Syriana: WTF???
I finally saw Syriana after prejudging it based on right wing blogger reviews. The basic objections were that it’s the typical blood for oil BS that the far left likes to go on and on about, that it’s sympathetic to terrorists, and that it’s anti-American. Oh yes, and that it has George Clooney and Matt Damon in it. Anyone who’s seen “Team America” knows how well those two actors are respected for their political views.
Yes it has Matt Damon and George Clooney in it.
Yes it does make the case that getting oil at any cost is the world’s way. It doesn’t pretend that the US is the only country that wants the oil regardless of what the pursuit is doing to people. It just focuses on the US more. The Chinese are also represented however.
Is it anti-American? Maybe slightly. They build up the moderate prince as someone who wants to bring about democracy to the region but the US doesn’t want that so they paint him as a terrorist and blow him up, nearly killing Matt Damon’s character in the process. This illustrates the whole “at any cost” theme. Just by chance Matt Damon switches places to allow the Prince’s wife and kids to ride with the Prince just before they are killed. Illustrating that the US will even kill women and children to meet their goal. At least it wasn’t intentional. I don’t think this is anti-American so much as demonstrating the consequences of relying on technology that doesn’t give a clear picture of who is where. All they see is their target vehical that has one known target in it. Maybe it could be constrewed as showing the callousness of the US. The US doesn’t care about collateral damage as long as their target is hit. That’s probably true unfortunately. At least to an extent.
The US wants the prince who will continue the current ruling style instead. Basically this is slapping the current administration in the face by painting them as two faced. We go to war claiming to be all about democracy but what we really want is chaos.
I don’t believe the US is two faced preaching democracy to us and theocracy to them however.
The sympathetic to the terrorists part is interesting. Some may see the film and go “awwwww…poor kid” and others go “what a dumbass.” The writers may have been trying to make him sympathetic but even others in the theater didn’t see it that way. What they saw was an idiot kid who was fired from working in the oil industry and was taken in by an extemist Islamic cleric and then ends up killing himself trying to take down an oil ship.
This to me, and apparently others, makes as much sense as a Native American getting fired from an Indian Casino and then going and commiting a terrorist act. Are there seriously no other jobs besides working at an oil plant?
What this film ends up illustrating is that the Arab nations are an inefficient one trick pony. And this is a result of an obsession with their religion which inhibits interest in what makes up very large Western Cultures. 37,000 people work for the oil company according to the film. There are probably millions of people working in the music industry alone in the US in some way or another from recording artists to the teenagers working at record stores. Islam has no interest in music so the kid can’t just go work at a record store. The only job around is the oil industry.
The Matt Damon character which may be offensive to the Left tells the moderate prince straight up that they need to be more efficient and find other industries to work in the build up the country. They’re losing money on dates and they could double their oil profits just by building a pipeline. Oil is good money but they need to diversify. Casinos are good money but Native Americans need to diversify. Americans are known for a large number of industries. That’s what keeps us profitable and happy.
Think about it, the Middle East is more dependent on oil than any country that uses their oil. Without oil, they’d be left with dates that are “losing them 5 cents per pound.” Without oil, the US has many other industries to fall back on. We already know we can get by without oil. We’re just taking advantage of it while it’s here. Without oil, the economies of the Middle East would collapse much the same way that without gambling, there would be no large industry for Native Americans to fall back on.
To put it bluntly, Syriana makes the Arabs look stupid. Not stupid as in they can’t improve themselves or be educated. Stupid as in too busy working hard doing things the hard way to take some time out to find an easier way to get things done. Even the “stupid rednecks” here in the US drive million dollar machines to get the fields harvested, planted and maintained. Now consider in China with billions of people, they still do things by hand. Why in a country of millions are we more advanced than a country of billions? In Iran they’re still shipping AROUND Africa while Americans took some time out to build a canal so they didn’t have to go AROUND South America.
Why are we more advanced? Because we’re lazy so we constantly look for ways to make our lives easier. Our laziness is an asset. Our desire for stupid junk is an asset that drives large numbers of industries. Their work ethic and religion is a liability costing them millions if not billions of dollars in lost productivity and profits and restricting greatly the number of industries that could exist to employ people. A hard worker goes around Africa. A smart worker invents and builds a shortcut.
So in the end I think Syriana is actually a good movie. But without clear cut statements in the film on where the writers’ stand it’s hard to say what the writers were trying to get across. Some could say it’s a balanced movie showing the shortcomings of all involved. Others could focus on certain characters and assume the writers are agreeing with those characters.
In this sense it is also a very political movie: you come away from the speech not knowing what side of the issue the person is actually on.
