Oh you poor down throtten major majority of like 80 % of the population of the western world! Surely the evil jews will destroy everything you have. Seriously.
First off, I'm an agnostic. I don't follow any religion, let alone Christianity. I wouldn't be much of a champion of rationality if I did since historical critics have far superior interpretations of the Bible than theologians do.
My ultimate aim for society is education over ignorance and my problem with films like Agora is that fighting religious ignorance with historical ignorance is a fools game.
Also, Christians (in the Western World) might not be subject to physical, economic or social persecution at the moment but we have no way of predicting the political climate a century from now and if society has been ingrained with the idea that Christians are at the root of all the worlds problems thanks to a steady stream of television and movie propaganda, that could change rapidly.
Agora is pure, alarmist bigotry.
And thankfully no atheists or pagans are never, ever portrayed in any kind of negative light.
Two wrongs don't make a right and the ratio of negative content against Christians over that against other groups is so high, it practically makes any negative portrayal of non-Christian groups mute. At any rate, conservatives and liberals are already destroying Western Civilization through fear-mongering, we don't need an ignorant war between Christians and non-Christians on top of that.
That is true. Unfortunately I don't think making movies only about your version of history will solve this problem.
Since most people get their ideas about the past from art rather than academia, a few, well researched, (and well executed) historical dramas could indeed solve many problems. It could pave the way for higher standards in historical drama and spark new interests in historical studies.
No, I haven't. I took it as a drama. I don't care if the director wanted to change world we live in by effecting to the inner child of Taliban terrorists through this movie; to me it doesn't really make much difference.
It does make a difference though. Anyone watching the film can tell that it is a
historical drama and meant to be taken as factual. Large numbers of people watching the film will not have the knowledge to tell fact from fiction and most of them can't imagine filmmakers going to so much trouble to fudge history for a political agenda.
You don't have a clue, do you? A propaganda machine is exactly what many filmmakers use the entertainment industry for! This is what people like me are against.
Yes, well. How would you stop this, exactly?
Attack the film on boards like this one. Educate as many people as possible. Make our own movies.
Isn't that what art is for: expressing the wants and opinions of it's makers (amongs other things, ofcourse)? Would you really want to change art from beign a way of expressing one self to a clean way of dumping information about scholary subjects?
That's what films like Agora are! It isn't the expression of the way an artist sees the world, it's a film that purports to portray the way history played out. If we lived in a world that demanded excellence in learning and was obsessed with understanding the past, historically distorted films like Agora wouldn't make much impact...but we don't live in that world.
Or how about, and this is even more novel idea, a film does as is best for the story it tries to tell? In a story driven media that is certainly a bold thing to advocate.
If a "message" story is one which has no basis in fact, the story shouldn't be told. Pure and simple. Find another one.
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