We've recently fired missiles at suspected terrorist centers. The World Trade Center was blown up in real life, not in a thriller. Events like those in the film are familiar. But the prejudicial attitudes embodied in the film are insidious, like the anti-Semitism that infected fiction and journalism in the 1930s-not just in Germany, but in Britain and America. In its clumsy way, it throws in comments now and then to show it knows the difference between Arab terrorists and American citizens. ![]() I'm not arguing that "The Siege" is a deliberately offensive movie. The dramatic outdoor mob, action and army scenes are well handled by director Edward Zwick. There's cat-and-mouse stuff involving the tracking of Arab bad guys the usual computer and satellite gimmicks, and suspenseful stand-offs and shootouts. Martial law is declared, the Army moves in, and Arabs are detained without any due process. But the bottom line is that Arab terrorists blow up New York buses, a packed Broadway theater and FBI headquarters. The heroine, an American spy played by Annette Bening, grew up in Lebanon and has an Arab-American lover (although it's a little more complicated than that). ![]() "They love this country as much as we do," one American says in the film, unaware of the irony in the "they" and "we." The hero, an African-American played by Denzel Washington, has an Arab-American partner ( Tony Shalhoub) who is angered when his own son is mistreated. (By way of illustration, it is unlikely, even unimaginable, after recent history, that a fantasy like "The Siege" would be made about the internment of Japanese or Jewish Americans.) Oh, the movie tries to temper its material. Arab-Americans feel vulnerable right now to the kinds of things that happen in this movie, and that's why it's not the same thing as targeting other ethnic groups. There is a tendency to lump together "towelheads" (a term used in the movie). Many Americans do not draw those distinctions and could not check off on a list those Arab countries we consider hostile, neutral or friendly.
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