Harold and Kumar opens: Is America ready for Guantanamo jokes?

The Associated Press

"Harold and Kumar" stars Kal Penn (right) and John Cho yuk it up at a panel discussion at the SXSW Film Festival in March.

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Harold and Kumar opens: Is America ready for Guantanamo jokes?

Anti-war films tank at the box office. Hollywood has produced bomb after bomb (so to speak) and the bombs keep coming. Will one ever hit? Well, maybe this time at pair of stoners will be just the remedy Tinsel Town needs to attract an audience and make money. Ready or not, Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay hits theaters as mainstream Hollywood's first comedy to lampoon the United States' war on terror.After the 9/11 attacks, the entertainment industry was so hypersensitive that oldies radio stations even shelved Jerry Lee Lewis' "Great Balls of Fire." Apparently, seven years is enough time to make it safe to skewer White House policy and practices that emerged from the ashes of the Pentagon and World Trade Center.Nothing is off-limits in this spoof. Not racism. Not sexism. Not drug abuse. Not even detainee abuse. Actor Kal ''Kumar'' Penn told college newspaper journalists recently that the movie is "a more subversive way of even dealing with stereotypes.''

Is the war on terrorism funny? Is it an appropriate subject for spoof? Should Hollywood make pro-war films? Will you see Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay?

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Libertas

The best part of the review comes at the end when Variety describes the film as, “one of the ballsiest comedies to come out of Hollywood in a long time” — proving only that Variety needs to get out more. Maybe a field trip to Wal-Mart, or something. Ballsy? If there’s a finer resume enhancer in Hollywood than trashing America and the people who defend us, I’m unaware of it.

Try to imagine in the thick of World War II, Bob Hope making a film ridiculing our side. Good heavens, even a leftie like Charlie Chaplin had the moral compass to ridicule Hitler instead of Roosevelt and Churchill.

But don’t get the wrong idea. No one’s questioning anyone’s patriotism here.

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Anthony Kaufman/Village Voice

Earnest, sad, and righteous, they are not. More inspired by M*A*S*H or Dr. Strangelove than The Deer Hunter or Coming Home, a new pack of political films that defy the clichés of the post-9/11 Iraq War cinema has arrived. Rife with satire and absurdity, with more ambiguity and less agit-prop, they don't toe the MoveOn party line and go beyond the familiar war-is-hell mantra. As documentary filmmaker Michael Tucker says: "Yes, it's tragic and horrible. Duh. What else is there?"

For one, there's the bizarre madness of it at all, as shown in Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay. While ostensibly a raunchy teen comedy, the film's archvillain is a racist, ignorant deputy chief of Homeland Security who sends Harold and Kumar to face the horrors of Gitmo. "While it's obviously absurd," co-writer-director Hayden Schlossberg acknowledges of the film's premise, "there's an element of truth. There have been people thrown in Guantánamo who have done nothing. We like the idea of doing something about these subjects in a way that's not serious."

"Sincerity handicaps you," explains Tucker, who co-directed a number of Iraq docs, including Gunner Palace. "Trying to be earnest about something—it does nothing to explain it," he says. "That's why the fiction films have largely failed—because people are already in that emotional place."