Introduction
“Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a 2008 comedy film directed by Hurwitz and Schlossberg. The movie presents different ideas about the Asian and American relationships after the 9/11 attacks. It is a captivating comedy with content suitable for adults only. In this paper, the movie is chosen since it presents an opportunity to execute autonomous, creative ideological review that reveals intended messages and structures of a film. It is also suitable due to the concept of “popular cinema.” This review explores the film’s ideology in terms of concepts of negotiated reading, underlying structures, and national allegory as illustrated by Sturken and Cartwright and Wood, to enhance understanding.
Theme statement: The purpose of the study is to explore the tension between American and regions associated with terrorists as illustrated in the film.
The Plot
The first scene of the film shows Harold and Kumar returning from their White Castle journey and decides to proceed to Amsterdam since Harold is not ready for another ten days to wait before seeing Maria. During their air trip, Kumar lights up the marijuana and the air guards mistake it to be a bomb; consequently, the two are detained as terrorists and transferred to Guantanamo Bay prison (Hurwitz & Schlossberg, 2008). Ordered to perform oral sex with a guard, they find an opportunity to escape, they travel to Florida and afterward proceed to Texas to meet Kumar’s ex-girlfriend's fiancé, influential personnel, Colton, and ask him to vouch for them to Washington. Their college pal, Raza, provide them with an automobile to drive to Vanessa’s wedding ceremony in Texas, where they prepare to request Colton to employ his power to exonerate them (Hurwitz & Schlossberg, 2008).Colton accepts to assist them but reports them to the law enforcement, and they are arrested again. However, the two escape from the military airplane transporting them back to prison. With parachutes, the two lands at the Bush’s ranch, stone with him and get pardon and security escort to the wedding. Kumar still cherish Vanessa, the security personnel are in hot pursuit, and the legal marijuana from of Amsterdam is out of reach for them (Hurwitz & Schlossberg, 2008).
Negotiated Reading
However, in the film, the protagonists oppose the ideology of Asian Americans being the representative of the minority. Fascinatingly, the events of the two main characters illustrate how comedy can be applied to defy and oppose dominant separation and overcome plans. However, it is clear that other parts of the film demonstrate how humor can strengthen those dominance strategies that associate with the level of social adequacy of the typecast.
Underlying Structures
The underlying structure of the film is based on the concept of assessing tension between the groups from a whole perspective of the movie. The aspect is supported by Robin Wood’s piece of writing “Ideology, Genre, Auteur” that proposes a review of the film in just one viewpoint, combining various aspects of the film to review and analyze it as a whole (Wood, 1989). The author reiterates that by jointly assessing the methods, ideologies, and the directing, an assessor can acquire logical concept and ideas of the film. Wood points out his concern as “to suggest something of the complex interaction of ideology, genre, and personal authorship that determines the richness, the density of meaning, of the great Hollywood masterpieces” (Wood, 989, p. 289).
According to Wood, ideology is helpful in "naturalizing" the cultural assumptions of events of actions (Wood, 1989). The assumption Wood points out relates to capitalist ideology where the belief stands that the most oppressed people are, the more contented they are. In the movie, Harold and Kumar seem to be happy despite their predicaments, meaning they are happy despite the oppression and problems they are experiencing with the authorities. It is arguable that the sub-concept of the ideology of the people is traceable from the concept of authorities’ presence to the cynicism and ironies that exist behind the facade of security agencies image.
Wood observes that the ideological concepts in the movies are full of fruitless inconsistencies and irresolvable tensions (Wood, 1989). Therefore, he suggests that by analyzing these ideologies separately, the review becomes bias and results are full of conflicts and contradictions within the concepts themselves. Therefore, by analyzing the idea of tension between America and Asia in regards to terrorism and security matters, it is easier to put the movie into perspective (Wood, 1989).
Woods explain that using the whole aspect of the movie is an ideology that leads to the formation of the genre theory. The theory is applicable in categorizing the film reliant on the account, the director, the prospect of the viewers, and other concepts (Wood, 1989).
The general idea of the movie is based on the tension between the Asian (Harold and Kumar) and the American (national security team. The movie is based on a plot of a Middle Eastern and Asian-American marijuana smokers group attempting to board an airplane headed to Amsterdam.
The security personnel isolate them because of their smoking and hastily transfer them Guantanamo Bay prison, effectively satirizing the United States post-9/11 paranoia and racism. The terrorist attacks considerably transformed American civilization. The National Security transformed to the leading political matter, a new conflict was initiated, and the country’s awareness was everlastingly changed. The changes in the national security were shown in the movie since the proper channel of arresting and incarcerating offenders of suspects were compromised.
In the movie, it is clear that irony as a slippery structure was used as a mode of engagement. The fact that Harold and Kumar seek help from Colton, who is their rival, stoning with the president who is head of national security, and receiving security escort, confirm irony structure usage. On the contrary, the structure forms a strategy allowing critique initiation and the examples clarify that irony is also applicable as a border on trivialization (Sturken, 2001). The film uses trivialization as a nonchalantly progressive strategy, humoring the conflict on terror, the national security condition, the mistrust, and paranoia of Americans concerning security.
For example, the characters in the film, are famous stoners, from Asia and South Asia, being detained and transferred to Guantánamo Bay after one lights up bhang. The security agency mistakes the sound to be like a ‘bomb.’ The cinema inflects the stoner type considering a politically charged and race-awareness, anti-authoritarian appraisal (Sturken, 2001). On the other hand, the movie can be interpreted as just the case of offenders manipulating the systems or testing the systems. Since in every scenario, the offenders get an escape route.
National Allegory
The events of the two characters in the film touch on both of these aspects of American existence with pessimistic comedy. The two societies are continuously brought into issue of discussion, as individuals neighboring them often suspect them of radical practices. The comedy uses the suspicions as the consequences of overrated tension between the Asia and America, but the film’s foundation is resolutely in realism.
The movie at some point can be considered a trenchant appraisal of the conflict on fear and the panic-stricken mistrust of American community following 9/11 period. It can be vividly described as a satiric involvement with the plan and schemes of American territory (Sturken, 2001). However, the trivialization of Guantanamo (a prison with the most highly security checks and measures) is evident in the comedy. But in the film, the protagonists escape with little difficulty and the torture they endure of sexually servicing near-misses involving a huge prison guard, Guantánamo is known to be no place for jokes. However, due to the comedy nature of the film, the authors used irony to pass a message of possibilities. The events of the comedy make the torture and events in the Guantánamo humorous, which is never the case in reality.
Film is a Popular Cinema
In the cinema industry, the popular cinema is constituted to match the producers, directors, and characters’ intentions coupled with entertainment features for the audience. However, filmmaking is usually built around making money at the cost of considering the needs of all the audiences. The film, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” is a popular cinema based on Harold and Kumar from Asian community who are arrested and transferred to Guantánamo. However, they escape from the prison with little effort to demonstrate that they are not typical prisoners.
References
Hurwitz, J., & Schlossberg, H. (2008). “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg. (Film)
Sturken, M, & Cartwright, L. (2001). Practices of looking: An introduction to visual culture. New York: Oxford University Press.
Sturken, M. (2001). Comfort, irony, and trivialization: The mediation of torture. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 1-18.
Wood, W. (1989). Ideology, Genre, Auteur: "Shadow of a Doubt." Hitchcock's Films RevisitedColumbia University Press: New York, 288-302.
