COMMENTARY | The debate over whether violent films and TV shows inspire the mentally unbalanced to commit acts of violence took a strange twist when Arid Uki, who killed two U.S. Air Force servicemen, revealed the reason why to a German judge.
According to The Washington Post, Uki, a Balkan Muslim, saw an anti-American, anti-war movie called “Redacted,” directed by Brian De Palma in 2007. Though he was one of the few who actually saw the movie, the lurid depictions of insane, racist, murderous U.S. servicemen in Iraq raping a Muslim woman were enough to inspire Uki to commit murder himself.
“Redacted,” one of a number of movies that attacked the United States and the war on terror, was considered especially vile in 2007 when it was released for its depiction of American servicemen and its pornographic depiction of a brutal rape. Like virtually every movie of its genre, “Redacted” bombed, making about $65,000 in its run in the United States after costing $5 million to make, according to IMDB.
The revelation that a Muslim terrorist is citing an anti-American, anti-war movie directed by a famous American director as the motivation for his crimes raises a number of questions.
What is the responsibility of the artist for real-world consequences for his or her art?
In most cases, the answer is not much if any. One cannot control the actions of disturbed people. But “Redacted” was made with the intention to provoke anger against the war on terror and deliberately depicted American servicemen as monsters. With Uki’s murder of two American servicemen, the film seems to have succeeded brilliantly.
The artists involved in the movie may protest all day long that they did not mean for people to go so far as to commit murder in response to the message and depiction in their work. But even given five seconds of introspection, knowing something about human nature, the idea that “Redacted” would inspire violence would have been inescapable.
Turning things around, if someone had made a movie depicting Islamist jihadis committing murder and rape and expressing racism — things they actually did — and then someone seeing the movie became unhinged and murdered a random and innocent Muslim, one can accurately predict what the reaction would be.
One wonders, therefore, how De Palma and everyone else involved in “Redacted” will sleep at night.
Source: Balkan Muslim says murders spurred by film, Laura Donovan and Neil Munro, Daily Caller, September 1, 2011
Redacted, Yahoo.Movies
Box Office Business for Redacted, IMDB