{"id":2384,"date":"2013-02-02T20:21:31","date_gmt":"2013-02-02T10:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wildcard.gnubies.com\/?p=2384"},"modified":"2017-12-09T18:57:09","modified_gmt":"2017-12-09T08:57:09","slug":"zero-dark-thirty-is-a-work-of-fiction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sams-blog.com\/?p=2384","title":{"rendered":"Zero Dark Thirty is a work of fiction"},"content":{"rendered":"

FOR Americans, September 11, 2001, is a date that tends to awake their sense of patriotism. There are few in that country who can regard this day with even a shred of objectivity and realise that the attack was the result of the US of A’s actions in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Thus, the reaction to the third-rate Zero Dark Thirty<\/em>, a film about the killing of Osama bin Laden, is not surprising.<\/p>\n

To briefly summarise the plot, it shows the activities of a CIA officer, who is credited with being the one to analyse information and come to the conclusion that Bin Laden was hiding in Abottabad in Pakistan. Seal teams then went in without informing the Pakistan government and killed the man in cold blood.
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\nMost objections to the film have been that it shows torture as being used as a means to obtain information that led to the killing of Bin Laden. In other words, people like Dick Cheney, not the most popular American around, were justified in the approach they took.<\/p>\n

And, after all, Americans are good people. They don’t torture or do anything illegal. How could director Kathryn Bigelow portray the people from the land of the brave and free in this manner?<\/p>\n

For an individual like me, that matters little. But it is surprising to me that people cannot see the film for what it is: a cheap travesty from Hollywood, one that is just looking to make people feel good and also rake in the moolah.<\/p>\n

For starters, the myth that a woman was responsible for analysing the information is just that: a myth. But it plays well to the gallery; after all, a woman operating in a man’s world and showing up the rest will always make for a better story.<\/p>\n

This is contradicted by an account of the killing by Peter Bergen<\/strong><\/a>, surely the most credible writer on matters concerning Bin Laden. Bergen says the CIA agent who was researching information about Bin Laden for the eight years before his death and was convinced he was hiding in Abottabad was a man.<\/p>\n

But Hollywood has had great success in portraying women in such roles; remember the film Saving Jessica Lynch<\/em> which was totally fiction, yet was passed off as being a true tale of valour that happened after the invasion of Iraq? Zero Dark Thirty<\/em> has had a good basis on which to cast a woman.<\/p>\n

The acting is poor, wooden at times, and over-stated at others. And who would believe that you could converse with militants in Americanese? That’s what happens for most of the film. The militants whom the Americans captured right from late 2001 when they invaded Afghanistan seem well up in American slang. I thought they spoke Pushtu, Farsi or Urdu.<\/p>\n

And then the actual raid itself is boring as batshit in the film. It’s meant to convey reality, yet one can’t conceive of such a bunch of bunglers executing a raid of this nature. Why is this part of the film so geared towards reality (or so Bigelow would have us believe) when the director adds on the fiction wherever she wishes in the rest of the film?<\/p>\n

Films like this are meant to be part of the historical record. This one is not, it is wildly inaccurate and silly. It caters to jingoism and is meant to make money. That, it will.
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