Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World
Albert Brooks
Wouldn’t you love to be at a press conference when our beloved President would introduced our newest search and destroy unit that would soon be heading to Baghdad led by Lt. Jenna Bush and Captain Barbara Bush. They have survived several evenings partying with Paris Hilton. What is a year in Iraq? As long as the military doesn’t ask, who would not want a crewcut Sgt. Mary Cheney watching your back? Her sister Elizabeth looking like Rambo would of course be standing next to her on the dais. To their left, Joshua and Ethan Hastert (daddy Speaker of the House) flexing their muscles for all the Sunni babes. Kneeling in front of them, Petty Officer Danielle DeLay Ferro (daddy former Speaker of the House), Seal Team member Laura Boortz, black ops specialists Ryan and Danae Dobson (daddy James, head of Focus on the White Middle Class Family), Airman First Class Andrew Madison Rove (his proud daddy, Karl, had to sign a release on this 17-year-old stud), Lance Corporal Rebecca Lin (Weiner) Yops (Michael Savage’s daughter), and bad to the bone Bobby Ney (daddy Robert leading chicken hawk in the Senate). Little PFC Patrick Hannity driving the HumVee, William, Jonathan, and Bryan Frist (daddy Majority Leader) will man the gun turrets. You will never see Mary and Hannah Beck (daddy, Glenn), Sara, David, and Rachel Wolfowitz (daddy, Paul, architect of the war), or even jet-setting Chelsea Clinton in a uniform.
It is called skin in the game. While the rich have always let the poor do the fighting for them throughout American history, our leaders have always understood that it is their moral responsibility to put their children in harms way, if they were going to ask other citizens to do the same thing. Most of our Founding Fathers either served themselves or placed their children in the service at the birth of this nation. Abraham Lincoln’s son, Robert Todd, donned a Union uniform during the Civil War. Ambassador Joseph Kennedy buried his beloved first-born son, Joseph Jr., and almost lost his 2nd born, John. Tennessee Senator Albert Gore sent his son over to Vietnam. Yet, there was never a more he-man President than, Theodore Roosevelt. Instead of choking on pretzels, falling off of bicycles, and getting beat up by brush, he engaged in fist fights, rode horses in the wild west, hunted lions in Africa, and led the Rough Riders during the battle of San Juan Ridge. All four of his sons, Theodore Jr., Kermit, Archibald, and Quentin picked up their father’s aggressive attitude towards life and delighted in their father’s bombastic personality. It was not unusual to see the Roosevelt boys reenacting their dad’s Cuban campaign on the White House grounds to the delight of tourists, sending a casualty or two home to their mothers when the boys would sneak the President’s battle sword into play. Even though he was a vocal opponent to the War to End All Wars, the Great War, even writing a book in 1915 urging America to maintain its isolation, when Woodrow Wilson broke the stalemate in the trenches by sending our boys over there, Roosevelt believed he could not look other father’s in the eye if he did not send his own boys and son-in-law overseas. They were courageous, a soldier’s soldier, causing one prominent newspaper to note, "Each of the vigorous Colonel's four sons is out to make a record worthy of their father." Teddy Jr. and Archie came home wounded, but Quentin did not come home at all. On the early morning of July 17th, 1918, the former President was awoke by correspondent Phil Thompson with a telegram announcing that Quentin had been shot down over enemy lines and was missing in action, no other information. As the reporter waited for a statement, Teddy walked into the house. Thirty minutes later, he emerged and handed the reporter a note that read, "Quentin's mother and I are very glad that he got to the front and had a chance to render some service to his country, and show the stuff that was in him before his fate befell him." Historians don’t write about it, but Roosevelt was never the same. His humor and energy disappear. He became an old man overnight and died less than 6 months later. Skin in the game, decisions are different when you have skin in the game. Have you noticed how many hawks don’t have skin in the game? How many Hummer driving businessmen are going to make sure their kids are at least half a world away from any gunfire? How many rich lawyers are there who aren’t even willing to give up their tax cut as bit of service to this nation, instead saddling their children and grandchildren with the debt we have added creating another Iran-like Islamic Republic. This war has made me lose a lot of respect for a lot of people. ATM patriotism, loving America as long as it gives you the cash and you have to give nothing back, should be an embarrassment to our citizens.
So what does this long rambling introduction have to do with an Albert Brooks comedy entitled Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World, a title so provocative that Sony Pictures dropped their distribution rights rather than carry this film. Brooks (Mother, Defending Your Life, Lost in America), who might be the most underrated comic working over the last three decades, has made a film with a very intriguing premise. The United States government, in order to improve relations with Muslim countries, recruits Albert Brooks to find out what makes them laugh. What do followers of Islam think is funny? There is a noble goal to the film. Brooks recognizes that "We export films that are full of sleazy [penis] jokes and toilet humor - that's why we've earned the affectionate nickname of the Great Satan,” but that, “There had to be some way to separate the 1.5 billion people who don't want to kill us from the 100,000 or so who do. I thought if I could get five Muslims and six Hindus and maybe 3 Jews to laugh for 90 minutes, then I've accomplished something." If you can figure out what makes people laugh, you’re able to understand their mindset, understand what makes them tick, you’re making an effort to understand where they are coming from, which in a war against terror is so important. This might have been a great film if it was a documentary, if Brooks would have gone to the Middle East. Instead he sets up shop in India, an extremely secular nation compared to other countries, and never really answers the question of what a large chunk of the world thinks is funny. What joke makes an Iraqi policeman smile? What gag is going to get a grin out of nomadic herdsman?
Why is this important? While the “liberal press” has ignored this story, it is well documented that two moths before we went into Iraq, George W. Bush held a Super Bowl party. Included on the guest list were many prominent Iraqi exiles including. In the course of conversation between the President, Peter Galbraith, and three members of the Iraqi opposition, the Iraqis realized that the President did not understand that there were three distinct groups in Iraq; Kurds, Sunni, and Shiite. The alarmed guests tried to explain that there was a difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, but all the President could say was, "You mean...they're not, you know, there, there's this difference. What is it about?" I wish I was making this up. Thousands of kids died because George Bush believed we would be greeted with flowers and did not understand what makes Iraqis tick. I truly believe, if he had skin in the game, he would have known the differences, known what makes them laugh. When are our leaders going to put some skin in the game?
Verdict: A Disappointment