Yesterday afternoon, I joined a packed audience at the Uptown Theatre in Cleveland Park to finally see Zero Dark Thirty. On a purely cinematic level, it was a very good film that kept the entire audience on the edge of their seats the entire time and left many speechless when the lights came up. However, movies like this are not viewed only on a cinematic level, and more to the point this movie will not be viewed only within the United States.
Curiously, a cursory google search revealed that there has not been all that much written about the implications for the public diplomacy efforts of the United States resulting from this movie. How do you control perceptions of America that Zero Dark Thirty elicits? Can you control those perceptions?
This is an open thread designed to spur a broader conversation. Feel free to go down the rabbit hole and let’s see where it takes us.
My first reactions to the movie were similar. It was very climactic, and definitely entertaining for the average American movie-goer – but it did not really get into deep ideological issues as much as I had hoped. Even Homeland on Showtime goes deeper into that, and with chilling accuracy. The thing about my Zero Dark Thirty experience that stuck with me the most was a comment made by a man in the theater before the movie began. He was with who I presume was his wife, and greeting another couple, all in their late 50s: “Ready to kill some terrorists?” My friend and I looked at each other and rolled our eyes. I know it was a joke, but it just made me embarrassed. I don’t know how foreign audiences will take the movie. It certainly doesn’t shed a good light on torture, but it also does highlight how lawmakers worked to end it. I certainly wouldn’t use this movie as a PD promotional film, but it would be interesting to start to monitor any discussions about it that arise internationally.
Yesterday, Phil Seib headed an informal discussion on public diplomacy at American University and touched upon Zero Dark Thirty as it came up in the conversation. Interestingly, he said “we cannot control how foreign publics perceive us.” To provide some context to this statement, he went on to say that because of the nature of the American constitution, we cannot control what people say or do outside of the government. Therefore, anyone from Hollywood, to Honey-Boo-Boo can put content out there for the world to consume. We have even less ability to control the reactions to this content. Some may find it endearing, others grotesque. It may improve the overall view of the United States or do irreparable damage.
With this in mind, the only way we can respond is by being present with messages that we do control and providing context to what this programming means to Americans. Furthermore, if we listen to global reactions to this content, we may better understand the world we live in and hopefully the world will also better understand us.
With this statement, I will probably forfeit all credibility: I have not yet seen ZDT. That said, I have seen productions like Homeland, and the repeated targeting and extremist characterizations of Muslims in Hollywood has an effect on foreign perception of the American way of life. I know it firsthand. I lived in a village (a village with a significant Muslim population) in West Africa while serving in the US Peace Corps when the news broke of Bin Laden being killed. Although I never faced hostility from people of my community (I spoke the local language, I was close friends with many Muslims in my community, and I was by and large accepted as one of the village), I had to field many inquiries as to how I could claim to promote peace as an American representative while my countrymen are firing guns in the air with the news of the death of others.
Whatever “objectivity” Bigelow wanted to achieve in the movie is irrelevant. It is a film production that is garnering much attention around the world and pocketing millions upon millions in the process. There are very, very few people in the world that celebrate men like Osama Bin Laden. But what’s more is that very few people other than Americans celebrate the death of men with blockbuster films. And the world takes note of it.
I write more about this here: http://thediplocable.wordpress.com/2013/01/25/pop-culture-has-consequences/