YouTube Jihad

Now that the new social marketing campaign against suicide bombing has released its Public Service Announcement, which was filmed in downtown Los Angeles and which incorporated several Hollywood-style special effects, I wonder how successfully the Terrorism Has No Religion program will prove to be in the long run. I think this spot may glorify violence as much as it condemns it, by placing the bomber at the center of such orchestral slow-motion destruction. In contrast, a film like Paradise Now presents an implicit but sustained and complex argument against attacks on civilians that looks at how these destructive social actors are being produced by a larger dysfunctional system.

After viewing the PSA, I spent some time on YouTube and found a montage of real bombers, as well as a lounge-singing version of jihadist incitement that romanticizes women who are "martyrs." I also discovered a disturbingly misogynistic parody video with a female would-be bomber. Gender politics also seem to play a role in Michelle Malkin's screed against young Muslim males as well. I came across a lot of anti-Muslim propaganda on YouTube, including the rhetorical dark matter in Moderate Muslims?