Kingdom of Heaven

Hat Tip to lgf for pointing out that Ridley Scott’s film about the Crusades "Kingdom of Heaven" is Propaganda Film. As LGF said:

• The film distorts history to portray Muslims in a good light.
• Nevertheless, Muslims at first attacked the film while it was being made (including death threats).
• Ridley Scott then subsequently slanted the film even further to appease Muslim special interest groups.
• Eventually most of them agreed it was sufficiently dhimmified.
• (The film, is also explicitly anti-religion, to please the Lefties.)
• Dr. Hamid Dabashi, featured in Columbia Unbecoming, was given a private screening by Ridley Scott and gave the film his stamp of approval, as Scott viewed him as “an important Muslim in New York.”
• Khaled Abou El Fadl at UCLA is still opposed to the movie, claiming the film will cause hate crimes against Muslims.
• The IMDB message board for KoH was deleted in its entirety due to Muslim extremists flooding the board.
• Christians may be planning a boycott of the film.

See the review

In this article highly respected historians are quoted as saying the film is "complete fiction" and "panders to Osama bin Laden"

Prof Riley-Smith, who is Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Cambridge University, said the plot was "complete and utter nonsense". He said that it relied on the romanticised view of the Crusades propagated by Sir Walter Scott in his book The Talisman, published in 1825 and now discredited by academics.

Dr Jonathan Philips, a lecturer in history at London University and author of The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople...said: "The Templars as 'baddies' is only sustainable from the Muslim perspective..."

Jeff blogged Perhaps CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] liked Kingdom of Heaven because the filmmakers already excised scenes of Muslim warriors spitting on the True Cross & other unacceptable material after a Muslim professor complained. (No doubt this editing was coincidental.)...

A NY Times piece on the film notes "Muslims are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything." Coexistence: the First Crusade was launched in 1096. Prior to that, Muslims conquered Syria (635), Palestine (638), Persia (642), Eqypt (642), North Africa (642-698), Kabul (711), the Indus region (712), Samarkand (712), Spain (712), Toulouse (721), Kyrgyzstan (751, Chinese army defeated), & Armenia (1071).

Muslim expansion into Europe was only stopped when the French defeated them at Tours (732). Someone should tell French actress Eva Green, who says, "It's not like a stupid Hollywood movie. It's a movie with substance. I hope it will wake up people in America ... to be more tolerant, more open toward the Arab people."

KelliPundit blogged A fantastic round-up of who is behind CAIR and then a great discussion of how Hollywood distorts historical facts to protect their favored minority groups. And guess what? Straight, white guys ain't one of them. Don't miss the comments either.

Darleen blogged A radical "religious" group gives approval of a new Hollywood movie, but only after the director and one of the lead actors assured them that during the production all scenes even the tiny bit critical or less than flattering to the religion's membership were excised or rewritten, even if that meant falsifying the historical facts being portrayed. The sheer power of such theocratic interference should raise eyebrows and engender column inches in the Mainstream Media over such an obvious scandal of art controlled by an outside religious group. But don't hold your breath, because we are not talking about the Religious Right, or even Christians. In yet another case of Hollywood's kneejerk dhimmitude, Ridley Scott has delivered a historical whitewash of moslems in Kingdom of Heaven.

John commented This really upsets me. Why do we always have the concept of crusaders as invaders but no movies showing the Arabs as invaders of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) empire. Syria, Lebanon, Palestine (a Roman renaming to demean the Jews) and Egypt were all Christian lands before the Arabs decided to expand their empire with no qualms as to what it would take. Not only had those lands been Christian for over 300 years they had had a Greek culture for over 900. In a place that had thousands of years of conquest and reconquest , why are the crusades singled out as been unnecessary?

It is true that after the Arab conquest of Jerusalem, the new rulers allowed the conquered people to practice their faith. However it is also true that a caliph built the Dome of the Rock over the remains of the old Jewish temple denying Jews access to that most holy site for them. The Crusades themselves did not appear in a vacuum. It was an Arab ruler in Jerusalem that decided to tear down Christian holy places and deny pilgrims access to them. Apologist for this ruler now always say that he was mad and his successor did away with his mad dictates, but that doesn’t change the fact that Pope Urban II in Rome (or France when he gave his speech) would not feel that these thing could be done again.

If any group suggested slanting the film in favor of Christians, the MSM would be screaming about interference from the "Rabid Right" and claims that Conservative Christians were setting up a Theocracy, but it seems quite acceptable to cater to CAIR and minimize anything bad that the Moslems did. This reminds me of schools allowing Hanukkah songs and displays and Kwanza songs and displays during the Holiday period (formerly known as Christmas), but no Nativity Scenes, and no songs about the real meaning of Christmas.