Islamic jihad in American cinema. Terror and Entertainment Cover Image

Islamski jihad w amerykańskim kinie. Terror i rozrywka
Islamic jihad in American cinema. Terror and Entertainment

Author(s): Miłosz Babecki
Subject(s): Theatre, Dance, Performing Arts, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Film / Cinema / Cinematography
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Gdańskiego

Summary/Abstract: Two American professors of mass communication: James Wilson and Stan Wilson have written that “by the 1990s a television version of the titillating sensationalism of tabloid newspapers had emerged as a new genre of television programming”. They had in mind mostly tabloid TV based on crime, blood and sex. New millennium has brought another kind of entertainment, inspired by 9/11 terror attacks. It includes new genres of television, Hollywood movies etc., and becomes a profitable branch of mass culture. Since 9/11 American moviemaking refreshed political fiction, but this time it is focused on the Islamic idea of jihad. 21st century has changed nature of this traditional Muslim term. According to Benjamin Barber jihad stopped to be Islamic and nowadays the idea becomes part of Western point of view: a reason to support American propaganda hidden inside mass distributed movies. Barber explains jihad as a postmodern ideology which uses financial infrastructure and show business to spread on.

  • Issue Year: 2009
  • Issue No: 08 (15)
  • Page Range: 165-172
  • Page Count: 8
  • Language: Polish