‘22 July’ Will Break Your Heart, But it Should Also Make You Angry
The media shouldn’t be giving glowing profiles to fascists
I recently watched 22 July on Netflix after hearing a number of good reviews. I expected it to be a stellar retelling of a harrowing period in Norwegian history, but I didn’t expect to cry more than I’ve ever cried while watching a movie, nor the anger I felt toward the media when it ended.
The film follows the events of July 22, 2011, when a far-right terrorist exploded a car bomb near the building where the office of the prime minister is located, killing eight people and injuring at least 209 others, before driving to the island of Utøya where the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party was holding a summer camp. Disguised as a police officer, the terrorist was transported to the island, where he killed another 69 people, the majority of whom were teenagers. It was the worst attack in Norway since World War II.
The story doesn’t end there though. The film follows the terrorist, his lawyer, the prime minister, and the family of one of the Utøya survivors as they try to deal with the aftermath of the attack through to the end of the terrorist’s trial and his eventual sentencing.
22 July’s power comes from its representation of the attack and the absolute terror felt, in particular, by the youth as they tried to escape an armed white supremacist who wanted to murder what he called Marxists and children of the elite who were forcing multiculturalism on Norwegian society. It’s impossible not to be deeply emotionally affected watching him stalk through the woods as young people hide in terror, hoping not to be discovered and murdered.
But 22 July also does us a great service. It will inform more people about the Norwegian attack, what the far-right really believes, and the lengths its adherents will go to in order to try to impose their racist ideology. This is an essential message right now as far-right parties are gaining support across the Western world and the media is giving them glowing profiles instead of calling them out for what they really are: extremists who will take up arms to maintain the dominance of white people in their societies.
The failure of the media
When we talk about terrorism, the first image that likely comes to the mind of many is that of a young Muslim man, but that’s not often accurate, especially in the United States. Americans are far more likely to be killed in attacks by far-right extremists and white nationalists than Islamic radicals, as happened when Heather Heyer was murdered by a Nazi sympathizer in Charlottesville in 2017. And this isn’t just an American problem — the far-right is becoming bolder in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, and other parts of Europe.
However, the media isn’t reacting to the threat presented by white nationalists and neo-Nazis appropriately. Instead of telling their viewers and readers about the real threats presented by these violent extremist groups, white supremacists and neo-Nazis too often get glowing profiles where their abhorrently racist ideas are treated as legitimate and their violence is downplayed because they know how to style their hair and dress well.
There’s a long list of examples, but I’ll keep just to those that have happened in the past few weeks. Steve Bannon, former Chief Strategist for Donald Trump and executive chairman of Breitbart News who was behind the Muslim ban and is trying to build a network of far-right parties, has recently been invited to speak at events hosted by the New Yorker, the Economist, the Munk Debates in Canada, and most recently by the BBC. The media organizations, with the exception of the New Yorker, tend to defend their invites by claiming that Bannon has an important perspective on the rise of “nationalism,” but by giving him their platform, the organizations lend legitimacy to Bannon and allow him to spread his views.
The TODAY Show aired a softball interview with the leader of Identity Evropa on October 17 where he was allowed to spout his racist convictions largely without challenge as the segment obsessed over how “clean cut” its members were and ignored their participation in the violence in Charlottesville. The day before, the New York Times published yet another profile of a leading far-right figure — this time Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes — in which they downplayed his racist and sexist views and his advocacy of violence.
The New York Times has emerged as one of the worst media organizations for these glowing white nationalist profiles, but it’s far from the only one. Nearly all major media organizations seem to find far-right figures fascinating and downplay their support of violence in the pursuit of their racist, sexist, and otherwise extreme worldview.
22 July shows the far right for what it is: a violent fringe group that is seizing on growing insecurity among the poor and middle class to advance a racist project of white supremacy that has no reservations about using violence to advance its cause.
The film will break your heart, but everyone should watch it to know what we’re really facing with the growing boldness of white supremacist and far-right groups, because you certainly won’t hear it from the mainstream media.
