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A funny thing happened to me on the way to the mosque<\/div>\n

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If you thought that Hollywood had no sensitivity to the way Muslims were portrayed in film, you\u2019d be wrong. Not because there rate of Muslims being portrayed as terrorists has slowed down, but because a major studio is trying to save us from being portrayed as being funny. Sony Pictures refused to release<\/a> a film by comedian and filmmaker Albert Brooks entitled \u201c Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World<\/a>\u201d unless the word \u201cMuslim\u201d was removed from the title. (They suggested \u201cLooking for Comedy\u201d instead.) \u201cI do believe that recent incidents have dramatically changed the landscape that we live in,\u201d explained Sony chairman Michael Lynton in a letter<\/a> to Brooks, \u201cand that this, among other things, warrants changing the title of the film.\u201d The film stars Brooks (as himself), who is recruited<\/a> by former US Senator Fred Thompson (also playing himself) to go to India and Pakistan to find out what makes Muslims laugh. It makes fun of self-obsessed Hollywood types, hapless State Department officials, and American ignorance of the Muslim world \u2013 but, according to Brooks, should be inoffensive<\/a> to Muslims. \u201cI steered clear of religion in this movie,\u201d said<\/a> Brooks. \u201cThe whole point of the movie is looking for comedy, not looking for God.\u201d While the studio did not give reasons other than the title for the rejection, the move happened after the Guantanamo Qur\u2019an desecration<\/a> furor, and with the murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh<\/a> (of \u201cSubmission\u201d fame) still fresh in Hollywood\u2019s memory. The film has been subsequently picked up by the smaller Warner Independent<\/a> label and will be released in January, and Sony has gone on to approve less controversial<\/a> films for distribution. (For example, \u201cDeuce Bigalow: European Gigolo,\u201d which features a Chernobyl victim with a penis for a nose.) \u201cWhenever I heard anyone talk about Muslims, it was in association with terrorism,\u201d explained<\/a> Brooks. \u201cThere had to be some way to separate the 1.5 billion people who don\u2019t want to kill us from the 100,000 or so who do.\u201d <\/p>\n

<\/i><\/p>\n

Shahed Amanullah is editor-in-chief of altmuslim.com.\n<\/p>\n

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