Osama bin Laden in popular culture

Caricature of Osama bin Laden by DonkeyHotey

Osama bin Laden, the founder and first general emir of al-Qaeda, has been depicted or parodied in a variety of media. Notable examples include:

Books and comics

• Osama , a novel by Lavie Tidhar, in which Osama bin Laden is the "hero" of pulp novels – the Osama bin Laden: Vigilante series – in an alternate universe where international terrorism never took place. The novel won the 2012 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
• Pearls Before Swine In the week of June 27, 2005. Rat and Goat are discussing where Osama bin Laden is while bin Laden visits "The Family Circus" characters as an exchange student, ending grace with "Death to America" instead of "Amen" ^[1] and teaching Billy, Jeffy and Dolly to call their father "The Great Satan". ^[2] Bin Laden also forces Thel, the mom, to wear a burqa. ^[3] Then Billy leads the police to catch bin Laden at "The Family Circus" house, ^[4] and the whole family is thrown in the Guantanamo Bay prison for harboring a terrorist. ^[5] These comic strips caused controversy among readers.
• The Boondocks November 22, 2001. Huey says a prayer at Thanksgiving dinner, mentioning Osama bin Laden with an implied comparison between bin Laden and George W. Bush. ^[6] This is one of the comic strips that caused controversy among readers.
• Dead or Alive , a novel by Tom Clancy, focuses on the hunt for terrorist Saif Rahman Yasin, known as "the Emir" and based on bin Laden. Yasin is the leader of the Umayyad Revolutionary Council (URC), a terrorist organization similar to al Qaeda.
• No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama bin Laden , a 2012 memoir written by a pseudonymous retired member of SEAL Team Six, which details the mission that killed bin Laden.
• "Bedfellows", a humorous prose sketch by Harry Turtledove, first published in Fantasy & Science Fiction magazine (June 2005), and reprinted in all-Turtledove hardcover collection Atlantis and Other Places (December 2010). Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush go to Massachusetts, which was one of very few US states legalizing same sex marriage at the time, to tie the knot.
• The Dark Forest , a science fiction novel by Liu Cixin, features an ailing Osama Bin Laden (unnamed) being visited by one of the Wallfacers, after hostilities between al-Qaeda and the international community have ceased in anticipation of an invasion of aliens from a nearby star system in our own galaxy.

Film and television

• Dispatches: The Saudi Tapes – a 1997 TV documentary that features an interview with Bin Laden. Director: Gwynne Roberts. Production company: Roberts and Wykeham Films. ^[7]
• Bin Laden: The Early Years – a 2001 TV documentary. Director: Jon Blair. Production company: 3BM Television. ^[8]
• The World's Most Wanted Man – a 2001 British documentary. Director: Rob Carey. Production company: Uden Associates. ^[9]
• Dispatches: Bin Laden's Plan Of Terror – a 2001 TV documentary. Director: Eamonn Matthews. Production company: MBC Midlands. ^[10]
• The Chaser's War on Everything – earlier episodes of this Australian comedy series parody Osama bin Laden's videos with altered, humorous subtitles.
• The comedy show South Park parodies bin Laden in the episodes "Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants", "Krazy Kripples", "Cartoon Wars Part II", "200", "201" and "It's a Jersey Thing".
• Osama Bin Laden: Behind the Madness – a 2002 comedy. ^[11]
• Panorama: The Hunt For Bin Laden – a 2002 TV documentary. Producer: Aidan Laverty. Production company: BBC TV. ^[12]
• Meeting Osama Bin Laden – a 2004 documentary. ^[13]
• Targeted: Osama Bin Laden – a 2004 documentary. ^[14]
• Bin Laden: The Failings of a Manhunt – a documentary film alleging that French soldiers could have killed Osama bin Laden twice but didn't because no orders came from US commanders.
• Postal – a 2007 comedy film based on the 2003 video game. In the film, bin Laden (played by Seinfeld's Larry Thomas), who inexplicably speaks with an American accent, is portrayed as a priss who has been hiding out in Arizona since 2001, and has become tiresome with his anti-American threats, feeling that "nobody's listening anymore". He is also played as being a close friend and possible lover of George W. Bush, who has been helping him stay hidden. The final shot of the film features bin Laden and Bush skipping hand-in-hand in a field while dozens of nuclear bombs go off in the distance.
• Grindhouse , the 2007 film's feature segment Planet Terror , features a scene where antagonist Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis) reveals the origin of a mutation that has affected him and his renegade squad. Muldoon and his men were infected by a deadly biochemical agent being harbored by bin Laden, whom Muldoon admits to executing.
• Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden? – a 2008 documentary. ^[15]
• The American TV show Family Guy has shown bin Laden several times. In the original version of "Road to Rhode Island", broadcast in 2000, bin Laden is seen attempting to evade airport security by singing a show tune, as Stewie has just successfully done. In "PTV", bin Laden is seen cracking up while attempting to record a threatening video message to the U.S. After considerable dialogue and banter among the co-conspirators, Stewie is revealed to be present and he proceeds successfully to attack all the al-Qaeda operatives, including bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is also briefly referenced in "Peter's Daughter". "The Big Bang Theory" briefly references his death.
• In the American Dad! episode "Bush Comes To Dinner", Steve and Roger try to coax the truth from George W. Bush as to Osama bin Laden's whereabouts, but their scheme ends in failure when they get him drunk. At the end of the episode, he is seen in an office building.
• Devil's Advocate – a Dutch reality television show where the world's worst criminals are "tried". The April 8, 2009 show featured bin Laden and created controversy when the "jury" acquitted him.
• Tere Bin Laden (transl. Without You, Laden) – 2010 Indian comedy film by Abhishek Sharma, about a fake video of Osama bin Laden which is mistaken for the real thing. Pradhuman Singh portrays the in-film bin Laden lookalike. ^[16] It was followed by a sequel Tere Bin Laden: Dead or Alive also by Sharma, with Singh reprising his role as bin Laden, where the US government hires an Indian film director to make fake footage for proving the death of bin Laden. ^[17]
• The 2012 film Zero Dark Thirty depicts the hunt and capture of bin Laden, directed by Kathryn Bigelow. A similar TV film, Seal Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden , was also released in 2012. ^[18]
• The main antagonist of the 2012 action film Taken 2, Murad Hoxha, has a terroristic background inspired by bin Laden.
• The Dictator (2012 film) has bin Laden depicted near the end of the film in Aladeen's guest house, holding a plunger, before hiding from the camera. Earlier in the film, when asked if he was bin Laden's best friend, Aladeen says that he granted him asylum after they "killed his double".
• The 2013 Indian spy thriller film, Vishwaroopam , directed by Kamal Haasan, shows Osama bin Laden greeting the Al Qaeda chieftains in a cave.
• The 2017 Indian Malayalam-language film Comrade in America shows a character named Laden illegally trying to enter the United States.
• In the 2019 second season finale of Future Man , "Ultra-Max", Susan Saint Jackalope (portrayed by Seth Rogen) informs Josh Futturman (portrayed by Josh Hutcherson) that one of the parallel timeline versions of him created in "The Brain Job", J-1, had given Osama bin Laden his TTD (Time Travel Device), and that "time travelling bin Laden" was out there "blowing up buildings that haven't even been built yet". In the 2020 third season premiere, "The Precipice of Yesterday", in the captivity of the DieCathalon, Josh begins hearing a voice (whom he believes to be God) who guides him to escape from the death game to the past, eventually learning at the end of "Trapper's Delight" that the source of the voice is "OBL" bin Laden (portrayed by Fajer Al-Kaisi), learning further in "The Outlaw Wild Sam Bladden" that OBL is an atheist version of bin Laden (whom Susan had spoken of) from an alternate timeline where he was recruited by J-1 at university and prevented from becoming radicalised and founding al Qaeda, becoming "BFFs" with him before he had accidentally killed J-1 and been kicked out of Haven, a utopia the duo had fled to within outside of reality, after J-1 had begun bringing celebrities and public figures (whom bin Laden saw as "infidels") to Haven from before their otherwise would have died. After bin Laden gives Josh the TTD coordinates to get to Haven, Susan shows up, Josh learns of J-1's fate, and on attempting to threaten bin Laden with a warning shot, Josh accidentally kills him with the gun's ricochet.
• The 2022 South Korean drama Twenty-Five Twenty-One , starring Kim Tae-ri and Nam Joo-hyuk, features the fictional South Korean news coverage of the real-life September 11 attacks and made references to Osama bin Laden in the show's 15th episode.

Internet

In the now terminated Brazilian flash animation website Mundo Canibal, Bin Laden is featured as a main character in a number of animations. He also appears as suicidal enemy in the site's beat-em-up videogame, Mundo Canibal Apocalypse.

Music

• Osama—Yo' Mama: The Album, by Ray Stevens
• Industrial metal band Ministry's included the song "Khyber Pass", which takes its name from the mountain pass linking the countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan, in their 2006 album Rio Grande Blood . The track poses the debate that bin Laden would've been, in fact, a Bush administration ally, specifically on the verses: "Some say he's livin' at the Khyber Pass; others say he's at the Bushes' ranch".
• Brazilian funk singer calls himself MC Bin Laden and in his song "Bin Laden não morreu", ^[19] says that bin Laden is not dead.
• Immortal Technique - Bin Laden ^[20]
• Three 6 Mafia, an American hardcore hip-hop group, released the track "Bin Laden" on the album Da Unbreakables in 2003. ^[21]
• Comedy music group The Lonely Island created "Finest Girl (Bin Laden Song)", which had its music video debut in May 2016, in connection with the satirical film Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping . ^[22]
• In American metal band System of a Down's 2002 album Steal This Album! , the second single "Boom!" was released together with a videoclip about the War in Iraq. Directed by Michael Moore, it features a cartoon animation with Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush and Tony Blair sitting in underwear on missiles, representing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. ^[23]
• Eminem appears in an Osama bin Laden costume in the video for his 2002 single Without Me. ^[24] He has also mentioned Bin Laden in his 2004 single Mosh and his 2018 remix of Chloraseptic.

Video games

Osama bin Laden is an opponent (or boss) in many games released during the 2000s:. ^[25] He is the main antagonist in most of these games.

• America's 10 Most Wanted (October 24, 2001)
• Bin Laden Liquors (March 21, 2002)
• Kill Osama bin Laden (February 9, 2006)^{[ citation needed ]}
• The Great Apocalypse (April 21, 2009)^{[ citation needed ]}
• Kuma\War: 107th Mission (July 16, 2008)
• Mujahedin (January 26, 2004)^{[ citation needed ]}
• Muslim Massacre (January 2008) ^[26]
• Postal III (December 21, 2011)
• Postal 2 (April 13, 2003)
• Spec Ops: War on Terrorism (January 1, 2010)
• Command and Conquer: Generals and Command and Conquer: Generals Zero Hour (Bin laden was the inspiration for the GLA Toxin General, Dr. Thrax.^{[ citation needed ]} As Bin Laden reportedly used Biological Weapons against America and elsewhere, so too the character was created and modeled in his likeness). (March 10, 2007)^{[ citation needed ]}

Osama bin Laden is also briefly mentioned in the opening cutscene of Call of Duty: Black Ops II , with a character saying that the main antagonist of the game, Raul Menendez, is the most dangerous terrorist since bin Laden.^{[ citation needed ]}

See also

• Osama bin Laden (elephant) — a ubiquitous name for rogue elephants in India
• Devil Eyes
• Cultural influence of the September 11 attacks

References

1. Pastis, Stephen (June 27, 2005). "Pearls Before Swine". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
2. Pastis, Stephen (June 28, 2005). "Pearls Before Swine". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
3. Pastis, Stephen (June 29, 2005). "Pearls Before Swine". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
4. Pastis, Stephen (July 1, 2005). "Pearls Before Swine". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
5. Pastis, Stephen (July 2, 2005). "Pearls Before Swine". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
6. McGruder, Aaron (November 22, 2001). "The Boondocks". GoComics. Retrieved 2021-02-24.
7. "BFI | Film & TV Database | The Saudi Tapes (1997)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
8. "BFI | Film & TV Database | Bin Laden: The Early Years (2001)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. Archived from the original on 2009-02-09. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
9. "BFI | Film & TV Database | The World's Most Wanted Man (2001)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. Archived from the original on 2009-05-28. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
10. "BFI | Film & TV Database | Bin Laden's Plan of Terror (2001)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. Archived from the original on 2008-04-10. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
11. Osama Bin Laden: Behind the Madness at IMDb
12. "BFI | Film & TV Database | The Hunt for Bin Laden (2002)". Ftvdb.bfi.org.uk. 2009-04-16. Archived from the original on 2009-02-02. Retrieved 2011-05-13.
13. Meeting Osama Bin Laden at IMDb
14. Targeted: Osama Bin Laden at IMDb
15. Where in the World Is Osama Bin Laden? at IMDb
16. Saltz, Rachel (6 August 2010). "Dreams and Schemes Explode Into Global Trouble". The New York Times.
17. "Tere Bin Laden 2". Disney+ Hotstar .
18. "'SEAL Team Six' Gets Some Of Bin Laden Raid Right". Hawaiʻi Public Radio. November 4, 2012.
19. Mc Bin Laden - Bin Laden não morreu (Clipe Oficial). YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
20. Immortal Technique- Bin Laden. YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-11.
21. "Da Unbreakables - Three 6 Mafia | Songs, Reviews, Credits | AllMusic". AllMusic .
22. "Watch Lonely Island Turn Bin Laden Killing into Bedroom Romp". Rolling Stone . 22 May 2016. Archived from the original on 4 December 2017. Retrieved 4 December 2017.
23. Michael Moore strikes again - The Globe and Mail, 19 March 2003
24. "Eminem - Without Me (Official Music Video)". YouTube .
25. "The 10 Game Deaths of Osama bin Laden". 2011-05-02. Retrieved 2013-04-23.
26. "MIDDLE EAST: "Muslim massacre" game stirs debate". Los Angeles Times. 2008-09-15. Retrieved 2025-01-04.