Today Reuters (and others) writes about new protests in response to a film that mocks the Prophet Mohammad, peace be upon him. I get the outrage, but not quite the scale. I also don't quite understand why those masses believe they need to hold all of America or Americans responsible.

I first learned of the film when one of the actresses came forward and practically apologized, because the film released was not the film they'd made. If you see the film, you can tell that there are obvious, and very bad, voice-overs done to change the dialog that the actors performed. You can also tell that much of the film was done on green screen, so I'm sure they didn't expect the "sets" to look like they did, so it goes to support the actress' position. Surely, even in good films, they are filmed in such a way that most of the story is put together in editing; that usually follows the script, but an unscrupulous person could easily alter that.

Here's a link to either the trailer or the film, I'm not sure which; it is just plain bad and I only watched a few minutes of it. The scenes are short and seem to be cut like a trailer, but they are long enough to almost seem like the whole film. The film, I imagine, is more than 15 minutes, which is what this links to. I provide this not to stir a pot, but to show that this is no Hollywood blockbuster, and to provide some context to those who haven't seen it.

Whether or not you see the film (or trailer), and certainly whether or not you agree with it, the thing to remember is that this is the work of a small set of people. Even if you included the cast and crew (which you probably shouldn't) as part of the atrocity, it must be recognized that they are both a small part of America, and in all liklihood had no support of the American government.

A small set of idiots made a stupid film that upset a larger set of people. Those upset people, rightly, have been offended, but wrongly have responded to an extreme by killing people and setting off bombs. They have taken the offense to the larger group, let's say "all Muslims," and responded as we might expect from the smallest, most extreme slice of that group. That group of protesters may be only hundreds or thousands strong, out of the millions of Muslims worldwide, and even in the areas of the protests, but those protesters are causing inexcusable harm in an unrealistic response. Further, their response is making the news in such a way that it casts an unfriendly light on the larger group.

I have to think that some of the protesters of the Mohammad film are otherwise decent, regular people. They probably normally hold opinions, as many of us do, that their religion is unfairly represented by the extremists. They're probably at this very moment not realizing the contradiction that they have become.

The protests, which are certainly allowed and arguably warranted, are misguided, though, charging "death to America" and threatening all Americans, instead of focusing on the more appropriate target of the film and film makers. 

We can think back to many arguably stupid films that have been protested over the years. Springing to mind are the film (and play) Jesus Christ Superstar, Monty Python's The Life of Brian, and Mel Gibson's The Last Temptation of Christ. Again, the outrage and offense are arguably legitimate, but the response was a lot more tempered, and directed at the film, its makers, and the theaters showing it, and maybe to some degree the patrons of those theaters and the film. There were also inexcusable threats and violence in those protests, also, however no larger group, religion, or countr was held accountable for those films.

I suggest that everyone should just settle down. Don't see the movie, if you find it offensive. Encourage others to do the same. Try to make those that do see the film understand its offensiveness, and maybe even try to correct its inaccuracies. Keep the film from being shown, but don't threaten everyone who lives in the same country where the film was made. 

Really, most of us find the film to be tasteless and bad at the very least, and offensive an wrong at the more reasonable levels. One could blame the editing and changes to dialog, but the acting is bad. For the same reasons, the cinemetography is horrible, the sets stink. The film is just bad.

Most of America will never see the film, or its trailer, and had nothing to do with its creation, and probably doesn't think of the Prophet Mohammad the same way.