The Zoolander Theory of Terrorism

Who knew that Zoolander would eclipse The Siege as the most prescient Hollywood movie about jihadist terrorism?

The Siege, scripted by Lawrence Wright— who went on to author a groundbreaking study of al-Qaeda called The Looming Tower— is a pre-9/11 drama about a wave of jihadist atrocities in New York and the human-rights catastrophe thereby entrained, including the introduction of martial law and the internment of Arabs across the city. Zoolander, released just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, is by contrast a comedy about an imbecilic male model who is brainwashed by an outlandish criminal organization to carry out an act of international terrorism.

The movie is inane and frivolous, if occasionally funny. But the brainwashing narrative it parodies is fully earnest, and shows up in some of the more sensational reportage on Western recruits to ISIS, especially the so-called “jihadi brides.” Consider, for example, the case of the three East London schoolgirls who absconded from England in February to join the selfproclaimed “caliphate” in Syria. Shamima Begum, 15, Kadiza Sultana, 16, and Amira Abase, 15, were just ordinary teenagers with ordinary teenage enthusiasms— until, as Prime Minister David Cameron put it, they had their “minds poisoned by this appalling death cult.”

The Daily Mail constructed a similar story. In one report, it claimed that the girls had been “ruthlessly groomed online” and were “brainwashed in their bedrooms.” It noted that both Begum and Sultana were prolific Twitter users, and that Begum had followed scores of pro-ISIS accounts, giving her “access to a torrent of appalling images and footage.” It quoted Begum's sister as saying, “We love her, she's our baby. She's a sensible girl. … [ISIS is] preying on young innocent girls and it's not right.”

This infantilizing narrative is the same one that the parents of Aqsa Mahmood— the 20-year-old ISIS propagandist from Scotland investigated for potential connections with the three schoolgirls— offered to explain their own daughter's radicalization: “She may believe that the jihadists of ISIS are her new family but they are not and are simply using her … Our daughter is brainwashed and deluded.”