Conservative critics demanded films preserve a moral line between terrorists and their killers

Evidence

Michael Medved, film critic and conservative political commentator, also has faith in the power of television. Regarding the film Syriana, he writes: “The problem, it seems to me, in a lot of these new films, is not that they humanized terrorists, that’s good dramatically, the problem is that they’re sympathetic to terrorists, that they erase the distinction between terrorists and those who are fighting terrorism and that’s a terrible thing.” Medved contends that there is a moral difference between those who kill innocent people and those who kill the killers of innocent people and states that this should be accurately reflected in films, highlighting his investment in narratives of U.S. exceptionalism. — Evelyn Alsultany, Arabs and Muslims in the Media, 280

Categorization

• SHARE: For someone studying post-9/11 film criticism — Medved’s Syriana objection is a compact example of the exceptionalism frame.