While SFMEW emphasizes media and political advocacy, we also encourage setting the record straight with your friends, co-workers, relatives, and acquaintances when events are mis-characterized in popular culture. Spreading the word verbally is important so others don’t perpetuate the incorrect history and myths about the Middle East.
We hope you and your friends and relatives were as riveted by the HBO “Our Boys” limited series as we were. Being lost in the dramatic effects (which we thought were very well done) could have caused you to miss some of the nuance and historical inaccuracies that created the controversy around it.
While the obvious controversial criticism of the piece has been the personalizing of the murdered Palestinian boy and his family compared to the impersonalization and lack of context and circumstances of the three Israeli boys murdered before him, there were many additional concerns that a discerning eye may have noticed. Of course, TV dramatization (rather than documentary production), is wont to alter events for dramatic effect.
We could enumerate our concerns with the show here, but rather than trying to re-write these concerns it makes sense to introduce you to the best critique we’ve seen of the series: from the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA), “WHY THE CONTROVERSY OVER HBO’S “OUR BOYS”?
While this is a long piece, we’d recommend you read the whole analysis so you can discuss it with those who have watched the series and may have come away with a mis-characterization of the actual events.
You can also listen to a podcast with the main writer and executive producer, Joseph Cedar, on People of the Pod, a joint production of the American Jewish Congress and the Times of Israel, to get his response to the criticisms.
Don’t miss SFJFF’s next event, Golda’s Balcony. October 27, 4:00 pm, The Screen.
Buy your tickets here.
SFMEW is a beneficiary organization of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.