The article to which you link spells his name “Medved.”

The Danithewites will be meeting in your local cultural hall this evening at 7:30pm.

Bring rocks.

DKL,

Medved goes on to note the near total absence of cinematic portrayals of muslim terrorists

Um, where has Mr. Medved been these past, say, 15 years or so? For example, you’ve got “True Lies”, where the bad guy was an Islamist terrorist. You’ve got “The Kingdom” the new movie out about Islamist terrorism in Saudi Arabia. The TV show Alias had several Islamic terrorists on it.

Medved also missed the uproar over 300 in the Islamic world.

I think that if asked, Cain and Voigt would insist that their movie is attacking radical Islam by proxy. Mormons should be the first to understand that.

#5- yeah, I can scarcely think of a movie or show in the last 20 years which the terrorists aren’t Muslim. But I am not sure what the point is here. Do we really need more movies that reduce any religion to being inherently violent?

I think that Medvid is pretty clearly talking about movie making since September 11, 2001, which is the date that the liberals started excluding Islam from their religious hit-lists.

I think that the larger point that Medvid is making is this: Mormons are easy targets. Islamic radicals are not. Since Islamic people of all stripes (and most liberals) have made it more difficult to portray Islamic radicals unfavorably, Hollywood is (predictably) taking the easy way out.

I’m reminded of something that J. Nelson-Seawright said about the Mountain Meadows Massacre during a recent Mormon Matters podcast. He said something to the effect of, “killing innocent people for no good reason is not a uniquely Mormon practice.” It’s not a uniquely Islamic practice either, but Islam and Mormonism sure as hell ain’t religions of peace. If you want a religion of peace, try Old Order Amish.

Not even sure about the Amish, DKL. Christianity in general is not a religion of peace. Our faith was born on the cross, after all.

Thank you for this disclaimer: The title of this blog article is satirical. The Mormon Mentality blog courageously opposes any attempts by Mormons to slaughter innocent evangelicals.

I wholeheartedly support not killing innocent evangelicals. However, I am grateful for the implications of the word “innocent,” since I know that no true evangelical considers himself/herself innocent (Original Sin, you know). So there is no such thing as an innocent evangelical. Hence, fair game.

I thought Medved was a paleo-conservative and not a neo-conservative.

[...] DKL thinks Mormons should kill more Evangelicals. [...]

Dan: First of all, the generalizations weaken your point. Secondly, what is your evidence of this?

First: Wrong again, Dan. The generalizations are themselves the strength of my point. Overly qualified statements are meaningless. Only broad, sweeping statements have any power.

Second: Are you trying to say that Islam is still on your religious hit list?

Dan: Easy targets to whom? Hollywood is not monolithic.

Whether something is monolithic depends on the point of reference. an all-mens school in monolithic with regard to gender, but it’s presence in the college system makes the system itself less monolithic. Without any specifics about what you take to be diverse and from what point of view, a statement like “Hollywood is not monolithic” is completely meaningless. You might as well say, “Quadruplicity drinks procrastination.”

Dan: In fact the movie was made by a company named “Black Diamon Pictures” and “Slowhand Cinema Releasing.” Now, I dare you to find me their websites.

Black Diamond Pictures is right here.

Slowhand Cinema is a distribution company, and they often do not have public web sites. Nevertheless, It is run by Hollywood distribution veteran Marty Zeidman, who founded it in 2004.

Dan: I think President Hinckley and President Kimball disagree with you. We ARE a religion of peace.

Your thinking makes a liar out of Hinckley and Kimball. We teach that Ammon and Captain Moroni were hero’s, and our most important book of scripture was edited and annotated by the pre-eminent military leader of his people. Joseph Smith died at the hands of a mob, but not before taking a few of his killers with him. These are false gods?

Contrast the Old Order Amish, who don’t even believe in fighting back in self defense.

I’ll have to look it up, but as long as he fought that’s enough for my point about this being a religion of peace.

Dan: Joseph Smith did not kill anybody. Nice try.

But he tried as hard as he could. No matter how you cut it, that’s called “violence.”

Dan: They merely show that you don’t know what you are talking about and instead of an actual debate on the topic, you’d rather lump together a whole group of people and insult all of them, when that should not be what you should be doing.

Wow. What a sweeping generalization you’ve made. Too bad you don’t seem to understand how generalizations work. Someone like you would say to Newton, “You’re theory of gravity is just a sweeping generalization that merely shows you don’t know what you are talking about and instead of an actual debate on the topic, you’d rather lump together a whole group of physical bodies and dictate their movement patterns, when that should not be what you are doing. That’s Rove’s tactics. Not the tactics of smart men, Mr. Newton.”

Dan, it sounds like you don’t support a person’s right to defend himself/herself when being attacked.

It’s not unreasonable for a person to shoot through a door if there’s an armed mob trying to push through and kill him.

Of course it’s violent. That’s the point!

“then he was completely incompetent at it.”

arJ, I recall someone mentioning that Joseph was using a pepper-box variant that wasn’t good for much, no matter how good a shot you were.

I have to agree that much of what Medved said was not particularly true as Matt B. pointed out. However, as Jon Voight has stated, this movie was made as a statement against Islamic radicalism. This is where the problem is that Medved has made a good (flawed as it is) point. If he wanted to make that statement, then why not make a movie about modern radical Muslims? His excuse has been purely because it occured on Sept. 11 as if it has some kind of cosmic significants.

Instead, the movie is about a bloody event that happened 150 years ago that paints Mormons as violent despots. He claims that this has nothing to do with Mormons today, but that is hard to swallow. That is because not one Mormon is shown as anything other than evil from the leader Brigham Young to the farmer. The only one who is supposed to be sympathetic questions the faith and turns from it when he gets all misty eyed for a girl. I don’t care how many years ago this event happened. Those who lived in the past represent us as Mormons living today because we came from them and hold the same beliefs and culture. When there is no sympathetic portrayal of a Mormon as opposed to those who were involved in the tragic actions of a few then there is no excuses. The movie is bigotry by proxy of time and ancestory.

I agree that a movie about the Mountain Meadows Massacre would be worth doing. However, I think a better and much more insightful treatment would ask a question of why a mostly peaceful people could become brutal and violent. After all, as has been pointed out these same Mormons didn’t do this kind of thing before or after the event. Many of them had become tramatized by what they had done and were often shunned. And the writer and director could still use it as a cautionary tale about religious fanaticism without bigoted conclusions. Instead, this movie will make you react rather than think.