Is It Time for 'Make Your Own Mohammed Movie Month'?
Posted By Daniel Greenfield On September 20, 2012
When South Park's depiction of Mohammed was censored due to Muslim threats, professional cartoonists and ordinary people responded with "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day." The situation is much graver now than it was two years ago when there was general support for the idea of being able to depict Mohammed and few attacks on those responsible.
The man behind the Mohammed movie has been threatened with prison and has become the subject of a media witch-hunt whose sole purpose appears to be disclosing his personal information to his killers. The private and public arms of the Obama administration, its Department of Justice and its media spin corps, are acting to intimidate and punish anyone who dares offend the international Islamist theocracy.
The issue is not the merit of the Mohammed movie or the character of Nakoula Basseley Nakoula. Free speech is not about the merits of the speaker, but about maintaining freedom of speech for everyone. The Mohammed movie has become an opportunity for Islamists and domestic appeasers to implement a de facto blasphemy law dealing with Islam in the United States.
Nakoula is being transformed into a cautionary tale and that tale has no place in a free country. It is a fossil of the Muslim world where uppity Christians and Jews are punished for having the temerity to stand up to their Muslim masters. Once the informal punishment of Nakoula has been accepted, then it's only a matter of time until the informal arrangement becomes formalized into law.
The freedom of speech establishment has decided that the First Amendment does not apply here. The national ACLU is obsessed with Catholic schools, OWS and drone strikes. It is going after the Alabama penal system for not allowing HIV prisoners to work in prison kitchens. The Southern California ACLU is suing Disney on behalf of a Muslim woman who wants to wear her gendered Islamic garb of inferiority to work. If there is going to be resistance to this, it is going to have to come from ordinary people.
Intimidating everyone who draws a Mohammed cartoon stops working when tens of thousands of people are drawing them. Turning one man into an example of what happens when you make a Mohammed movie stops working when there are thousands of Mohammed movies being made.
Making a movie sounds daunting, but it's not. It's something that you can do on your own or with a few friends.
A movie does not have to be two hours. It does not have to be 90 minutes or even 30 minutes. Short films can be as little as 5-10 minutes. Even shorter projects can be only 30 seconds. What matters is not the running time, but the impact, and that comes with the subject matter. Imagine a version of this video that tackles Mohammed instead of Jesus and you can see the possibilities.
Making an online video does not require expensive equipment. You probably already have the basic requirements in your phone, camera and laptop. All you really need is something that can record video. Your PC or Mac computer already comes with basic video editing software and if it doesn't, YouTube has a built in video editor that you can use for simple operations.A Mohammed movie does not have to be a historical epic. It can be anything. Depicting Mohammed in any way, even if it's putting a turban on your cat, is already a form of defiance. Imagine Mohammed in the present day or in the age of the dinosaurs. Imagine him trying to order ice cream. It doesn't really matter. Creativity is part of what makes such a project interesting. The Mohammed cartoons were just as much about crossing boundaries as about being original, funny or theological. Many of them were really bad, but they succeeded just by existing.
The movie does not have to be live action. Sites like GoAnimate allow you to put together basic animated shorts. Those of you who are gamers may be able to make Machinma movies using the games you already have on your machine. Or just use hand puppets and cardboard cutouts. It does not even have to be original. You can dub in a new voiceover on existing footage, such as the already badly dubbed Mohammed movie.
The movie does not have to follow any shape or form beyond the one that you want to give it. All it has to do is exist.
Such an effort could be coordinated through Facebook groups with the more technically knowledgeable helping the less savvy. There are plenty of resources available online for aspiring filmmakers. Award-winning short films have been shot with iPhones and edited on them. Broadcasting your movie is as easy as uploading it to YouTube or LiveLeak.
It has never been easier to tackle a project like this, but in cultural and legal terms, these may also be the last few years when the window is open wide enough for it to be possible. Those of us who live in countries where such a movie is already unacceptable should get in touch with American colleagues who can upload and distribute the movie for them.
September would seem like a fitting month to be "Make Your Own Mohammed Movie" month, but it's almost over. October is nearly upon us and there's something about the Halloween month that seems to fit nearly as well into the picture. The ghost of Mohammed is the specter that haunts the modern world and as it rises from the grave, innocent men and women die. And who is to say that there isn't a movie in that?
Freedom is not passive. It does not abide waiting around for you to use it. Like all things in this world, it must struggle to survive. Our freedom to think as we wish, speak as we wish and believe as we wish is under siege. The best weapon that the besiegers have at their disposal is our compliance. They can intimidate individuals, but they cannot intimidate the rest of us unless we choose to be intimidated.
The Internet has given us all the tools that we need to fight back. All we have to do is use them.
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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com
URL to article: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/daniel-greenfield/is-it-time-for-%e2%80%98make-your-own-mohammed-movie-month/
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