As the film rolled three weeks ago in Aleppo, Syria, a new kind of horror movie was starting to unfold. In a number of ways, it wasn’t different from any other cheap, shock–value, Western hemisphere scary movie. It had a villain, it had heroes, it had a grotesque killing. The real horror, though, was in the context. What was projected on the screen for a public viewing was Muadh al–Kasasbeth’s execution, played in front of a group of 11–14 year old boys.
“Propaganda in media and film tends in one of two directions,” explains Tim Corrigan, a Penn English and cinema studies professor. “One kind of propaganda is used to mobilize people through narratives of heroes…the other kind of propaganda isn’t so much about mobilizing as much as it is about terrifying.”
The latter is the one we’re familiar with when it comes to ISIS. It’s a form of propaganda that foregoes narrative in favor of spectacle. “These videos are not meant to make ISIS attractive, they’re meant to make their enemies and foes terrified of what they’re capable of doing.”
What you probably don't know is that there are also some ISIS propaganda videos that easily fit the former category, too. ISIS also produces videos that show members rebuilding the community and helping out in hospitals. But in a way, while the execution video does the same thing; ISIS members exterminate Westerners—the proverbial villains in their narrative. The videos of community building and slaughtering alike entice young recruits with heroics.
Think about going to the movies. For two hours of escapism, you sit in front of one monolithic screen with no history, no outside thoughts. You’re no longer you—you’re Luke Skywalker or Batman. You’re a hero.
For recruits watching ISIS execution videos, the illusion of being a hero doesn’t end after watching the movie. They go one step further and become the "heroes" they just watched.
“What a recruit sees in the execution videos is power—a capacity to go beyond any limits and never balk at anything that’s going to stop the cause” explains Corrigan.
What makes the execution videos uneasy to watch, besides grotesque violence, is the familiar enchantment with the art of filmmaking and a universal longing to be heroes. It’s this same sense of longing and voyeuristic fantasy that caused such a polarizing debate over the recent film American Sniper, where, as Corrigan points out, the protagonist “becomes a hero primarily for his capacity to ruthlessly kill. And ruthlessly kill people that Westerners don’t think are worthy of living."
So what makes the onscreen violence in an ISIS execution video and an American-made film so different? Corrigan notes, “A lot of people in their outrage and horror about these execution videos wouldn’t have the same outrage and horror when they watch a fictional film or documentary that perpetrates some sort of similar kind of violence but in the name of patriotism.”
The tipping point becomes whether the ideologies of film and viewer agree. Of course, not many people are moved to violence through movies. (Although there's an entire school of thought that relates violence and video games.) But when you go into a film that shares your ideals, you can find fascination, pride, and identification within the violence. In this way, ISIS execution video and violent Hollywood films like American Sniper are markedly similar.
It's not just violence in film that perpetuates ideology. As Corrigan explains, “Any sort of media representation is going to be structured around an ideological point of view. It’s going to represent certain positions on gender, on family, on history, on nation.”
It’s too far to say that all media are propaganda, but subtle pushes of ideology are in the media every day. Simply put, a single film or piece of media—or even several—won't tell the story from all sides.
There are horror movies made everyday in ISIS. They’re made of blood, violence, pride and fear, but they spring from the conflicting intersection between ISIS and Western ideologies. But is it too far to say that American media outlets and filmmakers do the same thing?
