Should a filmmaker be discouraged or even dissuaded from making a film about a suicide bombing by Muslim terrorists? Is this plot line offensive and if so to whom? Is it to us Muslims who feel increasingly labeled and defined by terrorist acts undertaken by people who share our religion but not our beliefs? Or to the victims of terrorist acts who see their personal tragedies hijacked for the sake of entertainment?
And why does it cause offense? Is it because so many Muslims still don’t accept that terrorist attacks such as the destruction of the Twin Towers were really carried out by Muslims? Or is it because such a film is bound to be sensationalistic and full of inaccuracies, inaccuracies that will lead to generalizations about what people perceive Muslims to be? Or are we offended out of shame because we know that the truth is possibly worse than the attempt of a filmmaker to give a balanced account of what makes young men and women blow themselves up in buses, trains and planes? As for the victims, is it traumatic or therapeutic so see their stories re-enacted? Is a film taking the point of view of a terrorist offensive to the victims of terrorism? Does it help them or offend them to see something which if it does not quite attempt to justify the actions of their aggressors at least goes as far as to try to explain it?
These are some of the questions that arise this week from the decision of the BBC to abandon plans to film a two-part episode of the highly popular drama Casualty revolving around a plot where a young Muslim blows himself up in a bus station and the decision by Channel 4 to screen Britz, a television drama where a Muslim woman blows herself up in London’s Canary Wharf. My gut-instinct answer to these questions is that filmmakers should be left alone to tell the stories they want to tell, that it is not up to us to dictate what they can and cannot do. I also think that causing offense is often healthy and constructive, a sure sign that a filmmaker has hit a nerve.
The issue is not whether these films should be made but about how they are made. This is particularly so in the case of what is shown on television. Moviemakers will by definition have more artistic freedom, because we the potential viewers have more freedom to choose whether or not we see their work. Television is a medium that requires more responsibility from producers — both legally and socially. Television output needs to be seen to be balanced and fair, it aims to be objective, whereas the best independent movies are often intensely subjective in the narratives they tell.
Terrorism is murder and storylines that revolve around the deaths of innocents need to be handled sensitively. Hence I can understand why BBC executives felt the need to shelve plans for a storyline that would have great difficulty in attaining the complexity and depth required for such a sensitive topic. This would have been an episode of Casualty, and as such would have been a drama about hospital staff and how they respond to a terrorist attack. Even a two-hour episode would have veered toward sensationalism and stereotype. Much better to shift the story away from “Muslim” terrorism to terrorism per se. The essence of the emotional story being told is the same. The response of casualty staff to a terrorist attack does not depend on who carried out the attacks, just that they took place.
Britz on the other hand is an entirely different concept. This is a drama about terrorism, not a drama where terrorism is used as a vehicle to tell a story. And as far as we know, it is also a drama that attempts to be balanced. It is a story of a brother and sister. The brother joins up the British security services and joins the fight against terrorism, whilst the sister joins a terrorist cell and ends up blowing herself up in Canary Wharf. The filmmakers are keen to present a realistic portrayal of the experience of two young Muslims growing up in Britain today. Let us hope they understand that there is not just one experience of “being a Muslim in Britain today” but many, as many as there are Muslims in Britain. It is not a drama that appeals to me — I doubt that I will watch it — but I think Channel 4 is right to screen it.
There is nothing offensive in making a film about terrorists. The only offense is assuming that terrorists are representative of the communities they come from.
