Race, torture porn, and the menacing Black Muslimness of Five Fingers

Abstract

This chapter touches on the national debate regarding torture during the Bush and Obama administrations, questions about the illegality of certain types of detentions, and the ramifications of American exceptionalism. More narrowly, the focus is on how torture is deployed in this film, a psycho-political thriller. The chapter zeros in on the central villain in Five Fingers who is a Muslim of African descent named “Ahmat” whose mix of race, religion, and gender in scenes when he is orchestrating and implementing torture are intended to make him easily identifiable as “evil” for moviegoers. Ahmat is a post-9/11 creation on screen, the torturer-hero. He is concurrently positioned in Five Fingers as the primary opponent to freedom through a terrorizing Muslimness and freedom’s unequivocal defender as a hard- core clandestine agent unconcerned with collaterality. Black Muslim men are represented in narrative film and television series with new cultural meanings.