Submission: Part I

Some movies are not nice. This is one of them. It is about sincere woman, faithful to their religion, but treated bad by the system.

This movie was the reason, it's maker, Theo van Gogh, has been slaughtered, by someone not able to communicate in a civilized way, but driven by an evil spirit.

Submission part I is strongly recommended to all woman, and those men who are strong enough to accept that men can show (collective) brutal and repressive behaviour.

The movie might be offensive to some people, as a woman's breast is shown behind a veil. This is not done in an erotic way.

This movie can explain more, than an entire book could do. A must see.

It's actually funny how some people here ( Muslims ) go all out against this movie for all the wrong reasons. This movie is about how some men abuse their religion. Not about how the religion abuses women. This problem exists in all religions because some people are just plain bad people, whether they are Muslims or not. This short movie was made to address that specific problem. In the 80's/90's there were a lot of movies about Christian ( or at least white ) women being raped of abused. At the time people didn't say ..."ohhh all Christian men abuse women". NOR should they say that no one does this. The same goes about this movie. I work around a lot of Muslims and yes i find it a very honourable religion but there are always people that don't allow their woman to talk and other strict rules. So why do people here overreact? Because people think their religion is flawless and every Muslim is a good Muslim... and that was what this movie was made for, to show people CAN be bad too in any religion, but no one dared to say it because of fear of being called a racist. He dared ( even though he did go a bit too far sometimes) and paid the price for it. Try to keep an open mind en learn from the movie.

While this movie might not be the best movie ever produced about Islam, it is absolutely amazing to find so many "tolerant and moderate" Muslim people so upset about it.

How many movies are there out there which show the negative side of Christianity? How many Nazis-Christians, pedophile-Christians and just-plain-evil-Christians movies are out there? How many movies are out there which show Jesus from a "blasphemous" perspective? We have seen Jesus as a homosexual, a sex fiend, a dope smoking hippie and many other potentially offensive angles. Yet, every time Christian extremists raise hell (ha ha) about it, most of us ask them kindly to chill out and to respect freedom of speech as well as artistic freedom.

How come we do not hold the Muslim community to the same standard? I don't understand why so many people find it OK for so called moderate Muslims to demand that movies like Submission be censored. We would not tolerate it if "moderate" Christians demanded the same about any of the flicks that might portray Christianity from a negative point of view.

If you know anything about Islam and Muslim women in general, if you have actually talked and met with Muslims who practice their faith, you will have to at least agree partially with what is shown in this short film.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that all Muslim men abuse their women or that all non-Muslim men are nice guys. As a matter of fact, I just watched a short documentary on women abuse in Spain, a traditionally Catholic country.

For most of us, the worst thing that could happen after making a movie is complete commercial and critical failure. For Ayyan Hirsi Ali, it is death. And after her director and co-producer, Theo Van Gogh, was murdered late last year, this is a very real possibility. Their courage and conviction to be heard (no matter how controversial the opinion) is an inspiration to me. That being said, I'll attempt to defend controversial films on a more general level: I have never seen a movie that has literal changed my lifestyle, and don't think it is even possible. We are bombarded with too much information for something as short and singular (no matter how visceral) as a movie. But what they can do is begin the process of thinking, and evaluating our own lives. So regardless of whether or not you agree with a film, if it gets you thinking about a particular issue, then you should consider it a success. Thank you for your time. Take care.

Submission is a 10-minute film in English directed by Theo van Gogh and written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali (a former member of the Dutch House of Representatives for the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy); it was shown on the Dutch public broadcasting network (available on YouTube). The film's title is a direct translation of the word "Islam".

The film tells the story of four fictional characters played by a single actress wearing a veil, but clad in a see-through chador, her naked body painted with verses from the Koran. The characters are Muslim women who have been abused in various ways. The film contains monologues of these women and dramatically highlights three verses of the Quran,(4:34 2:222 and 24:2) that authorize mistreatment of women, by showing them painted on women's bodies.

It is a political statement and indictment of those countries that allow honor killing to go on despite laws against them.