Argo and Zero Dark Thirty are two of the most thrilling movies of the last decade. Directors Ben Affleck and Kathryn Bigelow have both made films worthy of the hype they have received. At the same time, neither film is without its flaws. Argo features a mundane performance from Ben Affleck as the leading role. Throughout the film, Affleck lacks panache and seems to have forced himself into a role for which he was not destined. In Zero Dark Thirty, Kathryn Bigelow created two movies: one depicting the intelligence hunt for Bin Laden, the other depicting the raid on Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. The two plots are separated without the necessary threads to make the film present itself seamlessly. More importantly though, there is a significant flaw in both Zero Dark and Argo: both movies depict Muslims and Arabs from an extremely narrow point of view.
In Argo, Iranian people are portrayed as vehemently anti-American and irrationally violent toward the West. Of course, this depiction is accurate to a certain extent: some Iranians did and still do view America and the West in a negative light; however, to only show this side of the history does not do them true justice. The CIA ousted a democratically elected leader and inserted the pro-Western Shah. To put it in perspective, imagine if the Iranian intelligence agency, MOIS, initiated a coup and effectively ousted President Obama, and then inserted a pro-Iranian president to rescind the economic sanctions against Iran. This is essentially what happened to the country of Iran. Argo only included this detail as a credit in the beginning, which was quickly forgotten by most audience members once the action commenced.
In terms of pure Hollywood standards, this movie is completely acceptable. Ben Affleck created a patriotic film, depicting good (America) against bad (Iran); but one also has to consider the specific, contemporary political ramifications. Presently, anti-Iranian sentiment is as high as it was during the hostage crisis. Many right-wing politicians have become extremely hawkish in their policies towards Iran and much of the Western world has started to view Iran as an evil nation, since Bush famously included Iran in his Axis of Evil speech. Argo serves as an effective propaganda tool and only will further increase anti-Iranian sentiment. This increase in disapproval for Iran as a whole will only continue to inhibit U.S. efforts to reach out to Iran and to use diplomacy as an effective tool.
Zero Dark Thirty also does its job of depicting Muslims and Arabs in a very narrow fashion. The movie shows Islam as the only cause for radicalism in the Middle East, and subsequently attributes radicalism as the sole cause of terrorism. It is true that Bin Laden was Muslim and that he claimed to be waging his jihad in the name of Allah, but this is not a reason to shoot down Islam as a world religion. Similar to how the Westboro Baptist Church uses perverted interpretations of religious texts to wage its own war against liberalism, Bin Laden used perverted religious interpretations to launch his war against Western civilization. He deserves absolutely no excuses, support nor praise for his actions. At the same time, Islam as a whole should not be chastised because of his actions and because of Kathryn Bigelow’s narrow portrayal of a group of radicals who make up an extremely small percentage of the world population. Instead, both movies should be viewed with a grain of salt. Most viewers of both of these films only soak in propaganda about the Middle East and never think twice about it. They watch CNN or FOX News and get their information about the latest double agent bombing in Afghanistan and consider these news stories to be representative of Islam and Arabs.
We all must move beyond this mindset and realize that there is a lot more to Islam, and the Middle East-North Africa region, and that most of it is good. Like any region of the world, it has flaws, but instead of writing off these flaws as products of religion or a people, we must think critically and try to uncover the root causes. Only then can we watch movies such as Argo and Zero Dark Thirty and truly learn something beneficial.
