The show's main appeal is its brilliant delivery of lines. Much like the way the first "Shrek" surprised kids and adults with its smart humor, this show has a similar pull. Adult sensibilities are lobbed in with silliness and mystery to make this one of the better cartoons I've seen in a long time, and--in time--maybe even rivaling '90s epics like "Ren and Stimpy," "Rocko's Modern Life," and "Animaniacs."
It also has the advantage of having the brilliant Kristen Schaal on as the voice of Mabel. She's best known as Mel from "Flight of the Concords" and more recently as Hazel from "30 Rock." Lots of the wacky humor comes from Mabel, who is a pseudo female version of AT's Finn, while the exposition of the story is expounded by brother Dipper, voiced by James Ritter. 
Best of all, the show has a mysterious plot that is blossoming before our eyes every episode, with little clues injected each episode that get at the larger picture; whatever that plot may be is part of the allure of the show.
