Fund Mentalism

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the legendary Chris Morris, master satirist and media commentator, and mused about his current subversive machinations.

[See his classic take on the world of high finance above.]

Thanks to the awesomeness of the webnet, an anonymous Dan commented on the post and informed me that he is indeed up to something potentially even more contentious than the final Brasseye Special.

It's a satirical film about British Jihadists. Channel 4 declined to fund it, so Morris is hoping to crowdsource funding for the movie, like a Swarm of Angels before it. 

In order to offer support, email the address below and they will add you to the email list.

[email protected]

Morris explains the movie here:

Many people have asked us exactly what the Four Lions project is. Clearly we can’t launch the film before its been shot, but I’ve pulled together a few paragraphs from the paperwork that’s been flying around. 

Its shameless hype but its accurate – unlike almost everything you will have read in the press. No one who has read the script could disagree with a word here.

In three years of research, Chris Morris has spoken to terrorism experts, imams, police, secret services and hundreds of Muslims. Even those who have trained and fought jihad report the frequency of farce. At training camps young jihadis argue about honey, cry for their mums, shoot each other’s feet off, chase snakes and get thrown out for smoking.

A minute into his martyrdom video, a would-be bomber looks puzzled and says “what was the question again?” On millennium eve, five jihadis set out to ram a US warship. They slipped their boat into the water and carefully stacked it with explosives. It sank.

Terrorist cells have the same group dynamics as stag parties and five a side football teams. There is conflict, friendship, misunderstanding and rivalry. Terrorism is about ideology, but it’s also about berks.

Four Lions is a funny, thrilling fictional story that illuminates modern British jihad with an insight beyond anything else in our culture. It plunges us beyond seeing these young men as unfathomably alien. It undermines the folly of just wishing them away or alienating the entire culture from which they emerge. 

It understands how terrorism relates to testosterone. It understands jihadis as human beings. And it understands human beings as innately ridiculous.  As Spinal Tap understood heavy metal and Dr Strangelove the Cold War, Four Lions understands modern British jihadis.

As for your offer, we’re hoping to set up a one click pay scheme soon.

We’ll let you know.

Needless to say, I've committed my support.

Now, perhaps more than ever, we need to humanise the demonised.