Wednesday, November 10, 2004

What kind of joke is this--and on whom?

WorldNetDaily, or rather its source MEMRI TV, report a rather interesting video: Lebanese satire: The beheading of Demi Moore You can view the video here. (Format: Microsoft Windows Media Player.)

You can't make this stuff up. The men in this video are only pretending to be terrorists, and Actress Demi Moore did not repeat not participate. Rather, you see an actress pretending to be Ms. Moore appearing in this "hostage video." The dialog quickly degenerates into crude farce, and the video ends with the lead "terrorist" threatening "Ms. Moore" with the knife but not actually using it.

Who are these men? Secularists making fun of terrorists? Or terrorist wannabes protesting the kind of stuff that appears on Western TV and in our movies? If it's the latter--well, I could never approve of such a method, because my solution to the trash-movie and trash-TV problems is simple: I don't go, and I don't tune in. (Sometimes if a TV show is especially outrageous, I'll boycott its advertisers, but it's probably enough--most of the time--to let those advertisers know that their message cannot reach me on a show that I do not watch.) If it's the former, then they managed to deliver a barb at the terrorists and what passes for our "culture." What gives me a clue is listening to the male actors rant and rave--it sounds like farce, and the background music only makes it sound more like farce. Listen for yourself, and then decide.