c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Rabbi Rudin is the National Interreligious Affairs Director of the American Jewish Committee.)

UNDATED _ The film,”The Siege,”has been sharply criticized by some Islamic organizations who complained that the movie presents a distorted and unfair picture of Islam and Muslims.

But the controversy actually reveals more about American popular culture and history than it does about Muslims and their religion.”The Siege”represents another chapter in the continuing struggle between artistic freedom and the sensibilities of various religious, racial, and ethnic groups; between independence and control.”The Siege”graphically describes how an authoritarian U.S. Army general suspends constitutional guarantees when New York City is threatened by Arab terrorist groups. The tyrannical officer forces many innocent Muslims into makeshift internment centers in Manhattan. Two FBI agents, one black and the other Arab Muslim, are the film’s heroes because they defend traditional constitutional freedoms by arresting the general.

The movie ends with the Muslim prisoners reunited with their families as the general is led away for trial. When I left the theater after seeing”The Siege,”I overheard one woman tell her friend,”Well, I guess there are good and bad Muslims. Just like everybody else.” Muslims are indeed”just like everybody else,”in another significant way. They have now been initiated into the club of Americans who believe their particular group has been maligned or ridiculed in films and plays. Club membership is huge and includes, among others, Jews, Catholics, blacks, Hispanics, women, Italians, and American Indians.

In the early 1970s the American Jewish Committee publicly attacked the Broadway musical,”Jesus Christ Superstar,”charging that Jews were negatively portrayed as sinister figures devoid of religious feeling, and as enemies of Jesus. The musical employed anti-Semitic stereotypes and caricatures in its depiction of the first century Jewish community.

Since 1922 there have been four movie versions of Charles Dickens’ novel,”Oliver Twist.”Several have been labeled anti-Jewish because of their negative portrayals of Fagin, the leader of a gang of London pickpockets. And more recently the popular TV series,”Seinfeld,”has frequently been attacked for its cartoon-like foolish rabbi character.

Catholic clergy and Catholicism are usually treated positively in most films and plays. However,”Nothing Sacred,”a recent ABC-TV series about a troubled all-too-human priest and Terence McNally’s new play,”Corpus Christi,”have drawn the wrath of some Catholic groups. They charge that the figure of the TV priest is anti-Catholic and McNally’s Jesus character is anti-religious.

It would take more than this column to list the many movies and plays where racism has been present. D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film,”Birth of a Nation,”may be the most egregious in its hostile portrayal of blacks, but it is simply the first among many. Clumsy, lazy, vulgar, and sexually dangerous are some of the cinematic images of blacks that come to mind. This tide of screen racism began to turn in 1962 when the late lamented moviemaker Alan Pakula produced”To Kill a Mockingbird.” For decades Hispanics have been critical of how their community has appeared in films and TV. All too often Hispanics were derisively called by the insulting name,”Speedy Gonzalez.”Or they were the sleazy, mustachioed”banditos”who attacked white stagecoach travelers in the Old West. More recently, Puerto Rican characters in films are drug dealers, gang members, or jail prisoners.

Italian-Americans have had a long-running battle with certain films and TV crime shows. While Francis Ford Coppola’s three”Godfather”films may be among the world’s most popular movies, they have also negatively influenced public perceptions of Italian-Americans.

And if Muslims feel upset by one film, imagine what American Indians have endured through the endless negative film portrayals of their community. While there have been some notable attempts to balance the cinematic scales, millions of Americans were raised on derogatory movies about Indians.

But one thing never changes. Artists must remain free to create the films and plays they wish. And audiences must remain equally free to criticize those same films and plays. American Muslims, welcome to the club.

DEA END RUDIN