September 15, 2012 7:04 AM

Innocence of Muslims: 13:51 of my life I'll never get back

Wanting to at least understand what the latest fuss in the Middle East is about, I went to YouTube and found the “Innocence of Muslims” video. If first impressions mean anything, it had to be one of the stupidest, most pointless cinematic efforts in…well, forever. If you could overlook the lack of plot, character development, message, or anything else you’d expect to find in a visual medium, it was STILL a huge waste of time and brain cells. It was Just. That. Bad.

How disjointed and incomprehensible is “Innocence of Muslims”? It was as if someone decided to make a three-hour satirical film about the story of the Prophet Muhammad and then edit it down to less than 14 minutes. There’s no unifying theme, no common thread that ties the story together, and the acting was not even on par with your average middle school spring play. The production values were amateurish, the script juvenile, the acting inept…and those are the nicest thing one could say about this cinematic tour de farce.

I can how those who aren’t accustomed to our freedom of speech might be offended. My counsel to Muslims who can be bothered to watch the video would be that they have every right to be upset…but not for the reasons they might think. Be upset about the poor presentation, the absence of anything resembling a plot, and/or the junior-high-school-level acting; those are all things worthy of outrage. The message of “Innocence of Muslims,” such as it was, is just plain stupid and unworthy of the attention and righteous outrage it’s generated. It’s stupid, juvenile, and truly deserving of only one thing: being ignored. It’s certainly not worth rioting and killing over. This is particularly true when you consider that your average Muslim on the Middle Eastern street has no problem with depicting Jews in truly vile and offensive postures. There’s a huge degree of hypocrisy at work which reveals that Middle Eastern Muslims are every bit as ignorant of American culture as American Christians are of all things Islam.

(They’d fit right in among the GOP, though.)

The truly sad aspect of this controversy is that there are those on both sides ready, willing, and more than able to exploit and inflame passions for their own political ends. That people die when this happens is a travesty- especially when you consider that “Innoncence of Muslims” is a cinematic effort which can only be described as truly, unbelievably stupid. It’s not even good satire, it’s historically and theologically inaccurate, and it displays a total lack of concern with even the basics of filmmaking. If there’s offense to be taken, it should be for those things. All the filmmaker’s accomplished is to reveal himself as a no-talent hack who shouldn’t be allowed to film a bat mitvzah or the grand opening of a Dairy Queen, much less a satirical history of early Islam.

Yeah, I watched it. I wanted to have some idea of what Muslims are so upset over…and I frankly don’t get it. If every attempt at satire is going to result in riots in the Middle East, I’d suggest that Muslims take a step back. I understand why they might take offense at the depiction of the Prophet Muhammad, but can we dial back the violence and self-righteous outrage? People shouldn’t be dying over a 13:51 video that’s a complete waste of time and an insult to the viewer’s intelligence.

Methink y’all are taking yourselves and your beliefs WAY too seriously….

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on September 15, 2012 7:04 AM.

Romney/Ryan 2012: Creating our own truth for America was the previous entry in this blog.

Romney/Ryan 2012: Because everyone should have a personal relationship with Jesus is the next entry in this blog.

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