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The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

nationalreview.com

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Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#131

Post by GrumpySloth »

faeriechangling wrote: post #15
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a quote from the NYT article: > But attacks would come from the left, not the right. Arab and Muslim filmmakers and their white supporters accused Ms. Smaker of Islamophobia and American propaganda. Some suggested her race was disqualifying, a white woman who presumed to tell the story of Arab men. > Sundance leaders reversed themselves and apologized. > Abigail Disney, a grandniece of Walt Disney, had been t…

Is the left wing not supposed to be racist? I've heard some interesting views from some old school union guys. I don't really think of racism as a strictly partisan thing, the biggest partisan divide is regarding who the mob is most likely to be racist towards.

In particular anti-semitism is usually associated with the right, but it has a pretty long tradition on the left as well. The 60s in the communist block were a good display of that, but also the 40s in France (Tony Judt wrote a couple books about that, e.g. the French Communist Party, as depicted in The Burden of Responsibility: Blum, Camus, Aron, and the French Twentieth Century).

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#132

Post by ShredKazoo »

jmull wrote: post #96
ShredKazoo wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The National Review is one of the publications I respect most. It's rare to see someone criticize their own side.

Let’s be serious here. The National Review was a loud mouthpiece for the politicians promoting the war on terror, including the use of enhanced-interrogation-teqniues-don’t-call-it-torture. A piece of that national shame is all theirs. I guess it’s nice they don’t seem to support it anymore, but it looks more like a shift of convenience to me — the better to stroke the current conservative narrative to redefine “free…

>The National Review was a loud mouthpiece for the politicians promoting the war on terror, including the use of enhanced-interrogation-teqniues-don’t-call-it-torture. A piece of that national shame is all theirs.

Do you have a citation for this?

- - -

Supposing a journalist submits an article to the editor-in-chief, and the article expresses disagreement with a position that the publication took in the past. If the editor-in-chief says "no you can't say that, we need to present a consistent perspective for our readers", I'm less interested in reading their publication. This appears to be a case of the editor of the National Review passing that test.

>I guess it’s nice they don’t seem to support it anymore, but it looks more like a shift of convenience to me — the better to stroke the current conservative narrative to redefine “free speech” so as to cast speech they dislike as “cancellation”, that it can be repressed while still claiming to own the moral high-ground.

I wasn't able to parse this sentence.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#133

Post by ShredKazoo »

lamontcg wrote: post #74
ShredKazoo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem obvious to me that we should happily censor a film because the subjects of the film don't like it. Suppose we did a film about the Sackler family https://www.hulu.com/series/the-crime-of-the-century-63a06ef... and the Sackler family says they don't like it -- they feel they were misrepresented, and claim they didn't consent to participation, despite having signed consent documents. Is that legitimate…

It isn't being censored. Private institutions like film festivals shouldn't be compelled to show it if they find that they agree more with the petition by the subjects of the film. Other institutions can show it if they like. That is just freedom of association.

The way I'm using the word "censorship", it applies even if done by a private entity. For example, if B&N removed a top selling book from their shelves due to a pressure campaign from people who disliked the book, I'd say B&N was censoring the book.

I don't advocate using government force to compel film festivals to show particular films.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#134

Post by adaml_623 »

AmericanChopper wrote: post #107
adaml_623 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very unclear what you're saying. Are you saying the Tipper Gore is/was right wing? Are you saying that censoring music isn't something from the right wing of the political spectrum?

It’s very clear what I’m saying. The PMRC (which was the most influential music censorship lobby in the 80s and 90s) was a bipartisan organisation. To claim the music censorship initiatives of that period were right wing is simply to project one’s own biases onto history, and is trivially falsifiable.

Were the protests outside concerts also bi-partisan in nature or were they organised by Christian groups? I think the protests are different to the PMRC actions.

Edit: actually ignore me. I don't think we have matching definitions of left and right wing. And I definitely don't have knowledge of whether the US Democrats are left wing by any definition I'd use

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#135

Post by ShredKazoo »

bambax wrote: post #110
ShredKazoo wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't seem obvious to me that we should happily censor a film because the subjects of the film don't like it. Suppose we did a film about the Sackler family https://www.hulu.com/series/the-crime-of-the-century-63a06ef... and the Sackler family says they don't like it -- they feel they were misrepresented, and claim they didn't consent to participation, despite having signed consent documents. Is that legitimate…

I think you're missing the point. The point is not about who's a good guy and who's a bad guy, who's a victim or an oppressor; it's about honesty. If you do an adversary investigation about the Sacklers, using public footage or even private conversations that you obtained without them participating in any way, then sure you don't have to care about what they think. But if you do a documentary where you ask for your s…

>But if you do a documentary where you ask for your subjects' help, then you owe them something, and the least you can do is not exploit or spin their testimony to fit a specific point of view -- esp. a point of view they would discover after the fact. That's a betrayal.

It sounds like you are saying that it's unethical to include interviews in a documentary unless the interviewee is on board with the message of the documentary?

I don't agree with this claim either.

Suppose I'm a documentary filmmaker approaching the Sackler story with an open mind. I call up the Sacklers and say: "Would you like to tell your side of the story on camera?" They say yes. I interview them.

As I continue investigating, I discover lots of evidence that the Sacklers are villains, and their villainy ends up being the message of my documentary.

The Sacklers watch my film and discover it has a point of view they dislike. They feel that they've been exploited, that their testimony was spun, and that I owed it to them to not betray them this way, since they helped me with the documentary.

Do you agree with the Sacklers in this hypothetical?

Personally, I don't find the argument as stated particularly persuasive. If the Sacklers could demonstrate that their interview footage was cut in a way that misrepresented what they said, then I'd find fault with the documentarian on the grounds of making a misleading documentary. But I don't believe in a reciprocity obligation of the kind you describe. It seems to me that such an obligation is incompatible with the idea of investigative journalism.

Side note: In practice, it is already in the self-interest of journalists to play this kind of "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" game, in order to gain continued access to their subjects. I don't think it is a good idea to pile additional enforcement on top of the incentives that already exist.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#136

Post by daniel-cussen »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #103
iudqnolq wrote: post #94

I don't understand how the national review writer could write this and not realize the documentary was unethical. Why is "carceral system" in scare quotes? By their own description the facility obviously meets the definition. Yes, it's impossible to know for sure to what extent and how the men might have been threatened. That doesn't mean you throw up your hands and say "whatever, I now have no moral obligations". >…

If you keep reading … Smaker, who had already been cleared for contact, was in touch with three of the men throughout the months after Sundance. None of them ever brought up issues raised in the CAGE letter, and one even called recently to say — in a voicemail — that he missed her and wanted to know when she was coming back to Saudi Arabia for a visit. Even on the face of it, a white woman in Saudi Arabia, probably i…

No post body was provided.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#137

Post by iudqnolq »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #103
iudqnolq wrote: post #94

I don't understand how the national review writer could write this and not realize the documentary was unethical. Why is "carceral system" in scare quotes? By their own description the facility obviously meets the definition. Yes, it's impossible to know for sure to what extent and how the men might have been threatened. That doesn't mean you throw up your hands and say "whatever, I now have no moral obligations". >…

If you keep reading … Smaker, who had already been cleared for contact, was in touch with three of the men throughout the months after Sundance. None of them ever brought up issues raised in the CAGE letter, and one even called recently to say — in a voicemail — that he missed her and wanted to know when she was coming back to Saudi Arabia for a visit. Even on the face of it, a white woman in Saudi Arabia, probably i…

> None of them ever brought up issues raised in the CAGE letter, and one even called recently to say

The article acknowledges these men are being held captive until the Saudi government decides they're properly reformed, and restricts what they're allowed to say. How can you trust they're genuinely consenting in that environment.

> Even on the face of it, a white woman in Saudi Arabia, probably isn’t running around a rehab centre without authorities knowing what she was up to.

You've got the problem completely backwards: I'm not worried she's sneaking behind the government's back, I'm worried because she let the Saudi government puppet her into making propaganda for them.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#138

Post by tomrod »

dymk wrote: post #41
tomrod wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd heard the interview subjects were interviewed under false pretenses. Is this not the case?

Where'd you hear that?

> Another man said that he had explicitly told the film-maker that he did not want to be featured in the film but his wishes had been disregarded.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2022/j...

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#139

Post by rosnd »

nailer wrote: post #115
goodpoint wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is provably false. The nazi imprisoned and even exterminated socialists and communists as soon as they could.

I don’t follow your logic- my statement was that that the nazis openly considered themselves socialists and class warfare was a huge part of nazi ideology. Your state that’s probably false - but then don’t prove either of those statements false. It’s entirely possible to fight between factions of the same side of politics.

Class warfare seems to be a standard part of far right ideology, from Trump crowd to European far right.

Re: The Cancellation of ‘Jihad Rehab’

#140

Post by iudqnolq »

leot wrote: post #101
iudqnolq wrote: post #94

I don't understand how the national review writer could write this and not realize the documentary was unethical. Why is "carceral system" in scare quotes? By their own description the facility obviously meets the definition. Yes, it's impossible to know for sure to what extent and how the men might have been threatened. That doesn't mean you throw up your hands and say "whatever, I now have no moral obligations". >…

By your logic, any documentary that interviews prison inmates would be unethical. Smaker asked ~150 inmates to participate, and only a tiny handful agreed.

> By your logic, any documentary that interviews prison inmates would be unethical.

All ethical filmmakers carefully consider ethics in situations where people might feel compelled to participate. Prison is one such situation.

I'm not saying it's impossible to ethically film inmates, but it is very worrying she brushes off the possibility she might need to carefully consider it.

It's (almost always) unethical to interview inmates held in repressive dictatorships because there are so many different ways you can violate their rights and put them at risk.

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