pudge's Journal: Anti-Semitic Actors

I had no idea Gary Busey was an anti-Semite, but he sure seems to be. I'm a month late on this, but maybe you hadn't seen it either.

Busey plays a Jewish doctor who works with American troops to harvest the organs of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, to send those organs to the U.S., UK, and Israel. This is a variation on the age-old "blood libel" of the Jews.

On the other hand, we know Busey is a bit crazy and stupid, maybe he just didn't realize the implications of his role.

And oh my: a BBC article doesn't even mention that Busey's character is Jewish, which is -- as far as Muslims in the Middle East are concerned -- the point! Maybe the BBC author/editor simply assumed that Busey's character being Jewish would be understood by its readers as a given?

The film seems to be bad enough in its libelling of American troops, but that has happened as long as stories have been told. You demonize your enemy, nothing new there. But that an American would participate in the perpetuation of this "blood libel" of the Jews is incredible to me.

I still think he did a great job as Buddy Holly. But as a friend of mine said, I won't be running out to see any of his other movies very soon. That goes for costar Billy Zane as well, who plays a Christian U.S. military commander who feels he is doing God's will by ridding the world of Muslims.

Zane, to his credit, disavows much of the movie's content, pleading ignorance, but come on, how ignorant could he possibly have been? Did he not know about Busey's character harvesting organs? And did he really think his character is representative of any U.S. military commander, or did he think it would not be taken by the Muslim world as representative of most of U.S. military commanders? Did he even think that given who this movie was created by and for, he should maybe have looked more into it?

Daily Show's take

[NeMon'ess]

Clip. [devilducky.com] (Requires Quicktime 6 or higher)

Their eventual point - that Hollywood's been portraying Arabs and Muslims as hijackers and terrorists for two decades. Why should it be surprising that American's are the bad guys in their movies now?

Re:Daily Show's take

[NeMon'ess]

The anti-semetic part of the movie, I'm not addressing.

Re:Daily Show's take

[pudge]

Well yeah, that's why I didn't bother addressing that much, and I said explicitly that stuff happens in movies a lot. I am disappointed those two would participate in such libel of American troops, but whatever, it's small potatoes compared to the blood libel stuff.

Brief thoughts

[Zeriel]

I haven't quite collected all my thoughts on this yet, so this is going to be potentially poorly thought out.

Where is the line between "playing a role" and "supporting the ideals of the character" for an actor, in your mind? I know that even in my days as a stage actor I played some pretty unsavory villans, some of whom were actually motivated by racial hatred (and that was just West Side Story). What about the people who play the roles of torturers and sadists? Does Anthony Hopkins necessarily support k

Re:Brief thoughts

[pudge]

In short, what makes Gary Busey in this role different from, say, Anthony Hopkins in the "Silence of the Lambs" trilogy?

Hopkins was not perpetuating a libel against an entire race of people.

Re:Brief thoughts

[Zeriel]

That much is true, but at what point does an actor in a role necessarily endorse the position of his character or of the movie?

I.e., Gary Busey plays a sadistic sociopathic Jewish villian, and is therefore anti-semetic because he's perpetuating a libel against a group.

Does that make Tom Beringer anti-American and anti-military because of his role in Platoon?

Re:Brief thoughts

[pudge]

It doesn't matter whether he endorses it. The MOVIE portrays the lie as fact, and he is participating in that.

Re:Brief thoughts

[Zeriel]

So it's not Gary Busey in specific but the entire cast and crew of the movie in general who could reasonably be considered anti-Semetic, because playing an evil role is acceptable but playing in a movie whose purpose is perpetuating evil stereotypes is unacceptable?

Is that an adequate summary of how you think on this issue?