It's time for Osama: The Irreverent Musical.
Tom Trager and Or Paz, the two young Israeli creators of "Ahmed and Salim," the irreverent and provocative on-line animated series starring two teenage Arab boys who are reluctantly being raised by their maniacal father to be terrorists, are back with their latest installment.
In the seventh episode, Ahmed and Salim are thrown out of terrorism school (for playing on their iPhone) and sent to Afghanistan to train with Osama bin Laden.
Rather than being a wild-eyed madman, Osama is an effeminate cook who guides Ahmed and Salim on a crude musical journey that ends up painting Islam, Christianity and Judaism as ridiculous fairy tales.
With a camel on the piano and an orchestra with Jewish violinists, the tap dancing Osama explains to Ahmed and Salim how to be good terrorists.
In crude and simplistic terms, Osama mocks the three monotheistic religions and is returning the boys to their father when he runs into some problems in the finale of the nine-minute cartoon.
The young creators are admittedly heavily influenced by "South Park," but their cartoons lack the intellectual sophistication of that hit American series.
The seventh episode, like the others, appears designed as much to provoke an angry reaction (by showing, for example God coming down from heaven on a cloud to graphically impregnate the Virgin Mary).
But the latest cartoon also demonstrates the creators' superficial understanding of the religions they mock.
As noted before, "Ahmed and Salim" has a cult following, but it also viewed by critics as a misguided series that flops in its attempt to use humor to satirize the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The latest episode is unlikely to change any minds on either side.
Can you imagine the furor if the Arab world had an equivalent series about two Jewish boys in peyot and tzitzit, raised by a religious-nationalist settler father or who disparages Islam and Christianity, thumbs his nose at international laws, and mocks secular Israel society?
Posted by: David | July 26, 2009 at 10:05 AM
I know this is a blog that covers a wide spectrum of subjects which is one reason why I like to visit the site, but why - oh why - do you waste any space or time on this crap??!!
OK, ok, I see the argument that it's exposing people to something that they wouldn't know about otherwise, but I could really shoot myself for giving into the tempation and watching the stupid video.
What a waste of 9 min. 17 sec. of my life for something that made me sick to my stomach in its hatefulness. It doesn't even get much of it's information correct when dissing the religions.
OK, just had to say that there's GOT to be better things for you to supply space to than this kind of stuff. Even ... what's her name? Bar Refaeli or Lindsey Lohan.
Posted by: Edie | July 27, 2009 at 05:49 AM
Unlike Edie I think this little piece does have its information correct. All religions use that religion to fire up the believers to give money and power to the priests. It is the orginal tax, based on the lie that the tax will insure everlasting life.
Posted by: mfellion | July 30, 2009 at 10:28 PM