It’s one thing to risk your life over something that has some artistic potency and heft to it. It’s quite another to do so for a final product that looks so tragically awful that Adult Swim would maybe and ironically consider airing it, but then, ultimately, would pass. “Writer,” “director,” and above all, a-hole Sam Bacile of California (of course. California.) has gone into hiding quite possibly out of shame over his controversial film “Innocence of Islam,” a low-budget movie that portrays Muhammad as a womanizer, child molester, and a fraud. I’m just kidding. He went into hiding because he’d like to delay his inevitable death for as long as possible. Because, let’s be honest. They will find him.
Now it’s not my place to comment on the theories Bacile espouses, or on the follow-up interviews in which he claims “Islam is a cancer, period.” My issue is not with his hateful, and prejudiced opinions–this is America and crazy people also have mouths. My biggest halal beef is with the 56-year-old lunatic’s eagerness for announcing that he is an Israeli Jew. As if Israel needed help in exacerbating the tensions with its many neighbors.
Let me say this once. Because I believe this to my very core. IT IS NOT OUR JOB TO INVALIDATE OR BELITTLE OTHER PEOPLE’S RELIGIONS. This is not our way. We do not do this. We especially do not do this in a volatile political climate when even a fruitcake real estate developer (of course. A real estate developer) can ignite a maelstrom of blowback that has already resulted in riots and the death of a US Ambassador.
Wait, what’s that, you complete idiot? “I feel the security system (at the embassies) is no good,” Bacile said yesterday about the embassy attack in Benghazi in protest of him being a moron. “America should do something to change it.” Or, maybe we shouldn’t release a terribly acted, crappy looking movie–I can’t believe I’m calling this guy’s poop “a movie,” but anyway–that infuriates the largest growing demographic in the Universe?
If this guys starts World War III, I quit everything. And no, I’m not even going to embed the trailer he cut to preview his two hours of craziness. I will not contribute to those page views. I have some standards.
UPDATE: Wikipedia claims that Israeli authorities found no evidence of Bacile being a citizen, and there is no evidence of a Sam Bacile around 50 years old living in California or having a real estate license or participating in Hollywood filmmaking. Great. We’ve got a prankster. Or is this is an effort of the Israeli and US government to quell the irate reaction to all this silliness? I smell Mossad.
UPDATE #2: According to The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg who spoke with a consultant for the film, Bacile is neither Israeli nor Jewish. Which makes this whole thing not only offensive, crazy, and stupid, but potentially anti-Semitic. Just another instance of “blame it on the Jews.”
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Arye Dworken lives in a tastefully decorated two bedroom apartment on the Upper West Side with his wife, son, and dog named Barrett. Barrett is named after one of the original members of Pink Floyd yet Arye wouldn't necessarily consider himself a big Pink Floyd fan. It just felt like a good dog name. You can find more Arye on aryedworken.tumblr.com or twitter.com/aryedworken.
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11 comments
B.H.O.
Sep 13, 2012
Bacile has a right to be an a-hole if he wants, Fuck the Prophet.
Doug Workman
Sep 13, 2012
Dear “New Jews”
I know it seems to make sense to you folks over there: give out your name and the fact you live in California, mention you are a Israeli Jew and for good measure say: “I feel the security system (at the America embassies) is no good…America should do something to change it.”
That would pretty much guarantee that dinner invitations from all your California neighbors, not to mention most every American, Jew and Israeli as well as every Muslim would pretty much grind to a halt! But you still should be able to wrangle up dinner companions (and continue having a pulse) in say, that remote Tibetan ashram you have been hearing about . I mean, how “California” is that right?
Oh, by the way, if you hear a rumor about California’s Jews baking anything weird, that doesn’t seem kosher into our Matzos, that’s also completely untrue.
Lee Horwitz
Sep 13, 2012
As it happens, it was helped by a Coptic Christian group in Central California. Since this is the season of looking inward, how about recognizing your comment of “smells like Mossad” is every bit of “blame it on the Jews”. Stick with comedy, please,,,shit like this we don’t need
Ian Stuartstein
Sep 13, 2012
the name of the film in your piece is incorrect according to wikipedia…hope the rest of your research is more accurate…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Innocence_of_Muslims
Mo Shay
Sep 13, 2012
Of course Israel would deny he was one of theirs!! But what is disturbing us how Many people are so willing to believe he is Christian without caring what could happen to Christians. Or Copts. It was suppoosedly wrong to believe what he told Time magazine – that he was Israeli, but it’s okay to believe another likely bullshit story that he is Christian?!’
Heathere
Sep 14, 2012
wow i feel so bad for everyone hurt by this douchebag! i saw some shit on fb and had to research…im glad i did! thank you for your helpful article !
Andrew Benjamin
Sep 15, 2012
I think, responding to “What do you think?,” that Dworken is clueless and his points are nonsense from the get go.
From the beginning he should have identified the film maker as a Christian, which he is, and DEFENDED his right to say whatever he was trying to communicate in the film. The fimlm maker, rightly or wrongly, was not rioting or advocating violence. He was bringing attention to an issue people in the west should not be ignoring…or ignoring it at their peril. Islam is NOT, the religion of peace, no matter how many times apologists for it try to make it so. Unless you haven’t yet turned on your TV or have been living in a coma for the last forty years.
We don’t need to comment on the morons rioting in Arabia or the mentality of the morons who would riot over a dumbassed fil, do we? We have to recognized that the film has the right to exist in our society and if someone over there doesn’t like it, tough nuggies.
And Mr. Dworken, don’t tell us NO, WE CAN’T!
And don’t tell us what to believe!
I don’t take lightly to threats from Muslims or any others of any religion.
Just because Dworkin is a metrosexual living on the Upper West Side (otherwise known as ObamaTown and The Town Where Metrosexuals Live), doesn’t mean that all of the universe is deaf, dumb and blind to what is happening and who is really responsible.
And no, he’s not Mitt Romney who is responsible, not matter how the media turned the foreign policy failure of this administration around by diverting the obvious – a disaster – into an attack on Romney.
Obama’s kowtowing to Islam from day one is DIRECTLY responsible for the loss of American prestige, RESPECT, and power globally. All the apologies and bowing got us to this point and to this place and Mr. Dworken not only approves of this policy but is participating in its continuance.
If anything, Obama’s handling of foreign policy, a 180 degree turn from what came before and the wisdom of a number of previous presidents, his showing weakness and not strength and determination; and the Democratic Party’s BOOING G-d and Jerusalem from the Convention Floor was THE signal to the Islamist fanatics worldwide that the free-for-all hatefest is ready to be executed on the West.
The West has shown itself to be feckless, having no direction, no plans, and no convictions about anything. Not even G-d.
When it can come to the Democrats booing G-d and Jerusalem out of America’s political life anything can happen and it has. Only it took a few days for it to happen.
The Jews of America are clueless when they see America’s president repeatedly ignoring Israel’s pleas for serious help, and Obama’s ignoring Israel’s security needs as an existential threat is about to come down on us all, and yet still back him.
What will it take for America’s Jews to recognizd that their party, the Democrat Party, has not only abandoned them wholesale, but hates them with all their might?
Don’t you all have eyes and ears?
What will it take?
messy
Sep 16, 2012
Bacile doesn’t exist. The guy claiming he did wasn’t Jewish, and it’s clearly a blood libel.
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Sep 19, 2012
[...] Jewdar is so smart, we forget that others are not as gifted. With all this hand-wringing and accusing over the current violence in the Middle East over “Innoce… And what is more powerful than a low-budget movie? A big budget movie! And Jewdar has just [...]
SASS
Sep 28, 2012
Calm down there, Mr. Benjamin. Not everything is about defending Israel. Some things are just about shitty offensive movies that make EVERYONE look bad.
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