Actor Michael Caine responded to allegations from a British anti-terrorism study that claimed one of his movies was influential for white nationalists, simply calling it “bulls**t” in response to questions from the Spectator.
Caine, who is nearly 90 years old, has over 175 acting credits on his IMDb page dating all the way back to 1946. Caine has been featured in “The Dark Knight,” “Austin Powers in Goldmember,” and many other titles.
In 1964, Caine played a British lieutenant in the movie “Zulu,” which is described as “outnumbered British soldiers do battle with Zulu warriors at Rorke’s Drift.”
The film chronicles a battle in the Anglo-Zulu War, a conflict between the British and the Zulu Kingdom in what is now South Africa.
During an email interview, Caine responded to the news that an anti-terrorism program called “Prevent” in the United Kingdom flagged this movie as a piece of culture that incites the so-called far right.
“That is the biggest load of bulls**t I have ever heard,” Caine responded.
According to the Daily Mail, the movie is “listed as a ‘key text’ for ‘white nationalists’ and ‘supremacists’ by the Government’s beleaguered anti-terrorism Prevent scheme.”
A living member of the Zulus disagrees with the characterization, however, and said as much in an interview with the Times.
“‘Even if the past is uncomfortable, and perhaps especially when the past is uncomfortable, it needs to be examined and unpacked rather than hidden away. Of course race is a central theme in the film,” says Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi, who played own his great-grandfather King Cetshwayo in the film.
Buthelezi, 94, also said the movie should not be viewed through a 21st-century lens.
Caine answered additional questions about his film career, saying that “there are no films I wish I hadn’t made,” adding that he “got paid for all of them.”
The Prevent program is described on a U.K. government website as guidance that places responsibility on “specific authorities” having the “due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism.”
The anti-terrorism prevention program has itself spawned its own watchdog called “Prevent Watch,” which complains that the program has been “described as toxic, racist, Islamophobic and creating a them-and-us culture within society.”
“Prevent has failed not only as a strategy but also the very communities it seeks to protect,” the organization continues.
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