Item: I received in my inbox (not the Rake email, but my personal address for friends and family) this little note from the folks at Motive Entertainment, the good people who helped make Mel Gibson’s S and M Undead Masterpiece The Passion of the Christ such a big hit. These folks have set up a website to give viewers of United 93 an opportunity to discuss the issues raised in the film. Such as why they (some Muslim groups) hate America, what we can do about it, and a forum for discussion.
The last of which includes a link (from an individual, not Motive Entertainment) to a petition asking George W. to bomb Mecca and nuke Iran and Syria (and I’ll be damned if I’m going to link to them).
Motive has gone to great lengths to try and fold Muslims and Jews and Christians into the campaign, and try to be nonpartisan. However, there’s a decidedly conservative bent to the email, which has three endorsements of United 93, the first from moderate thinker Rush Limbaugh (who wished this movie came out “two or three years ago”–why?), the second from Roger Ebert (Aren’t there better critics to quote? Christ, this guy likes everything…) and Dennis Praeger, whose own brand of Judaism doesn’t extend to loving gays, liberals, or Europeans, apparently (again, you can find his site on your own).
So this movie, which seems on the surface to eschew any political leaning, is being co-opted, as all things 9/11 are, by the right wing. Which seems to me a greater insult to the memory of the victims of this tragic day more than anything else.
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