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REVIEW: The Journey


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cookiemanstah



Joined: 09 Dec 2013
Posts: 546
PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 11:35 am Reply with quote
I'm pretty sure it's fair game to express disbelief that this article was published considering what it's about. It could not have been published without expecting to raise red flags.

And what I got from reading this review down to every detail is this fuckin' movie is, at its core, undeniable Saudi propaganda. The rest (movie, not article) is just fluff or bullshit. That further baffles me as to how it's endorsed in any way, not just this review.

PLEASE don't sugarcoat Saudi Arabia in places where you have the right to express your opinion in the same vein as how Russia has been appropriately shunned or exiled at large.


Last edited by cookiemanstah on Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:00 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 12:37 pm Reply with quote
First off, our reviews don't equate to endorsement.

"Platforming" is a whole other discussion obviously, but we didn't feel the need to avoid platforming this movie.

Obviously this movie can be seen as "propaganda." It is designed to promote Saudi/Muslim/Arab culture and heritage. And there's nothing wrong with that. Whether it's Japan, China, Russia, Iran, France or wherever, promoting their heritage is just fine.

As long the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion, or nation.

We'd be happy to review an anime about Peter the Great. We would have serious issues with any anime that promoted the false narrative that Putin is pushing about the Ukraine, and we would have to consider if reviewing it, even a negative review, might give it more publicity than it should get.

So, despite the fact that I personally felt this was a terrible anime (I disagree with Rebecca's ~B scores, but agree with all of the points she made about it), I have no ethical problem with it being reviewed on ANN.
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:27 pm Reply with quote
I guess on a scale of religious movies, how heavy-handed are we talking here? Is this more Prince of Egypt (which it sounds like not), somewhere in the middle like Arjun: The Warrior Prince, or beat-you-over-the-head a la Happy Science?
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thepepin



Joined: 22 Jun 2022
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:44 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
First off, our reviews don't equate to endorsement.

"Platforming" is a whole other discussion obviously, but we didn't feel the need to avoid platforming this movie.

Obviously this movie can be seen as "propaganda." It is designed to promote Saudi/Muslim/Arab culture and heritage. And there's nothing wrong with that. Whether it's Japan, China, Russia, Iran, France or wherever, promoting their heritage is just fine.

As long the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion, or nation.


First off, there is a difference between promoting Saudi, Muslim and Arab culture and heritage and promoting the ideology and agenda of the Saudi Arabian government.

Second, it is amazing to make the claim "the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion or nation" when the bad guys are explicitly Christian. This is important because Saudi Arabia - as well as North Africa and the Middle East - was not always Muslim or even universally Arab. It was a very diverse mix of religions, races and cultures. That diversity was wiped out by imperialism. It would be more interesting - and honest - to take a look at the history of Mecca and Saudi Arabia prior to that area falling to the forces of imperialist-imposed religious and cultural homogenization. Instead, this movie goes for the usual propaganda of how they are always the peace-loving good guys until the crusaders came and persecuted them, when in many cases said "crusaders" actually were just trying to recover land that was taken by expansionist imperialists in the first place - just like Ukraine is attempting to do now - or they were trying to stop the expansionism from going further - again which is a major reason why we are helping Ukraine now and expanding NATO to include formerly neutral Sweden and Finland instead of just abandoning Ukraine to its fate and allowing Russia to rebuild as much of the former Soviet Union as possible.

Yes, these events did happen: a Christian leader attacked Mecca. But it ignores a ton of context, which is the imperialism that led to Mecca being the way that it was in the first place, and that this imperialism was still ongoing. This expansionism went on into Spain, Italy and France before it turned back. Also, I wonder: if right wing French Catholics were to start a "Manga Production" and make an anime co-production with Japan about the glorious victory of Charles Martel over the caliphate at Tours, would this be platformed here? Or - even though it incontrovertibly happened - would it be denounced as fascist religious propaganda? Would it be linked to Islamophobia and contemporary issues in France? Would we have a reviewer claiming "While most of the characters are male, there's nothing overtly anti-feminist about the story unless you balk at pieces with mostly male casts in general" in response to a right wing Catholic movie?

I have difficultly believing that ANN would be so charitable towards a right wing European government sponsored propaganda project - say from Hungary or Poland - that promotes its extreme political and social views under the guise of "promoting culture and heritage". Or if ANN was, it is really difficult to explain why it should be. The absolute first thing any reviewer on ANN would mention about a Hungarian "anime" would be that regime's attitudes towards racial and religious minorities and LGBT people, but here we have a project from Saudi Arabia and not a peep.

Now do not mistake me. I am not arguing that this review should be taken down or anything of the sort. I am just saying that European fascism and non-European fascism gets treated very differently and for reasons that make absolutely no sense. This Saudi Arabian propaganda should get treated the same as it would if it were produced by a western regime that is similarly extremist and oppressive.
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 1:53 pm Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:
I guess on a scale of religious movies, how heavy-handed are we talking here? Is this more Prince of Egypt (which it sounds like not), somewhere in the middle like Arjun: The Warrior Prince, or beat-you-over-the-head a la Happy Science?


More in the middle. There's explicit mention of God and stories from Abrahamic myth, but it's presenting itself as more of an underdog story; an analogy might be as if it were a film about the reason why Chanuka is celebrated. (Some religious elements, based on a historic event.)
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merr



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 2:54 pm Reply with quote
It might be helpful if the review were clearer about what kind of organization MiSK is, and its connection to MBS and the Saudi government. I had to look that up myself after reading this. That information should really be in the first paragraph.
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ANN_Lynzee
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:05 pm Reply with quote
merr wrote:
It might be helpful if the review were clearer about what kind of organization MiSK is, and its connection to MBS and the Saudi government. I had to look that up myself after reading this. That information should really be in the first paragraph.


thepepin wrote:

I have difficultly believing that ANN would be so charitable towards a right wing European government sponsored propaganda project - say from Hungary or Poland - that promotes its extreme political and social views under the guise of "promoting culture and heritage". Or if ANN was, it is really difficult to explain why it should be. The absolute first thing any reviewer on ANN would mention about a Hungarian "anime" would be that regime's attitudes towards racial and religious minorities and LGBT people, but here we have a project from Saudi Arabia and not a peep.


This is in all of our news article coverage about the movie and the productions coming from MiSK.

http://4NN.cx/.189262

Quote:
Manga Productions is a subsidiary of the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, also known as MiSK, and named for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The company aims to create animation, comic, and video game projects to "promote Saudi ideas and messages internationally." MiSK signed a memorandum with Japan's Digital Hollywood University in October 2017 to train Saudi designers and programmers in creating animation and games. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman established MiSK in 2011.

In February 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who relocated to the United States and wrote for The Washington Post newspaper before being killed in 2018. The Saudi Arabian government "completely reject[ed]" the U.S. assessment. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also been criticized for pursuing a war in Yemen that caused a humanitarian disaster and for cracking down on dissenting voices. He has alternately been praised for ending a ban on women drivers in 2018.


We actually have had people on the other side of the comments here get mad that we bother to include this in our news coverage.

I specifically wanted Rebecca to review this film due to her extensive historical knowledge on topics and I respect her opinion on the film itself. I believe her when she says certain view points aren't present in a film when most of us would expect it due to the funding behind it. There will be an interview up on Monday with the animation manager where I asked her about these concerns regarding politics associated with Saudi Arabia.

As an editorial policy, I'm not a fan of "pretend this doesn't exist." I was accused of "platforming" when we reported on Kazuyoshi Yaginuma (http://4NN.cx/.127409) which subsequently led to his outing from the industry and numerous times this line of thinking has come up over content people find disagreeable.
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merr



Joined: 11 Dec 2004
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:29 pm Reply with quote
ANN_Lynzee wrote:

This is in all of our news article coverage about the movie and the productions coming from MiSK.

http://4NN.cx/.189262

Quote:
Manga Productions is a subsidiary of the Prince Mohammed bin Salman Foundation, also known as MiSK, and named for Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The company aims to create animation, comic, and video game projects to "promote Saudi ideas and messages internationally." MiSK signed a memorandum with Japan's Digital Hollywood University in October 2017 to train Saudi designers and programmers in creating animation and games. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman established MiSK in 2011.

In February 2021, the U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence assessed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved an operation in Istanbul, Turkey to capture or kill Jamal Khashoggi. Khashoggi was a Saudi journalist who relocated to the United States and wrote for The Washington Post newspaper before being killed in 2018. The Saudi Arabian government "completely reject[ed]" the U.S. assessment. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has also been criticized for pursuing a war in Yemen that caused a humanitarian disaster and for cracking down on dissenting voices. He has alternately been praised for ending a ban on women drivers in 2018.


We actually have had people on the other side of the comments here get mad that we bother to include this in our news coverage.

I specifically wanted Rebecca to review this film due to her extensive historical knowledge on topics and I respect her opinion on the film itself. I believe her when she says certain view points aren't present in a film when most of us would expect it due to the funding behind it. There will be an interview up on Monday with the animation manager where I asked her about these concerns regarding politics associated with Saudi Arabia.

I’m glad to see this. I don’t think anyone who knows this site would think for a second that ANN endorses the Saudi government or that Rebecca isn’t knowledgable about the background on this film’s production. But I would’ve liked the info above to be incorporated more clearly in the review itself, that’s all.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 3:52 pm Reply with quote
thepepin wrote:
Second, it is amazing to make the claim "the film isn't being used to attack another culture, religion or nation" when the bad guys are explicitly Christian.
The story doesn't portray "Christians as bad guys," it portrays "The bad guy happens to be Christian." Yes, there's definitely an aspect of religious propaganda there, but what religious story isn't propaganda?

The movie doesn't attack Christians or Christianity in any way other than making the invader a Christian.

Quote:
Saudi Arabia [...] was not always Muslim

Saudi Arabia was not Muslim at this time (this story takes place the year Muhammad was born) and in no way does the movie claim these people were Muslim. There are no Muslims in this story.

Quote:
Yes, these events did happen:

Uhh. Rather than paraphrasing wikipedia, for you, I'll just point you to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraha#Islamic_tradition
But in short, this is a story, it may or may not have happened. And even if it did happen, there's no reason to believe the story is an accurate historical account.

Quote:
Instead, this movie goes for the usual propaganda of how they are always the peace-loving good guys until the crusaders came and persecuted them, when in many cases said "crusaders" actually were just trying to recover land that was taken by expansionist imperialists in the first place
This has nothing to do with the Crusades. Abraha was not a crusader. You've also got your timeline messed up, the Muslim Conquests started in 622 CE, this story takes place 50 years earlier in ~570 CE. The Crusades started in 1095 CE.

-t
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whiskeyii



Joined: 29 May 2013
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:03 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:

More in the middle. There's explicit mention of God and stories from Abrahamic myth, but it's presenting itself as more of an underdog story; an analogy might be as if it were a film about the reason why Chanuka is celebrated. (Some religious elements, based on a historic event.)


Thanks! I’ll probably end up checking this out because I actually really enjoy seeing culturally different stories, particularly of the quasi-mythic/religious variety, but I think I want to wait til ANN’s eventual interview first.
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Princess_Irene
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PostPosted: Fri Sep 02, 2022 6:27 pm Reply with quote
whiskeyii wrote:

Thanks! I’ll probably end up checking this out because I actually really enjoy seeing culturally different stories, particularly of the quasi-mythic/religious variety, but I think I want to wait til ANN’s eventual interview first.


Honestly, that was my favorite thing about it - I loved seeing the variations on the stories I grew up with.

I also really do believe that everyone deserves to see themselves in the media they consume, whether that means someone who looks like them, who has the same cultural background as them, or the same neurological differences as them. The first time I read a book with a Jewish heroine that wasn't a Holocaust story it meant the world to me, and I want that for everyone.
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JohnathanEnder



Joined: 08 Aug 2004
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:18 pm Reply with quote
Princess_Irene wrote:


Honestly, that was my favorite thing about it - I loved seeing the variations on the stories I grew up with.

I also really do believe that everyone deserves to see themselves in the media they consume, whether that means someone who looks like them, who has the same cultural background as them, or the same neurological differences as them. The first time I read a book with a Jewish heroine that wasn't a Holocaust story it meant the world to me, and I want that for everyone.


This.

As a Muslim, I've always grown up seeing these stories from an Islamic context and when I met people of other Abrahamic faiths it helped me realize just how connected people of various backgrounds can be. And, again, when I met people who grew up with different or no faiths.

It also helped when I was raised in a world that seemingly hated me -- Muslims are all terrorists, they all hate women, they want to dial back the clock, yadda yadda yadda, that jukebox has been playing the same songs for decades -- and seeing it reflected in the media I adored always made me feel like the "other."

I won't defend a regime like the Saudis -- even other Muslims think they suck. I will also watch a movie like RRR or Wolf Warrior and enjoy them without endorsing the cruelty of India and China's current regimes. The same way a movie like Top Gun can be turned into propaganda, it can also be a fun entertainment.

In the end we're all human and there's little time in the world for hate.[/b]
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Ishida_Akira(fake)



Joined: 23 Apr 2022
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 5:28 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
The movie doesn't attack Christians or Christianity in any way other than making the invader a Christian.


I fail to see how anyone could legit get angry over invaders being Christians, considering the fact that the Crusades happened. I mean... read a book?
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
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PostPosted: Sat Sep 03, 2022 10:41 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
You've also got your timeline messed up,

-t


Not to be the guy but he has a bit of a problem of forgetting details and ignoring facts. When making arguments and giving his two cents. Not too surprised he’s done it again and is getting reminded of this again.
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SHD



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PostPosted: Sun Sep 04, 2022 4:52 am Reply with quote
thepepin wrote:
The absolute first thing any reviewer on ANN would mention about a Hungarian "anime" would be that regime's attitudes towards racial and religious minorities and LGBT people

I mean. As a Hungarian who is deeply and desperately ashamed of everything that's been going on here in the past over-a-decade - we do have cartoons and films and other cultural products that have nothing to do with the regime and its disgusting policies. Sure, the regime does sponsor a lot of productions whose main purpose is to push its propaganda (those tend to be really crappy even aside of that aspect), but not everything that is created here comes from that gutter. People do make legit art here, protest art, even. I'm not saying that the regime's policies shouldn't be mentioned at all, especially considering how they're being represented (and in part purposefully misrepresented) in the US in certain "conservative" circles, but unless the thing being reviewed has been created with the government's support/backing, it's not necessarily relevant.
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