MovieChat Forums > Mooz-Lum (2011) Discussion > I thought it was a fair portrayal

I thought it was a fair portrayal

posted 13 years ago by bite_me_loser_86
3 replies | jump to latest

I expected this movie to be what some people describe as 'sooo PC' and showing ' angelic, suffering muslims', but personally didn't like or sympathize with all of the muslim characters. I actually found myself getting pretty tired at some of the preachy ones that kept nagging Tariq to turn back to Islam. The father, I thought was horrible and close to fundamentalist. Though it is apparent he loved his son, I don't think he made the right decisions for him. The man at the Koran school who abused him was certainly not likeable.
So as far as I could see this movie didn't try to portray muslims as inherently good or white people as inherently evil.

I'm personally an atheist, never practiced Islam, but I do have a muslim father. He never tried to push his religion on me, or make me dress in a certain way. Today he knows I consider myself atheist and he accepts it, has never given me a hard time about it or tried to convert me. If anyone has tried to indoctrinate me, it's my mom and she's a christian, a creationist, even, unlike my dad.

I don't think that it has been much talked about how muslims were targeted in the West after 9/11 and I frankly think this movie was a good attempt at telling that story. I don't think the movie's intention is to say ALL muslims were treated badly, or to shift the entire focus from the people that died at Ground Zero to the muslims, but rather to tell their story, and what is wrong with that? Saying only christian Americans were affected by 9/11 is like saying only jews were killed in WWII.

Most muslims I know, including the ones in my family are peaceful people, trying to practice their religions. The idea that any movie that doesn't show muslims yelling 'Allah akbar!!' and blowing themselves up is liberal, PC propaganda is ridiculous.

[–] jjackfam5 13 years ago

I agree with you. My fiance is turkish muslim, he does not push his religion on me and I dont for him. Infact we plan to teach our children both religions and teach them not to hate, to respect all. In reality many dislike whites and it is because they say that whites hate Muslims and I dont mean American muslims, but in other countries. I agree with everything you said.

[–] TamPalm 11 years ago

Exactly. I came away with the same thing. I think the writers did a good job with painting Muslims not as "perfect people being victimized" but rather as just humans. They showed positive and negative. I think their intention was to humanize them and they succeeded in that. I just caught this film for the first time while channel surfing and I was pleasantly surprised. The superb acting is what stood out to me most.

[–] holly61 (901) a year ago

I feel like Tariq was a non religious person trapped in a religious family and denied a normal american life. He was angry because he had religion forced down his throat his whole life, was mocked for being a Muslim in grade school/was friendless and the worst thing was him being sent to a ''special boarding school for Muslim boys''. When he hit 18 and was off to college he just wanted to be done wit the Muslim stuff.