Cinema is Feeding the Fear of Terrorism
In a current world filled with terrorism one would think making movies with terrorism would be a big no-no. On the contrary, terrorism seems to be what is in at the moment. The cinema world seems to be on an agenda; an agenda to feed humans more fear of terrorism instead of hope that tomorrow will be better.
The film London Has Fallen was released in March 2016 and was directed by Babak Najafi. This particular film focuses on ISIS like Middle Eastern terrorists who disguised themselves as soldiers and successfully murdered several world leaders with the ultimate goal of murdering the United Stats President online for everyone to see. That group of terrorists, as put by a British MI-6 agent (side note: the film offends London’s MI6 team by making them appear clueless and corrupt) is,
“the United Nations of every-fucking-body who hates us.”
Around the time that this film was released, all around the world people were coping with tragic terrorist attacks like the attack in San Bernardino and the attacks in Paris. People were already scared of people from Middle East that fit what they thought a terrorist looked like and then this movie is released only fueling that fear. It added to the fear people already felt towards the Middle East and just how grand a terrorist attack can be. Of course the film subtly tried to hide its racism. In one particular scene towards the end Mike is able to identify a group of terrorists disguised as help, he does this not based on their appearance (long full beards, skin tone) but by the fact they weren't sweating from a jog they supposedly just did.Through this movie viewers are allowed to experience war and terrorism at a distance. As Kaplan would put it, it’s an opportunity to explore what sensing at a distance means and how we can associate distance to war to terrorism, and how that makes us feel. It’s through films like London has Fallen that most people get an idea of what war and terrorism is like — not that that is accurate but its what people have to work with considering not everyone goes to war. The distance of knowledge from what war is allows for people to let their fear of terrorism consume them. Of course at the end of the film the ever fantastic Mike saves the day and is ridiculously able to single-handedly take down a huge number of terrorists without he himself getting many wounds. He’s so good and confident at what he does its interesting to see how in one particular scene he tells a terrorist,
“Why don’t you pack up your shit and head back to Fuckheadistan.”
That one line itself is racist, and could be the subject to an entire 20 page essay.
So basically the Americans in this film are perfect, they have really good aim accuracy, are smart enough to figure who the guilty are, they have the best lines and they lose less people, while the terrorists have horrible aim and killing skills, they also are getting killed really fast and they aren’t even worthy enough to be allowed to speak in their own language they are given accents, while the European leaders are allowed to speak in their language and are given subtitles.
This movie is just one of the many that uses racism and takes advantage of the fear people have of terrorism to make money. Perhaps through feeding fear of terrorism the cinematic world helps the government? When people are in fear its easier to control them. Thus by releasing films like London Has Fallen so close to when real life terrorist attacks happened people get more scared and will quietly go along with whatever the government wants to do next. It’s possible that the cinematic world and the government are working together because the power of fear is control, and that is exactly what the government wants!
