Hollywood films have a long history of causing controversy abroad.
In 1940, Charlie Chaplin’s critique of Hitler and Mussolini in "The Great Dictator" caused the film to be banned in several European countries. Almost 40 years later, Communist regimes were up in arms about “The Deer Hunter,” and more recently, former Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denounced the Spartan epic “300” psychological warfare.
But this month, the U.S. film industry and international relations have experienced an unusual degree of connectedness. Here are four countries that are unhappy with the way recent Hollywood films depict them.
Egypt
Egypt announced its decision to ban the Hollywood film “Exodus: Gods and Kings” Friday because of what officials called “historical inaccuracies.”
The head of Egypt’s censorship board, Abdul Sattar Fathi, said director Ridley Scott’s $140-million retelling of the story of Moses contained "key historical mistakes."
Among them, he said, were film's depiction of Jews as having built the Pyramids, and that an earthquake caused the Red Sea to part rather than a miracle by Moses.
According to the book of Exodus, Jewish slaves were led to freedom by Moses after God inflicted a series of plagues on Egypt. The Biblical story tells how the Red Sea was parted by a miracle performed by Moses, allowing the Jewish people to flee from the Egyptian army.
The film was released in North America n Dec. 12 and made more than $20 million its first weekend.
Since the release, it has also been criticized by many for casting predominantly Caucasian actors such as Christian Bale, starring in the film as Moses, and Joel Edgerton, who plays the Pharaoh Ramses, to play Egyptian characters.
Pakistan
Some Pakistani diplomats say they are unhappy with the way the fourth season of the show “Homeland” portrayed the country. Fictional plot developments show Pakistani intelligence agents as being complicit with terrorist activities they are in fact helping prevent.
“Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the U.S. is a disservice not only to the security interests of the U.S. but also to the people of the U.S.,” Pakistan Embassy spokesman Nadeem Hotiana told the New York Post.
“Homeland makes it seem that Pakistan has contempt for Americans and its values and principles. That is not true.”
But the inaccuracies go beyond this image and into the details, some say.
From the “horrendous” scenes of Islamabad (actually shot in Cape Town, South Africa) to the misuse of Urdu words and a teaser poster that suggests all Pakistani women wear burkas, Bina Shah, a New York Times columnist from Karachi, Pakistan, says the show is inaccurate at best.
“Hollywood isn’t known for historical accuracy or impartial portrayals of any fictionalized other,” she said in a New York Times opinion piece. “The season’s first hour, in which Carrie also goes to Islamabad, offers up a hundred little clues that tell me this isn’t the country where I grew up, or live.”
“We in Pakistan long to be seen with a vision that at least approaches the truth.”
“Homeland” tells the story of Carrie Mathison, a CIA agent whose investigations are complicated by her bipolar disorder.
North Korea
Meanwhile, North Korea is blaming the U.S. for shutting down its Internet amid the hacking row over the movie "The Interview.”
The North Korean government has denied involvement in a crippling cyberattack on Sony Pictures, but has expressed outrage over the comedy, which depicts the assassination of Kim Jong Un.
Sony Pictures initially called off the release of the film, citing threats of terror attacks against U.S. movie theatres. Obama criticized Sony's decision, and the movie opened this past week.
On Saturday, the North's powerful National Defence Commission, which is led by Kim and is the country's top governing body, said Obama was behind the release of "The Interview." It described the movie as illegal, dishonest and reactionary.
"Obama always goes reckless in words and deeds like a monkey in a tropical forest," an unidentified spokesman at the commission's Policy Department said in a statement carried by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House on Saturday.
Japan
Earlier this month, Angelina Jolie's new movie “Unbroken” began causing controversy in Japan even though it hadn’t yet been released.
Many took to social media to express their concerns over the film that depicts a U.S. Olympic runner who endures torture at a prisoner-of-war camp in Japan.
Some people are calling for a boycott of the movie, while others want to ban the work of Angelina Jolie altogether.
“Unrboken” is based on a 2010 book by Laura Hillenbrand. The movie follows the real-life story of Louis Zamperini survived in a raft for 47 days with two other crewmen after a plane crash, only to be caught by the Japanese.
Especially provocative is a passage in the book that refers to cannibalism among the troops. It is not clear how much of that will be in the movie, but that is too much for some.
"But there was absolutely no cannibalism," said Mutsuhiro Takeuchi, a nationalist-leaning educator and a priest in the traditional Shinto religion. "That is not our custom."
Takeuchi acknowledged Jolie is free to make whatever movie she wants, stressing that Shinto believes in forgive-and-forget.
But he urged Jolie to study history, saying executed war criminals were charged with political crimes, not torture.
"Even Japanese don't know their own history so misunderstandings arise," said Takeuchi, who heads his research organization, the Japan Culture Intelligence Association.
“Unbroken” hit theatres in the U.S. and Canada on Dec. 25.
With files from The Associated Press
