Ayloush discusses "Towelhead" with film director and actors

Dialogue to be Included on DVD

(LOS ANGELES, CA, 9/19/08) – The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today announced that a filmed dialogue on racism and ethnic slurs will be featured on the DVD release of the new Warner Bros. production “Towelhead.”

CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush participated in the dialogue that sought to highlight the intolerance inherent in the derogatory term “towelhead” and bring attention to community concerns about the possible acceptance of that term in mainstream society. Director Alan Ball and actors Peter Macdissi and Summer Bishil took part in the dialogue.
The dialogue is now available for viewing on the film’s website.

SEE: Warner Bros.-Sponsored Dialogue on Film ‘Towelhead’

"It is important to recognize and challenge the intolerance and bigotry behind derogatory terms such as ‘towelhead,’" said Ayloush. "We wish to thank Warner Bros. for reaching out to community groups and for making the effort to address concerns about the film's title."

The Warner Bros website also features a dialogue with representatives of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), as well as statements from CAIR and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC).

CAIR-LA sent a letter to studio executives late last month urging them to call the film “Nothing is Private,” a title previously used in some markets.

SEE: CAIR Asks Studio to Change ‘Towelhead’ Film Title

SEE ALSO: Video: CAIR-LA Rep Discusses ‘Towelhead’ Film Title (ABC7)

CAIR Asks Studio to Change ‘Towelhead’ Film Title

The Greater Los Angeles Area office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-LA) today called on Warner Bros. and Warner Independent Pictures to consider changing the title of the soon-to-be-released film “Towelhead” because that derogatory term is offensive to American Muslims and Arab-Americans. CAIR says Muslims and Arab-Americans view the term “towelhead” as a racial and religious slur.

In a letter sent last week to studio executives, the Islamic civil rights and advocacy group asked that the film be called “Nothing is Private” – a title previously used in some markets.

In the letter to Warner Bros Chairman and CEO Barry M. Meyer, CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush said in part:

“The title…is of great concern to us, since the word is commonly used in a derogatory manner against people of the Muslim faith or Arab origin…We have no desire to inhibit the creative process or your right to produce any film you wish. However, I ask you to take the above concerns into consideration and examine the social implications of releasing the film under its current title, ‘Towelhead.’”

Ayloush said that although Warner Bros. executives have made it clear they intended no offense, the use of such a derogatory term by a major film studio will serve to increase its acceptability in public discourse.

“It is unfortunate that a major film studio would choose to exploit an ethnic slur as a sensational promotion for a movie,” said Ayloush. “Mainstreaming a bigoted term in this manner will only serve to legitimize and normalize anti-Muslim prejudice in our society.”

Fisk: Warning, this film could make you angry

Robert Fisk commenting on the new movie "Rendition"
03 November 2007

The Independent Newspaper

At university, we male students used to say that it was impossible to take a beautiful young woman to the cinema and concentrate on the film. But in Canada, I've at last proved this to be untrue. Familiar with the Middle East and its abuses – and with the vicious policies of George Bush – we both sat absorbed by Rendition, Gavin Hood's powerful, appalling testimony of the torture of a "terrorist suspect" in an unidentified Arab capital after he was shipped there by CIA thugs in Washington.

Why did an Arab "terrorist" telephone an Egyptian chemical engineer – holder of a green card and living in Chicago with a pregnant American wife while he was attending an international conference in Johannesburg? Did he have knowledge of how to make bombs? (Unfortunately, yes – he was a chemical engineer – but the phone calls were mistakenly made to his number.)

He steps off his plane at Dulles International Airport and is immediately shipped off on a CIA jet to what looks suspiciously like Morocco – where, of course, the local cops don't pussyfoot about Queensberry rules during interrogation. A CIA operative from the local US embassy – played by a nervous Jake Gyllenhaal – has to witness the captive's torture while his wife pleads with congressmen in Washington to find him.

The Arab interrogator – who starts with muttered questions to the naked Egyptian in an underground prison – works his way up from beatings to a "black hole", to the notorious "waterboarding" and then to electricity charges through the captive's body...

Well, suffice it to say that the CIA guy turns soft, rightly believes the Egyptian is innocent, forces his release by the local minister of interior...Not very realistic?

Well, think again. For in Canada lives Maher Arar, a totally harmless software engineer – originally from Damascus – who was picked up at JFK airport in New York and underwent an almost identical "rendition" to the fictional Egyptian in the movie. Suspected of being a member of al-Qa'ida – the Canadian Mounties had a hand in passing on this nonsense to the FBI – he was put on a CIA plane to Syria where he was held in an underground prison and tortured. The Canadian government later awarded Arar $10m in compensation and he received a public apology from Prime Minister Stephen Harper...

But then again, what can you expect of a president whose nominee for Alberto Gonzales's old job of attorney general, Michael Mukasey, tells senators that he doesn't "know what is involved" in the near-drowning "waterboarding" torture used by US forces during interrogations. "If waterboarding is torture, torture is not constitutional," the luckless Mukasey bleated.

Yes, and I suppose if electric shocks to the body constitute torture – if, mind you – that would be unconstitutional. Right? The New York Times readers at least spotted the immorality of Mukasey's remarks. A former US assistant attorney asked "how the United States could hope to regain its position as a respected world leader on the great issues of human rights if its chief law enforcement officer cannot even bring himself to acknowledge the undeniable verity that waterboarding constitutes torture...". As another reader pointed out, "Like pornography, torture doesn't require a definition." ...

So is truth stranger than fiction? Or is Hollywood waking up – after Syriana and Munich – to the gross injustices of the Middle East and the shameless and illegal policies of the US in the region? Go and see Rendition – it will make you angry – and remember Arar. And you can take a beautiful woman along to share your fury.

Planet of the Arabs, Muslims, Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, ...

In order to desensitize Germans over what the Nazis where about to do to Jews, Gypsies, the disabled and others, Nazis engaged in a concerted media campaign to demonize and dehumanize such people. Articles, cartoons, posters, and movies reinforced that hateful propaganda. When the time to implement the killings came, most people did not care about those victims anymore.

Many questions bother me. Where were the average people when they were being fed this virulent propaganda? Why no one objected? Did they really enjoy the vilification of other races, religions, and ethnicity? What if enough good Germans stood up and said no, could that have prevented the mass killings? Only Allah (God) knows.

What about the present day?
Which is the one group that Hollywood still enjoys demonizing? (so do right-wing politicians and extremist evangelicals; but that another story for another day)
Answer: Arabs and Muslims.

A study done by Professor Jack Shaheen and published in his book "Reel Bad Arabs" shows that out of 1000 films that have Arab & Muslim characters (from the year 1896 to 2000) 12 were positive depictions, 52 were even handed and the rest of the 900 and so were negative!

Watch this trailer-esque montage spectacle of Hollywood's relentless vilification and dehumanization of Arabs and Muslims. It is no wonder that no one cares when we hear about over 600,000 Iraqis who died due to our illegal invasion of Iraq or the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians killed, wounded, imprisoned, or ethnically cleansed by Israel.

The fact is that Hollywood has long worked on desensitizing Americans about anything Arab or Muslim. (As it did earlier, and many times today, for Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, and others...)

Is it possible for Hollywood to entertain without having to degrade others?