Investigation Report No. 2885
File No. / ACMA2012/1301Licensee / Network TEN (Brisbane) Pty Ltd
Station / TVQ Brisbane
Type of Service / Commercial television
Name of Program / The Siege
Dates of Broadcast / 4 January 2010 and 7 October 2012
Relevant Code / Commercial Television Industry Code of Practice 2010
Clauses 1.9.5 and 1.9.6
Date Finalised / 4 December 2012
Decision / No breach of clause 1.9.5 (cultural sensitivities)
No breach of clause 1.9.6 (dislike, contempt or ridicule)
The complaint
The complaint is that the drama The Siege is Islamophobic.
The program
The program is a Hollywood-made drama directed by Edward Zwick. As a film, it had its theatre release in 1998.
On TVQ, the program was broadcast at 8:30 pm, in a time zone reserved for programs for mature audiences (M,MA and AV classifications) and was one hour 51minutes long (excluding commercial breaks).
The drama is about fictional suicide bomb attacks on New York City perpetrated by a network of Arabic-speaking Islamic terrorists seeking the release of their leader, Sheikh Ahmed Bin Talal, who has been ‘extracted’ and secretly detained by the US army after bombings of USinstallations overseas.
The main protagonist is a New York FBI agent, Anthony Hubbard (played by Denzel Washington). Other leading roles are:
· Hubbard’s partner Frank Haddad (Tony Shalhoub);
· Elise Kraft/Sharon Bridger (Annette Bening), a CIA agent;
· Samir Nazhde (Sami Bouajila), a terrorist posing as a CIA informant; and
· General William Devereaux (Bruce Willis), who is responsible for the secret detention of the Sheikh and is also in charge of troops sent in to round up and detain all young Arab men in Brooklyn when martial law is declared, about two-thirds of the way through the drama.
Assessment
This investigation is based on submissions from the complainant and a copy of the broadcast provided to the ACMA by the licensee. Other sources used have been identified where relevant.
In assessing content against the code, the ACMA considers the meaning conveyed by the relevant material. This is assessed according to the understanding of an ‘ordinary reasonable viewer’.
Australian courts have considered an ‘ordinary, reasonable reader (or listener to viewer) to be:
A person of fair average intelligence, who is neither perverse, nor morbid or suspicious of mind, nor avid for scandal. That person does not live in an ivory tower, but can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs[1].
The ACMA asks, what would the ‘ordinary reasonable viewer’ have understood this program to have conveyed? It considers the natural, ordinary meaning of the language, context, tenor, tone, inferences that may be drawn, and in the case of factual material, relevant omissions (ifany).
Once this test has been applied to ascertain the meaning of the broadcast material, it is for the ACMA to determine whether the material has breached the code.
Complainant’s submissions[2]
The complaints[3] to the licensee included the following:
Cronulla is a chapter in Australian history that none of us wants to see repeated. Ibelieve Channel Ten respects all religions and races and has no quarrel with Australia’s diversity. Put differently, I do not think it is your intention to hurt the sentiments of minorities or create disharmony in Australia.
I was shocked and disappointed, therefore, last Monday, January 4, 2010, to watch on Channel Ten the movie The Siege ... I have yet to see a cruder and more blatant attempt at profiling a particular community. The film shows Muslims involved in repeated terrorist attacks on New York. If Muslims are depicted as vile creatures, their religion fares even worse. Samir Nazhde tells Annette Bening’s character, Elise Kraft, that young men from his Palestinian community commit acts of terrorism because their religion promises them ‘the enjoyment of seven hundred virgins in heaven’ as a reward.[4] No wonder Nihad Awad, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, says: ‘Three-quarters of the film directly links Islamic religious practices with terrorism’ or Hussein Ibish, of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, too says that Arab and Islamic groups are upset by ‘the very strong equation between Muslim religious practices and terrorism’ in The Siege. ‘Insidious’ and ‘incendiary’ are a few more words that Ibish’s group has used to describe the movie.
Sunaina Maira, Associate Professor, Asian American Studies at the University of California, Davis, in her article ‘Youth Culture, Citizenship and Globalization: South Asian Muslim Youth in the United States after September 11th’, says: ‘It would not be too dramatic to say that many in these communities feel under siege. The profiling and hysteria depicted in the eerily prescient 1998 film The Siege – in which Muslim and Arab Americans in New York are rounded up behind barbed wire in response to a terrorist threat – resembles truth more than fiction. The profiling of Muslim and Arab immigrants affects the composition of communities and the nature of relationships within them’.[5]
Jack Shaheen, the director of Reel Bad Arabs, reacted to The Siege with the comment that Hollywood has a history of linking Arab characters to terror and violence. He believes those images shape not only how the nation feels about Arabs and Muslims, but also how they feel about themselves: ‘From 1896 until today, filmmakers have collectively indicted all Arabs as Public Enemy No. 1 – brutal, heartless, uncivilized religious fanatics and money-mad cultural ‘others’ bent on terrorizing civilized Westerners, especially Christians and Jews’.
In his first complaint to the ACMA,[6] the complainant:
· referred to a ‘context’ of ‘the ongoing controversy over the obnoxious Islamophobic film, Innocence of Muslims’;[7]
· described The Siege as ‘Islamophobic’ and ‘hurtful’ in nature;
· stated that ‘the word “terrorist” is used eight times to describe Muslims in The Siege’.
In response to request for clarification from the ACMA, the complainant further submitted that the film:
· draws out in great detail the actions of a ‘miniscule, renegade minority of Palestinians and Muslims’;
· employs directorial devices to achieve a ‘profiling’ based on ‘good (Westerners and Israelis) – bad (Muslims-Palestinians)’; and
· exclusively portrays Muslims as perpetrators and non-Muslims as victims.
The complainant also referred to a scholarly critique which ‘describes how Edward Zwick stereotypes Muslims and Arabs and classifies a community into “Them” and “Us” ’.[8]
Relevant code clauses
Clauses 1.9.5 and 1.9.6
Proscribed Material
1.9 A licensee may not broadcast a program ... which is likely, in all the circumstances, to:
1.9.5 seriously offend the cultural sensitivities of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people or of ethnic or racial groups in the Australian community;
1.9.6 provoke or perpetuate intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule against a person or group of persons on the grounds of age, colour, gender, national or ethnic origin, disability, race, religion or sexual preference.
‘likely, in all the circumstances’
The phrase ‘likely in all the circumstances’ imposes an objective test[9] and implies a real and not remote possibility; that is, something which is probable.[10]
‘serious/ly’ ‘intense’ and ‘severe’
The use of the words ‘serious/ly’, ‘intense’ and ‘severe’ indicate that the code contemplates a very strong reaction and a high test from the prohibited behaviours. It is not sufficient that the behaviour induce a moderately negative response or reaction.
‘provoke or perpetuate’
Provocation or perpetuation can be achieved through material about a person or group; there is no requirement that the material include a specific call to action against that person or group or to establish that there was a specific intention to provoke or perpetuate intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule; or to prove that anyone was actually provoked or had existing attitudes perpetuated.[11] However, the material must include something more than the use of words that merely convey intense dislike, serious contempt or severe ridicule towards a person:
There must be something more than an expression of opinion, something that is positively stimulatory of that reaction in others.[12]
‘on the grounds of’
The phrase ‘on the grounds of’ requires that there be an identifiable causal link between at least one prohibited ground and the action complained of.
Clause 1.10.1 of the code
Clause 1.10.1 of the code provides:
Proscribed Material
1.10 Except for clause 1.9.3,[13] none of the matters in clause 1.9 will be contrary to this section if:
1.10.1 said or done reasonably and in good faith in broadcasting an artistic work (including comedy or satire).
Issue 1: Provocation or perpetuation
Finding
The licensee did not breach clause 1.9.6 of the code.
Reasons
Clause 1.9.6 refers to three effects: dislike, contempt and ridicule. From the complaint, the relevant effects are dislike and contempt.
Clause 1.9.6 refers to an effect on ‘a person or group of persons’. From the complaint, the relevant target is a group of persons rather than an individual person, namely Arab Muslims.[14]
Clause 1.9.6 also refers to a number of grounds. From the complaint, the relevant grounds are ethnic origin (Arab) and religion (Islam).
Accordingly, the issue for examination is whether The Siege, broadcast on TVQ on 4 January 2010 and 7 October 2012, was likely, in all the circumstances, to have provoked or perpetuated intense dislike or serious contempt against Arab Muslims on the ground of their ethnic origin and/or religion.
The complainant’s submission is that the film presents a binary opposition between ‘Us’ (Westerners/Israelis – good – victims) and ‘Them’ (Muslims/Arabs/Palestinians – bad – perpetrators).
The film shows Arab Muslims terrorists in action, committing atrocities and planning another. Throughout the film, the terrorists are explicitly, and repeatedly, identified as Arab and Muslim, through their speech, names, biographies and religious practices. However, clause1.9.6 requires an assessment in terms of a ‘program’, ie a body of material as a whole, and in ‘all the circumstances’. Having reviewed the program as a whole, and considered the circumstances of its broadcast on 4 January 2010 and 7 October 2012 on TVQ, the ACMA has concluded that:
· an ordinary reasonable viewer was unlikely to have understood the film as presenting a binary opposition of the kind posited by the complainant; and
· the program was unlikely, in all the circumstances, to have had an effect of provocation or perpetuation of ‘intense’ dislike or ‘serious’ contempt against Arab Muslims in general, on the basis of their ethnicity or religion.
‘Program’ as a whole
An ordinary reasonable viewer was unlikely to have understood the program as presenting a binary opposition of the kind posited by the complainant because it contained material which mitigated the potential for generalisations about Arabs or Muslims in general. In particular, the program explicitly showed that, in the film’s fictional world:
a) New York’s Arab community does not support the terrorists;
b) Islam is, for mainstream followers, a religion of peace;
c) the terrorists are to some extent motivated by social, political and historical forces, as distinct from their religion and/or ethnicity;
d) the terrorists are a small, marginalised minority;
e) an Arab Muslim (Frank Haddad) is a leading member of the FBI team charged with solving the bombings;
f) not all terrorists are Arabs or Muslims;
g) not all the ‘bad’ are Arab Muslims; and
h) ethnic/religious profiling is condemned as unjustified, even in emergency situations.
a) New York’s Arab community does not support the terrorists
After the first bombing (the bombing of Bus 87), Hubbard begins his team briefing by saying:
HUBBARD
Just got off the phone to leaders of the Arab community. We have their complete support and co-operation, They love this country as much as we do, They want these criminals brought to justice as badly as we do.
After the second bombing (the theatre bombing), an Arab community representative at a public meeting says:
REPRESENTATIVE
I represent the Arab Anti-Defamation League.[15] Whatever injustices my people may be suffering at this very difficult moment,[16] we will continue to show our commitment to this country.
The complainant has suggested that this material may have been included ‘only after much pressure from Muslims’.[17] Even if this is so, the material is present in the film, and, in conjunction with other elements, serves to mitigate any intensity of dislike, or seriousness of contempt, which might amount to the effect proscribed by clause 1.9.6.
b) Islam is, for mainstream followers, a religion of peace
In a montage of media soundbytes expressing reactions to the bombings, one commentator is heard saying:
COMMENTATOR
People must understand that the word ‘Arab’ is not synonymous with the word ‘terrorist’. Islam is a religion of peace. These people defile the Holy Koran with their [merges into next commentary]
One of the complainant’s sources describes this as ‘token gesture’ and a ‘brief intrusion’.[18] Again, the ACMA notes that, while brief, the material is present, and is another element which serves to mitigate any intensity of dislike, or seriousness of contempt, which might amount to the effect proscribed by clause 1.9.6.
c) Terrorists’ motivation
The terrorists are depicted as Palestinian and Iraqi.[19] In the case of the Palestinians, material is included that alludes to their dispossession and displacement:
NAZHDE (to Kraft/Bridger in bedroom scene)
You know, some people just cannot live in the camps. For my brother, it was already like dying ...
KRAFT/BRIDGER (to Hubbard, in bar scene)
My first boyfriend was Palestinian. Yeah, my father used to say, ‘They seduce you with their suffering’. Have you ever been over there? Have you seen the camps? [...] There are these incredibly warm, hospitable people living in this horrible place.
The complainant submits that the references to the camps are ‘vague’, ‘token’ and ‘fleeting’, and that it is ‘unclear who or what put the Palestinians in the camps’.
The ACMA, however, considers that the point is made sufficiently for an ordinary reasonable viewer, ie one who ‘can and does read between the lines in the light of that person’s general knowledge and experience of worldly affairs’. Such a viewer can be expected to know enough about the history of Israel and Palestine to understand how the camps came about.
In the case of the Iraqis, material is included that alludes to their betrayal by their US sponsors: