New 'Allah' doc (homosexuality) ready to raise a ruckus

[tocqueville]

Dubowski vows to screen pic in every Muslim nation

By ED MEZA
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Sandi Dubowski, who won the Teddy gay and lesbian award in 2001 for his controversial doc "Trembling Before G-d," may cause an even bigger stir with "In the Name of Allah," which explores the struggles of homosexual Muslims.

Gay Indian Muslim helmer Parvez Sharma is directing the pic, which looks at gay, lesbian, and transgender Muslims across the Muslim and Western worlds.

"The world right now needs to understand Islam, and these are the most unlikely storytellers of Islam," Dubowski said, who is producing 'Allah.'

Doc will undoubtedly prove an even thornier film to export than "Trembling."

http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117938165?categoryid=13&cs=1&nid=2562

[FloridaPat]

1. Is it me, or is this a subject that belongs in the "Stupid Prejudices

that People Use to Have" file. What is it with homosexuality that makes people go crazy. They are just plain old people like everyone else. They view the world differently. I would rather have a bunch of homosexuals around that the murderers that currently run a lot of the countries on this planet.

[tocqueville]

2. the subject is interesting for its relation to the situation in the ME nt

[foreigncorrespondent]

3. Unfortunately...

...as long as society sees it as acceptable to use homosexuality in a negative (more on that in a moment) we will always be faced these stupid prejudices.

What I mean by using homosexuality in a negative is simple. You see it all the time in written format and hear it even more often. A good example of written format can be found right here on DU on occasion when we are faced with threads like "Joe Blah Blah is gay. Not that there is anything wrong with that." One of the things you hear a lot is "Oh that is so gay." So long as people who claim to have no prejudiced continue using just two of the examples I have given above, this will continue. When society finally turns around and say NO THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE that is when things will finally begin to change.

[sui generis]

5. it IS xenophobia. In the "village" analogy

anyone who doesn't reproduce or is unable to fulfill their socially appointed role is a liability, and everyone knows us gays are just silly weak little effeminate twits who deserve to be hunted into extinction.

The realities are that in the third world without open communication and congregation they really can get away with hanging 14 year olds for being "gay", that they are genuinely and profoundly oppressed and in many cases in mortal danger of discovery.

Likewise the reality in the developed world is that we're in the army. We're in the police force. We're in law, and manning the ER and we are fucking everywhere. We are NOT weak. We are NOT anyone else's responsibility. And when somebody suggests that "we" execute gays or some other stupid shit they tend to forget that "we" are also carrying weapons, and that we aren't going to put up with shit like that from anyone.

There are many cultural reasons that undeveloped countries remain undeveloped - not always related to geography or resources. Xenophobia (not just against gays) is one of the primary factors that keeps a country from growing and maturing out of the dark ages.

It may have served villages and tribes in the far distant caveman past to leave their crippled children to die of exposure, to drive off people who didn't reproduce or contribute to the tribe in a meaningful way, to shun strangers and people with strange ways, but we aren't cavemen any more and those of us who want to return to those ways and times (or keep them as the case may be) are doomed, inevitably, to the slow extinction of irrelevancy no matter how hard they try not to change.

[foreigncorrespondent]

4. Well I wish him luck with this!

He is going to have a really hard time getting it shown in the ME, but I know when it makes it down under I will see it. And show it to a lot of people who really don't realize that in the ME you can receive death for loving a person of the same sex.

[xchrom]

6. i look forward to seeing this.