Should this film be banned?
| 09:52 UK time, Monday, 19 July 2010
He's done an outstanding job of keeping out of the limelight for almost a decade now, but even Osama Bin Laden cannot hide from grasp of Bollywood.
The industry's latest release, Tere Bin Laden (Without You Bin Laden) has just been banned in Pakistan and its release postponed in the US. Here's more on the comedy.
The Pakistan government fear that the movie might trigger violence. The Dawn editorial calls the move 'pandering to supporters of the world's most wanted man.'
There's no shortage of disappointed Pakistani movie-goers - have a read of this blog.
And here's what Huma Yusuf had to say,
'By discussing irreverent - and seemingly irrelevant - things like films and plays, Pakistanis can begin to safely interrogate the rhetoric of extremist groups. Such low-stakes debates can allow an increasingly right-leaning and terrorised population to critique extreme viewpoints and thrash out alternatives. '
Faiz Ullah writes that the movie has done by NATO hasn't been able to do in 9 years - 'disarm the numero uno terrorist.'
This American commentator agrees,
'Indeed, here in America, there's a long, happy tradition of transforming our enemies into clowns. The Three Stooges did it with Hitler in 1940's You Nazty Spy! (And Charlie Chaplin followed in their footsteps later that year, famously impersonating Hitler in The Great Dictator.) Leslie Nielsen did it with the Ayatollah in 1988's The Naked Gun. And now it's bin Laden's turn to be punished in the courtroom of popular culture. In fact, he's already made cameos on South Park and The Family Guy. Why not in a Bollywood comedy?'
Is a comedy about Bin Laden a sign of a mature film industry or just bad taste?
