By Jason Apuzzo. Some unfortunate news coming out today: Variety is reporting that Pakistan has decided to ban the new Bollywood satire about terrorists, Tere bin Laden. [We've posted previously about this film here.] This is bad news, because if there is any country in which terrorists need to be belittled and satirized, it’s in Pakistan.
Pakistani pop singer Ali Zafar at the film's premiere.
According to the BBC, the film’s Indian distributor will be appealing the decision by Pakistan’s film censor board.
Tere Bin Laden is a comedy/satire about a struggling Pakistani journalist who tries to pawn off a fake interview with Osama bin Laden in order to fulfill his dream of becoming an American TV news star.
As regular LFM readers know, we’ve been covering very closely the new wave of satires aimed at terrorists: Four Lions, The Infidel, and the Living with the Infidels web series. [I myself directed such a satire, entitled Kalifornistan.]
We’ll be keeping an eye on how this story develops. It’s worth noting that the film will likely still be seen by a lot of Pakistanis, in so far as DVDs – many of which are pirated – remain the preferred way of seeing films there.
[UPDATE: The New York Times covers this story today here.]
Posted on July 15th, 2010 at 1:18pm.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Mr. K, Libertas Film Mag. Libertas Film Mag said: Pakistan Bans Bollywood Terrorism Satire "Tere bin Laden" … See: http://bit.ly/b7F2j3 [...]
It just goes to show you that the Islamic governments over there have no concept of free speech. And yet I’m sure there will be liberal American filmmakers who will continue to complain that America is somehow “worse” than Islamic governments in censoring artists (I always wonder why they don’t just move there, if that’s the case).
That’s just ridiculous that they would ban the film. The Pakistani government should give people a chance to see the film and not further validate the violence of the terrorists by preemptively censoring things for fear of “public safety” or whatever other bogus excuse they’re giving out.
At least it will be seen clandestinely – and probably by a lot of people.