Did ‘SNL’ ISIS skit cross a line?
Why shouldn’t ISIS be fair game for jokes?
- Dean Obeidallah: Twitter blew up over “Saturday Night Live” skit about girl joining ISIS
- He says ridiculing and laughing at terrorists undermines them, diminishes their power
Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is the host of SiriusXM’s weekly program “The Dean Obeidallah Show.” He is a columnist for The Daily Beast and editor of the politics blog The Dean’s Report. He’s also the co-director of the documentary “The Muslims Are Coming!” Follow him on Twitter: @TheDeansreport. The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.
(CNN)It’s outrage time again.
This time it’s over a “Saturday Night Live” commercial parody that aired over the weekend. The subject (take a deep breath and prepare to be shocked): ISIS. Yes, that barbaric terrorist group was ridiculed in a parody of a Toyota Camry commercial.
The original Toyota ad depicted a father driving his daughter to the airport. He then tearfully says goodbye as his daughter heads off to join the U.S. Army.
In the “SNL” parody, the daughter is played by Dakota Johnson, star of the hugely successful S&M film “50 Shades of Grey.” (Good to see America has gotten over being offended by the mainstreaming of S&M.) As the parody commercial ends, however, it’s revealed that the daughter is not joining the Army, but ISIS.
We then see a pickup filled with ISIS fighters drive up as a worried Dad comments to his daughter: “You be careful, OK?” Johnson replies reassuringly: “Dad! It’s just ISIS.” The father then turns to an ISIS fighter and says, with emotion, “Take care of her.”
In reply, the militant whispers: “Death to America.”
And … cue the outrage!! Twitter lit up instantly.
Twitter user @ematrudo called NBC and “SNL” “Tasteless Scum!”
And Steve Bucci of conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation even went as far as to tweet: “SNL ISIS skit also draws a moral equivalence between ISIS murderers and the U.S. Military (based on the spoofed commercial), that is wrong.”
Some, apparently in the minority if the media coverage is any indication, also praised “SNL”:
But my favorite tweet was this one:
@kmorrison is 100% correct. The sketch mocked ISIS and on some level those who would fall for its sales pitch, like, perhaps, the three young British girls who reportedly headed to join them.
Just Watched
Using comedy to counter ISIS
Comically skewering ISIS is exactly the right thing to do — it should be done even more. In fact, in Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates and even in Iraq, where ISIS is slaughtering people, brave Muslim comedians are ridiculing ISIS on TV, in YouTube videos and in cartoons. And I can assure you that if ISIS were to catch these comedians, it wouldn’t just tweet about its outrage, it would kill them.
So why do these comedians take the chance? Because, they say, it undermines ISIS, and also, for many, it is cathartic to laugh at the terrorists, as opposed to shivering in fear about them.
This is the same reason Mel Brooks featured “Springtime for Hitler” in his hit musical comedy, “The Producers”: It was a way of using comedy as revenge. Brooks saw it as a way to rob Hitler of his power (even if posthumously) by causing audiences to laugh at him.
What’s more, the “SNL” parody makes an important but subtle point. On the side of the ISIS pickup, the Arabic writing does not state a religious expression. Rather it says, “I love cats.”
More at: http://www.cnn.com/2015/03/02/opinion/obeidallah-snl-isis-skit/
FROM STTPML (On the parallels between US Military and ISIS in terms of personality types sought, recruiting methods, typical backgrounds and motives of some recruits; (“Killing ‘Commies’ and ‘Hajis’ for Jesus” versus “Killing ‘Apostates’ and ‘Infidels’ for ‘Islam'”)
https://www.4thmedia.org/2013/04/u-s-imperialism-boot-camp-and-cognitive-dissonance/
https://sttpml.org/american-sniper-american-hero-or-american-psycho/
https://sttpml.org/chickenhawk-nation-and-the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/
https://sttpml.org/are-u-s-soldiers-really-this-dumb/
https://sttpml.org/former-cia-official-bemoans-us-veterans-in-decline/
Russell Brand Explains the Real Reason Westerners Join ISIS: Alienation
Some have blamed Islam itself for encouraging what they view as holy war in defense of the faith. But British comic and activist Russell Brand offers a different take on the phenomena. Noting that at least half of those from Britain and France who have gone to join ISIS come from non-Muslim backgrounds, he suggests that alienation, not Islam, is the culprit driving young people toward the group. “The fuel for this phenomenon—apathy, alienation, isolation—is felt by a lot more people,” Brand concludes.
Watch him explain below:
When I was in the military 1963-66, the recruiters used an acronym MATTRESS that stood for the real reasons why men and women enlist. It stood for Money, Adventure, Travel, Training, Recreation, Education, Security and Satisfaction. In addition to those motives, you could add the acronym used in the intelligence services for the motives that lead people to commit treason and get recruited by intelligence services or indeed become insurgents: MICE which stands for Money, Ideology, Compromise and Ego. And to that list, one could add: Revenge, Love and Lust, Family, and of course just plain false flag or deception as to for whom one is really working, getting maimed and dying. But in all of these motives for enlisting or spying, you may find ideology in some crude form, but in reality people become mercenaries, and do mercenary business for mercenary reasons.
Look at the recruiting posters and see what they give as reasons to enlist. Do they say “Join the Army and Kill ‘Commies’, ‘Hajis’ and ‘Terrorists’ for Jesus”? Do they say come to “West Point, or Annapolis or the Air Force Academy, institutes of ideological cloning (disguised as institutions of higher education) for a career as an expendable tool of U.S. Imperial Power projections”? No the posters talk about MATTRESS stuff. The patriotism and ideology, due to cognitive dissonance come later. During my time in the U.S. Army, and it remains the same today (I still have many students who are Iraq and Afghanistan War returnees who are open about their own motives for enlistment) the motives of MATRESS and some of MICE are still the motives that recruiters quickly spot and play upon. In the TV series “The Unit”, advised and written for by former Sgt. Major Eric Haney one of the founding members of Delta force, through the character Col Tom Ryan (commander of The Unit) contemplating an offer to become a general, visibly beaten up, flashing back to his own recruitment at 17 as he ran away from an abusive stepfather who beat him all the time:
Recruiter: “I’m assuming the reason you came is you want to join the Army. Well here’s the good news. You’ve got your own birth certificate on you. When you leave this room, you will never have to go home again. Did I guess right? Here’s what’s going to happen to ya. You get to be a man which means your gonna get to use a weapon. In your travels, you will have more women than you know what to do with. And whatever son of a bitch you’ve been dealing with, should you see him again, I guaran-freaking-tee you [that] you will look upon him with pity and he will look upon you with fear. And you get to serve your country, so what the hell are you waiting for? [Colonel Tom Ryan hands him his birth certificate]. One day if the enemy don’t kill ya, or if your not blown to bits by your own forces, or knifed by a whore, or something, you may live to be a general.”
Maybe you are shall we say “vertically challenged” [short] in terms of height and stature, like Audie Murphy was seen to be; perhaps you were bullied most of your life. Well a uniform, some training, ribbons and decorations, training in the combat arms, and before you know it, those who used to laugh and mock you now run in fear when they see you; and there is nothing like a war to turn a nobody into a somebody.
Perhaps you were dumped by your girlfriend Muffy for Biff the quarterback and BMOC in high school; well when you come home from a war with chest full of medals, that “bitch” Muffy will see now she dumped the wrong guy cuz now you are a somebody.
Perhaps you are from some podunk small town and do not want to work for 30 years in the same factory as your daddy, the factory that gave/gives him bloody lungs and a cheap watch after thirty years.
Perhaps you come from a family of “warriors” and they expect you to do your bit as did Dad, Uncle Frank even Aunt Milly.
Perhaps you are afraid of the outside world, job searches and rejections, and the choices and uncertainties that that outside world has–no guaranteed “three hots and a cot”.
Maybe it was a case of getting some woman pregnant and getting out of town before her brothers intent on homicide showed up; or maybe an door-number-two offer from a Judge of either enlisting or winding up in the joint married to a 300-lb tatooed biker named Spike.
Maybe you decided no student loans or working my way through school; I am going to finance my education, plus the travel, adventure, need for a job and job security, getting an ego boost from a uniform, etc. by becoming a paid thug and killer for U.S. Imperialism.