One of the most appealing parts for me was how it treated Islam. Unlike many of the other recent action movies set in the middle east, the Muslim characters in this movie was not defined as "good" or "bad" based upon how close to Western values they adhered, in fact we see the main character (cheadle) pray on a muslim pray rug a number of times, speak arabic and recite the Koran a number of times. This is a big deal to me as I feel that as a culture, our acceptance or rejection of others, especially on religious grounds, is an important part of our identity.
I try to be very tolerant of other people's views, I certainly don't always succeed to the extent that I should, but I try. But there is a certain set of beliefs that I have no interest in understanding or absorbing, and that is religious intolerance. It disgusted me during the most recent election to here people say "well, Obama's a Muslim so I can't vote for him." Or some variation of that. Thankfully, this sentiment is mostly contained to right-wing fring elements of the political discourse, (not exactly a demo that BHO had a good shot at winning over anyway) nevertheless it was very disheartening to me to hear.
But I don't worry too much. Because we as a nation have always listened to our better angles shout down our lesser demons when it come to religion. True, we have never elected a non-christian to the presidency, but there was a time when people spoke of JFK being Catholic in the same ways that people now speak of BHO (falsely) being Muslim. But we rose above. We do always rise above. This may seem to be a long way from my original point about Traitor being a good movie, but they are related. For Pop Culture to produce a movie with an appealing muslim character, with real (albeit superficial) muslim characteristics, that is a step forward. That is moving in the right direction and it is a signal that faith in us as a tolerant, accepting and therefore decent people is not misplaced.
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