Prolific Dutch director
Theo Van Gogh, known in America for the release of his 1994 phone-sex drama
06 under the title
1-900, was
killed earlier today in Amsterdam. He had been receiving death threats following the television screening of his latest short film,
Submission, a drama about a Muslim woman coerced into a violent marriage, raped by a relative, and then brutally punished for her adultery. The film was co-written by a Dutch right-wing politician who renounced her Muslim faith and now is a critic of the religion.
The film enraged Muslim groups after its airing and the filmmaker has been under police protection. A 26-year-old man of Dutch-Moroccan nationality has been arrested for the crime. According to witnesses, the man rode up to Van Gogh's car on a bicycle, shot the director as he exited the car, and the waited by the body to make sure he was dead. He then fled to a park where he was apprehended.
According to the Associated Press article linked to above, Van Gogh shrugged off the death threats on a recent radio interview, calling the movie "the best protection I could have."
Comments (1)
What some people don't seem to understand is that in a free and open society, you don't murder those you disagree with. Instead you voice your own opinion.
If you feel offended by a film, the proper response is that your make your own film that presents your own point-of-view. (Thanks to digital cameras, anyone can be a director.)
The answer to a disagreement over a film is not to kill the director. Murder is not going to convince anyone of your peaceful intentions, is it?
Ask any non-Muslim: "Are you less or more afraid of Muslims after that director was murdered?" To be feared, I must emphasize, is not the same thing as being respected (much less "loved").
I hope the murder does not intimidate other directors, so that they feel forced not to use Muslim actors (or actors playing Muslims) in their films. Then we might end up with Muslims being curiously invisible in film.
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself...
A Shy Person
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posted by @ 11/02/2004 5:14 PM
