If this is not disrespect, then what is?

I just came from watching 'Dracula Untold' and honestly speaking, it was my most anticipated movie of the year. And oh God, was I appalled by how Muslims were portrayed in it.

As a movie, it was mediocre enough, now what it did to the Ottomans, that's just plain ridiculous. Especially noticeable is a scene in the movie where Mehmet II stamps his thumb covered in blood on the imperial edict. This practice, I've not heard of it. It's neither in the Quran, nor in the hadith and not even a single Muslim ruler in the whole history of Islam had ever did that. What was even more atrocious was that there was the name of God written in Arabic script right next to that stamp. And now, it's not uncommon to see Islamophobes making that out to be "The will of Islamic God".

Read this article to get a better view: http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/what-historical-inaccuracies-dracula-untold-tell-us-about-rise-islamophobia

Before someone says "Stop being pretentious it's just a damn movie". Let me tell you, it's not just a movie. There have been several movies before that had done their fair share of disrespecting Muslims and Islam in general. Not to mention, anyone who'd seen this movie could never see Muslims under the same light or if they were Islamophobes already, that would just worsen things even more.

I ask you OT, is it something to be supported? hollywood has always tried to make out Muslims to be the bad guys, rare are those occasions when Muslims are shown as what they truly are. Would you support this heinous practice?

Not that I want to go into a heavy debate about the topic but at least Indonesia, Pakistan and Bangladesh have had muslim female leaders, how many has the US had again?

Amusing fact though, right?

oh those poor Ottomans.

Unless you're going to try to make the case that you'd rather be a woman in Pakistan than in the US........

I think the truth is somewhere between the movie and what you believe. Meh. Move along.....nothing to see here.

If the acting is good enough to immerse oneself then sure I am okay with it. If Islam was pulled through the mud in order to create a dark atmosphere for the movie's premise than there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. That has happened across the entire spectrum.

However if you found actual evidence that the original pitch was to make a Islam negative movie and they said use Dracula lore to mask it, then that be different.

did you read the article?

If Hijab is the basis of your argument then sorry to say but please refrain from posting such comments any further.

I'd prefer not being a woman anywhere, because that'd involve some rather invasive surgery.

Edit: I would'nt want to be black a lot of places in the US either. In the case of politics the grass always seems to be withered on the other side.

When the credits rolled and there was not a single Muslim name to be found therein, I wasn't surprised in the slightest. Some things are opinions, some things are pure callous indifference. This was the later. If they wanted to create a dark atmosphere, then they shouldn't have used Quranic verses on flags, they shouldn't have used the name 'Allah', they shouldn't have used any thing that could possibly be offensive to the World's second largest ethnic community.

Well, if they had a Muslim on board then it would've been a different story. It would be us to be blamed then.

I only saw the first movie of that series, back when I was 5 year old or something. So I can't really say anything on that. But yes, it might just be one of those movies that I mentioned in the OP.

You seem to be skating around the point.

That's Hollywood. It's just as much a part of the American propaganda industry as anything. There are few films where there isn't a motif present that aims to shape your disposition toward a certain issue or idea. These motifs often depend on state's domestic and foreign endeavors. Today it's all about the ME, so, through their films, Hollywood will use whatever means to help shape public attitudes toward the state's favor. That may include making the public ignorant about certain Islamic elements.

May I ask why to the bold? How do those things conflict with the dark atmosphere where the Turkish army is supposed to be worse than Vlad the Impaling bastard?

"If they wanted to create a dark atmosphere, then they shouldn't have used Quranic verses on flags, they shouldn't have used the name 'Allah', they shouldn't have used any thing that could possibly be offensive to the World's second largest ethnic community."

Why? Is the muslim mindset so weak that it deserves special attention that nothing should ever hurt muslim's feelings? Plenty of movies out there that paint christains in a bad light, I don't see why muslims should be any different. It's a fantasy movie anyways, one where the main character is a freaking vampire...I don't think they need to be historically accurate.

Which point? My own? I'm not sure we're having the same discussion here.

I agree. Everyone and everything is fair game.

Personally I think is you are a Muslim, you get it pretty easy.

.

Look at this game on steam for example. If this was mocking Islam it would be

1. Not allowed on steam

2. Taken off.

Because you generally don't run the risk of someone actively attempting to take your head off, it's quite accepted to run all over Christians as a cheap target.

I saw this movie but I don't recall the religion of the Turks being brought up much (if at all) in the movie. Like 300, that portrayed Greeks as gym rats who go into battle naked and scoff at the idea of "boy love" and Persians as literal monsters and 10 foot tall transvestite warlords, any cultural insensitivity this movie had seemed to be born out of ignorance rather than malice. "We are not going to look up any history on this because we are too busy writing our own" seemed to be the prevailing attitude. The tragedy of the love story might have been slightly undercut had they mentioned all the mistresses that Vlad had in real life, for example.

-Byshop

Christians are weak when it comes to their religion plus it's not rare to find christians themselves mocking Jesus or throwing jokes over it. So it's a fair game for them.

But Muslims are different. Islam is what we believe in and you don't, thus Islam becomes our property. And without our permission, nobody has the right to do anything to Islam that may displease us. Christians themselves make jokes about christianity plus the Pope himself made a joke out of him when he turned away from the Bible by making homosexuals a legal part of the society, so yes, if it's something the majority of the christians practice, then you can do that too. Why should they be offended? but when it comes to us Muslims, we're not all terrorist, not even half of us. It's just a small faction. But when we're portrayed in hollywood movies, we're almost always portrayed as bloodthirsty barbarians who rape their women. If that's how you're gonna portray us, then sorry man, I'm not allowing you to do that.

Another thing that must be taken in account is the fact that most of the hollywood comprises of christians. Anything anti-christian has christians behind it. But when it comes to anti-Muslim things there's no Muslim behind it, it's all non-Muslims. Hollywood is west-centric and most of the West has ample knowledge about Christianity so anything that goes against Christianity becomes obvious and people tend to ignore it. But most of the West doesn't have the slightest clue about Islam so anything portrayed wrong instantly becomes the reality. As an aftermath, it's the image of us Muslims that gets destroyed.

Your argument is moot and invalid.

Yup. The supposedly great nation of Islam needs to grow the **** up. So sick of the relentless psychotic bitching anytime anyone shows a not-positive view of that shithole of a religion.

Creating a dark atmosphere had been a lot easier if they hadn't shoved religion in it with those few scenes. They should have completely disregarded the identity of Ottomans as Muslims. Not to mention, there's a limit to how far you can take the historical inaccuracies even if you're trying to make a fiction. Everything about Ottomans in this movie was totally against reality and against Islam. If they had made all those practices they showed in the movie, a culture of the Ottomans rather the religion, it would've been lot better. Let's just say, take the jannissary part. They could exaggerate it as much as possible because nobody was gonna get offended as they were a part of their ruling culture. It wasn't a part of the religion. But instead they chose to turn it into a religious conflict, when they showed the imperial edict with the name "Allah" written on it. And that imperial edict was the pact between Vlad and Mehmet on those kids they planned to offer. Se? how cleverly it was turned into a religious war? just look up Dracula Untold and Muslims on the google and be dazzled by the results.

I don't think it was ignorance...it's more likely "we are making a quasi-fantastical setting based loosely on history where there exists bad ass manly-man heroes and monstrous enemies for the sole purpose of enhancing the drama/excitement."

Basically I'm pretty sure the writers knew that the Persians weren't really 8 foot tall golden demi-gods and half monsters and instead were just trying to create a fun and exciting setting. The whole thing is based on a comic book, after all.

Actually that makes christains strong...they can laugh/mock something without getting bent out of shape. That's a sign of maturity and confidence, not weakness. Although what you said is obviously a generalization anyways, as there's plenty of christains guilty of the same weak-skinned nonsense you are putting on display here.

Regarding islam as your own personal (and other muslims) property, it's not. Your personal beliefs and personal opinions are your property, just as mine are. Because of this, I am free to mock and make fun of anything I want and there is NOTHING you can do about it. I believe mohamed was not much more than a warlord and a pedophile (by today's standards, at least). Deal with it. You can be offended all you want, doesn't matter and you have no ownership over what I can say.

"I'm not allowing you to do that"

Good luck with trying to enforce that, dude.

Regarding your claim that anything anti-christain has christains behind it...that's flat out a lie (or you are ignorant). Christainity is mocked by many different groups, including athiests.

"Your argument is moot and invalid."

Nope, but have a nice day regardless.

When I say ignorance, I mean they didn't bother to do the research to try to create something that's historically accurate in favor of creating a neat looking movie. I didn't mean that they actually thought their creation was historically accurate.

This is a movie about a guy turning into an immortal vampire so most of what happens in the movie should be taken with a grain of salt.

-Byshop

That's not really ignorance though. If I create a story purposefully where some king of egypt was a nordic viking for the sake of fun, that doesn't mean I'm ignorant or that I didn't do my research...that was never the intention. I agree the movie should be taken with a grain of salt, though.

He He. I'm not like you though. I hold my insults in check until I have a reason to use them. ;)

i miss the good old days when the bad guys could always be represented as russian or eastern european and no one would get their panties in a jumble..

You're upset over a Dracula movie? If you're so concerned about the image of Islam I'd think you'd be far more upset over the routine beheading videos.

Semantics, but it means the movie is willfully ignorant of the facts as are likely the filmmakers. If I know something and I make a story in which that thing I know is wrong, that's not ignorance, sure. However, with historical accuracy the thing is that filmmakers actually have to usually put a significant amount of effort to not get it wrong. Obviously, these films went through no such rigorous research in favor of creating a fun story so we're pretty much saying the same thing.

-Byshop

@jun_aka_pekto: I am just done with being nice to Islam. Too much bullshit being caused in the world by that PoS religion.

You seem familiar.

Actually it's not...

Just because a film isn't trying to be historically accurate and intentionally fiction, doesn't mean it's ignorant or that the writers were ignorant to history. It simply means that the story is fiction. If they were creating a movie that was supposed to be historically accurate, and got facts wrong due to not knowing/not doing research/etc...yes...it would be ignorance.

People who write stories about dragons aren't ignorant, they are just creating fantasy. And that's exactly what the 300 movies are, fantasy/fiction based very loosely on historical events.

Honestly this kind of a ridiculous conversation. The writers of the movie/comics know that 8ft tall golden demi-gods and monster men never existed...no "rigorous research" was required lol.

We are saying the same thing, but you are getting hung up on what to call it. Of course the filmmakers know that Xerxes wasn't eight feet tall and that he didn't have ogres in his army. Those elements are obviously fiction, but when you base a movie on real people or events from history then that line between what's real and what's not isn't always clear. A lot of people walked away from 300 assuming that the non-crazy fantasy elements from the movie may have been mostly true when that movie got pretty much nothing right. Not the armor, not their society or system of government, or even most of the details about the battle.

No, I don't assume the filmmakers knew most of these details because they didn't set out to make a historically accurate movie, but instead make something entertaining (and to be fair, in the case of 300 they were based on a comic that wasn't historically accurate). There's nothing wrong with that, but I don't assume that they were aware of how far from reality their movie was because you actually have to put effort into historical detail so why would they? They were likely ignorant of the facts, which literally just means they didn't know them. That's all it means.

-Byshop

You know something? My mom's a Jehovah's Witness and for years, they've been the butt of jokes throughout TV and movies. No one ever gives a shit about Jehovah's Witnesses, so... If a group of religious people are portrayed in a bad light, guess what? It's fucking fiction. Don't watch the movie if it offends you. It's not like Dracula Untold is a documentary or something.

That would be ignorance on the part audience, not the film makers or the film. Regarding them being ignorant to how far their film strayed from reality...considering it was based on a comic book with mythical man beasts and demi-gods...I'm sure they had an idea lol.

It's not fair to call the movie or the comic book ignorant as it's a work of intentional fiction. Ignorance would require the film makers didn't know if these things existed or that the plot wasn't historical fact or not. And willful ignorance would have been that the film makers knew it wasn't true, but refused to acknowledge them as true and considered it true anyways. Neither is the case, and even more so, all of this is moot because none of this is even attempting to be a work of non-fiction...these are intentionally fantastical works of fiction for the sole purpose of entertainment, not historical education.

What you are suggesting is akin to suggesting that anyone who ever wrote a fantasy story about medieval Europe that had dragons and stuff were ignorant.

I can know what I did yesterday, but write a fantasy story about it for fun...that wouldn't make me or my story ignorant. It would simply be fiction.

*edit*

Since you brought up the armor, here's what the reality of what the producers knew about it:

"The inaccuracies, almost all of them, are intentional. I took those chest plates and leather skirts off of them for a reason. I wanted these guys to move and I wanted 'em to look good. I knocked their helmets off a fair amount, partly so you can recognize who the characters are. Spartans, in full regalia, were almost indistinguishable except at a very close angle. Another liberty I took was, they all had plumes, but I only gave a plume to Leonidas, to make him stand out and identify him as a king. I was looking for more an evocation than a history lesson. The best result I can hope for is that if the movie excites someone, they'll go explore the histories themselves. Because the histories are endlessly fascinating."

It's pretty obvious they took INTENTIONAL liberty with history in order to make it entertaining. The last statement also seems to fly in the face of your baseless claims that they weren't familiar with the source material.

It's just a movie. Get over it.

Is that so.

I want to know if any other follower of Islam in OT share this ridiculous view.

There's a pretty big difference between a story that takes place in a paricular time period and a story that ostensibly is about real people or events, so no I wouldn't call that ignorant.

As for 300, good for them if they had a better idea of the actual history than I gave them credit for. You're right, that if they knew all the detailed that deviated from history then the film and filmmakers are not ignorant of history. The point that I was trying to make is that if a filmmaker is not setting out to make a historically accurate film, then the level of research they will likely put into the time period or historical figures involved will probably be less than a film that is trying to be accurate, so I don't assume that they actually know all the areas where they deviate from history. If they did more research than I thought then good for then yes I was wrong about 300 but I don't assume that every "bubblegum" history movie goes out of their way to understand every relevant detail of the real history if that's not their goal. Why would they?

-Byshop

who cares it's a movie. and weren't the christians all pissed because noah just recently got in a fist fight with a t rex or something?

all of you quit getting pissed off about stupid shit or i will turn this car around and we can all go home.

You should look up the term "fiction". It's a movie about an immortal vampire, not an historical documentary about Vlad Tepes.

Also, why do you think Islam should get special treatment and protection from "offense"? The freedom of speech allows artists to depict whatever they want in whatever light they want in the form of art.

It's why newspapers and online websites continue to publish those Dutch Muhammad cartoons, because they don't feel like having their rights squashed by entitled social justice warriors and overly violent extremists who threaten to cut off their head in the name of their God.

Lol a movie making Islam look bad....... ISIS makes Islam look bad, Sharia Law makes Islam look bad, cruel and extreme punishments in the name of Allah make Islam look bad. Why don't you focus on stopping all that shit before you go on about some dumb Hollywood brainless action flick.

Masquerading hate speech under the mask of 'freedom of speech' and opinions is as fallacious as one could possibly get. If that's your rationale for hating on Islam, then me calling you a scumbag and a ***** should be an opinion too, right?

There's a fine line between an opinion and flat out prejudice. Did you search through the history of Islam before making those statements? did you read the Quran? The Shariah law and the logic behind every order it gives? Did you read the Hadith? Of course not. So what gives you the right to pass out an opinion so blunt on a forum where people from different ethnicity, different countries, different races come together and discuss/debate matters? Nothing gives you that right. If anything, that's an outright hate speech. When on a forum like this, let me teach you some basic rules:

• Don't be a dick to anyone.
• Don't be a troll.
• Don't indulge in hate speech.
• Don't pass out opinions without ample proof that may offend someone.

Let's just posit I agree with your point of view. If Christianity is getting shit then Islam should too and so do Judaism and any other religion in this world. But, what about atheists? they don't believe in anything. They believe that no God exists but that still is a belief and thus, that makes them a religious community. In a wider sense, yes they are a religious community. So how do we offend them? well, they'll slip under the rug every time. That's not equality, if everyone is getting shit then they should too.

You can be offended all you want, doesn't matter and you have no ownership over what I can say.

Well, you can ask the mods if they allow you to do that. Here I'm giving you some freedom, you can offend me all you want but you should come up with ample proof that originates directly either from the Quran or the Hadith. See? easy right? in that case, I can correct you if you're wrong or you can correct me if I'm wrong.

Go ahead.

Maybe I think you should be more concerned about the matters being discussed above.

How do Athiests slip under the rug? Right there you said that they held a belief just like Islam or Christianity.

Bam. Insult.

Getting the feeling it's more about not getting the same results out of some "groups" and it indirectly making other "groups" look worse by having a much harsher reaction.

Being a dick is an art, and opinions by definition cannot be proven.

Also, the lack of a belief is not in and of itself a belief. You cannot define zero as anything but an absence of value.

Further, you sure do a lot of talk about not offending people for a religion whose purpose is total control of every human in the world:

“It is he who has sent his Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth, in order for it to be dominant over all other religions, even though the Mushrikoon hate it.”

“And fight them until there is no more Fitnah (kufr and shirk) and worship (obedience, submission etc.) is for none but Allah…”

Well, this kaafir says you can take your Qur'an and shove it deep where the sun don't shine. There, are you offended?

You and all the other religions can have your silly little invisible-people-in-the-sky game. There's still science to be done on the people who are still alive.

Way to be a hypocrite. Therefore, your entire thread premise is moot and invalid. Anyway I noticed in one of your posts you used the term ethnic group. Religion is NOT an ethnic group. The entire world does NOT feel the same about Islam as you do. Don't see the movie if it offends you......but don't come in here and censor other view points. Deal with it.

I enjoyed Dracula Untold :)

Who said I hated Islam? Just because I don't believe he's a mythical figure and hold him in the same regard as many of the other historical figures of the same time, christains included, doesn't mean I hate all of islam and it's people. Bottom line is you are a hypocrite. And yea, you could call me a scumbag ***** if you would like, however it doesn't hurt my feelings in the least. To me it's the response of a weak willed person lashing out when they have nothing else of value to say. How could that ever insult me?

There are plenty of verses and historical evidence that he was what I said he was...although honestly I really don't care. My intent wasn't to prove that muhamed was x or y, I was merely making an example for the actual topic...which honestly your ranting and ravings have more than proved my initial thoughts lol.