Popular screen torture normalized real-world torture of Muslims as entertainment

Evidence

Like other colonial spaces examined in this study, Abu Ghraib displays desires about others, as well as revealing the fantasies of torture that ran riot after September 11. The popularity of torture in television and film has gone largely unnoticed by scholars, but as Ziauddin Sardar has written, “There is a seamless connection between what happens in American society, the way society is represented by Hollywood, and the torture meted out by US soldiers abroad. In movies, torture is an everyday activity.” Abu Ghraib also perpetuates the idea that, for some, torturing Muslims is an acceptable pastime, a hobby for good old boys, what Rush Limbaugh described as, “a good time… sort of like hazing, a fraternity prank. Sort of like that kind of fun.” The idea that soldiers had a right to torture and have fun, after having to put up with Muslims all day long, reveals the power of the imaginary monsters documented in this book. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 755

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes your earlier reading of Adorno on the culture industry engineering attitudes; the Frankfurt School’s culture-industry thesis resurfaces in this Hollywood-torture link.
• SEED: Angle: a genealogy of torture-as-entertainment on American screens from 24 to Abu Ghraib — how a fantasy loop teaches the military what the enemy deserves.