Fan Fun with Damian Lewis

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More than anything, and more than any other work about terrorism, Homeland is about exploring the gray areas, between good and evil, between “warfare and terrorism”. The show is about forcing us to think about the real costs and rethink our understanding of the real victims of both war and terrorism. We meet Brody and we see what he is planning to do. And we’re encouraged to think: Okay, if this conservative white man from middle America can become someone who would blow himself and a bunch of people up, then….maybe, just maybe, those men strapping on vests all over the Middle East, or even those men flying planes into buildings, are also men who were led on a path of evil the same way Brody was, by pervasive systematic abuse? And maybe, part of the abuse on those men and children strapping on vests was perpetrated by someone you and I and our neighbors voted for? I don’t think Homeland ever sought to be an apologist for terrorism, they’re not trying to justify any of the evil. They just want to shine a thoughtful, intelligent light on it; a light radically different than any other treatment of the subject.

Continue reading “Nicholas Brody was No Hero, Part Two”

I loved playing Brody. I’m extremely proud of who we all created together. I think he’s a tragic hero for our time. He himself embodies a cautionary tale, going right back to the beginning, about sending young men to war and the damage it can do. – Damian Lewis

Brody is not a hero. – Damian Lewis

I’m no hero – Nicholas Brody

Someone commented on my Before Dick Winters There Was Nicholas Brody post something to the effect that the two men cannot be cast in the same light, Brody was not a hero, at least not in the same way Winters was. In a frenzy of purging the copious junk mail wordpress seems to attract, I accidentally deleted that comment before responding. Given there are such differing opinions on Brody, the response to the “Hero or No” question deserves a full post (or two). So here it be! Continue reading “Nicholas Brody was No Hero, Part One”