What’s wrong with Iraq War Movies?
Synova on Mar 29 2008 at 10:34 pm | Filed under: Culture, Military Matters, Society, Synova's Page
I’m often guilty of seeing connections between things that others seem to think make no sense at all. So bear with me and then tell me what you think.
The New York Times review of “Stop-Loss” explains the failure of Iraq themed movies in this way, “The commercial failure of last autumn’s crop of high-profile Iraq-themed movies — Paul Haggis’s “In the Valley of Elah” and Brian De Palma’s “Redacted” among them — has hardened into conventional wisdom about the moviegoing public’s reluctance to engage the war on screen.”
We’re tired of the war. We don’t want to hear about it. But does that even make sense?
It seems quite obvious that those who are upset about the Iraq war or are actively, politically, anti-war are not going to be very interested in watching a war movie. They don’t *like* war, they might not even like soldiers, and thinking about *this* war is going to make them uncomfortable and unhappy. It’s not entertainment. They already think the war is bad, so what is gained by watching?
But there’s another potential audience, too. It makes sense that anti-war sorts won’t go to war movies. So why don’t pro-military people go see movies such as “Stop-Loss?” What’s wrong with them?
The answer to that, to me, is so completely obvious that it almost seems stupid to articulate it. Speaking for myself, it would take a four-star, two-thumbs-up from the entire blogging contingent at Blackfive to get me to even consider going to a movie called “Stop-Loss.” For the name alone.
Expecting me to want to see that movie because it’s about soldiers who fought in Iraq is the equivalent of expecting me to vote for John Kerry because he served four months in Viet Nam. It says volumes about the cluelessness of those people who think that either activity was a reasonable expectation.
But, since I’ve tried to explain why four months of dangerous service doesn’t outweigh Senate testimony about Ghengis Khan or throwing away his (someone else’s) medals and never managed to even dent the sure confidence that the only thing that would keep me from loving Kerry for his service was a nefarious Rovian plot… should I bother about the movies?
I mean, sure, “Someone is wrong on the internet,” but sometimes a person has to admit that it’s hopeless, doesn’t she?
Compare the NYT review to this review.
Update: Deebow at Blackfive has a commentary up. Insanity defined…. Again…
Sphere: Related Content
I think the Iraq movies that have bombed did so because they weren’t very good. And honestly, people rarely like a film that is nothing more than preaching, and that’s what a lot of these films set out to be.
I’ve been reading the commentary at… I don’t think I’ve got it linked up there, though Deebow at Blackfive does… the Nikki Finke’s blog that most of the links link to… and I think that there is an idea that what people would like is a pro-war movie and I think that’s not quite it.
Pro-America would be nice. And pro-victory, certainly. But I’ve come to the conclusion that what people would *really* like is a pro-WARRIOR movie. And I mean pro-warrior and *not* “pro-troop” because a lot of people have very strange ideas about what “pro-troop” means. So pro-warrior.
There’s a video interview with David Bellavia on Blackfive. David Bellavia is on the National Heroes Tour and is nominated for a Medal of Honor. He said something very interesting… that we’re not comfortable with what soldiers *do*. Instead of making a big deal of our military heroes we ask them not to speak at High Schools and try to block statues of them in public parks because a bronze statue of the local son holding a machine gun at rest will scare the children.
Pro-warrior could be as anti-war as anything, but it would portray the study of war and being *good* at war as a laudable thing. That being a warrior is something to look up to instead of down on. There are so many stories that could be told and are told of men and women who have done their jobs very very well, who have epitomized an ideal, but they are real people. The thing is that being good at being a warrior often means being very good at killing people and breaking stuff. And a whole lot of people really don’t like thinking about that in a real-person, real-life, sort of way.
Consider the Raven 42 patrol. This wouldn’t make a good movie, really, but I think it illustrates my point that amazing warriors do amazing things. The raven 42 patrol was three humvees escorting a semi-trailor caravan which was ambushed. When the caravan stopped the patrol sped forward. One humvee was hit and those in it injured and out of the fight. The crews of two humvees engaged 30 some ambushers. Of those well and able to fight, one gunner was knocked out initially. The medic was assisted by the youngest, lowest ranked member, a female, who helped those who were wounded. The medic did do some suppressive fire. The knocked out guy got up and shot the 50 cal. And the two vehicle leaders, with machine guns and grenades, advanced into the ditch the ambushers were in and… cleared it. They went back for more ammo to reload, and cleared it some more. The end result was…
“Those seven Americans (with the three wounded) killed in total 24 heavily armed enemy, wounded 6 (two later died), and captured one unwounded, who feigned injury to escape the fight. They seized 22 AK-47s, 6x RPG launchers w/ 16 rockets, 13x RPK machineguns, 3x PKM machineguns, 40 hand grenades, 123 fully loaded 30-rd AK magazines, 52 empty mags, and 10 belts of 2500 rds of PK ammo.”
Now figure… all those seven weren’t even actually in the fight. Some were assisting wounded. One was on a 50 cal after he woke up. And two people walked into a ditch and cleared it. Those were the two highest ranked and most experienced. One was a girl.
This is like… wow.
This is like something someone would see in a movie and figure it never really happens in real life that a few people really won at almost 1 to 10 odds. Oh, maybe it was 1 to 8… just to be sure I don’t exaggerate, hum? And an ambush, too. So the other side should have had an advantage. And not combat troops either, but military police. (Hence the two female members of the patrol.)
Now some people will be awed, inspired, and basically view four *confirmed* aimed fire kills (as opposed to grenades or unaimed fire or unconfirmed kills) as an incredible accomplishment… not to mention walking into the ditch to begin with or reloading and walking into it a second time. And do I have to say that Sgt. Hester is my hero? I *admire* what she did and what it took to do what she did.
But I imagine that most people would find it all very uncomfortable that she did so very well what she was trained to do. Which is kill people.
A pro-warrior movie would push a whole lot of people right smack out of their comfort zones.
See, the strange thing in all the conservative hoopla about Stop Loss is that National Review seemed to sort of like it. So I don’t think it’s quite as simple as movies disrespecting soldiers (or even “warriors”). I think it’s a bit more ideological—the difference between distanced respect and worship, perhaps.
I think Clint Eastwood proved with his World War 2 diptych that a good anti-war movie doesn’t preach or invent any silly contrivances, it just shows war like it is - war is terrible enough on it’s own, it doesn’t need any extra Hollywood trappings. All that can be done while still showing respect to the servicemen involved.
What’s most interesting, I think, is that it seems the “war movie” is transitioning to a different medium, i.e. videogames. Call of Duty 4, a modern warfare game where the player spends half of it as an American soldiers fighting against a military coup in some unnamed explodistan (the other half is as a British SAS commando in the Caucasus.) It was one of the biggest sellers over the holiday season and it continues to sell well and attract many online players. Naturally, notice the “4″ at the end of the title; Call of Duty’s former iterations were all World War 2-based, letting the player take control of soldiers from different Allied countries. In the “Mod of the Year” contest for 2008 (a competition celebrating amateur game development and modification) the top two entries were both multiplayer first-person shooters taking place in the Middle East (”Insurgency” and “Project Reality,” respectively,) sometimes based on real battles in the present conflict.
I think the obvious take-away is that there are people that want to see US heroism in Iraq (and in war generally,) so where one industry falters, another is quietly replacing it.
James - exactly! It’s not that people dislike anti-war movies (they really don’t, if the enduring success of more recent, and dark, films like Full Metal Jacket and Platoon, or even Black Hawk Down, are any indication). It’s that they don’t like being preached to. “Message” movies of all sorts tend to fail on their own, in part because too many movie makers lack the subtlety for didactic storytelling, but also because we are, believe it or not, smart enough to understand the horror of something if it is presented honestly.
Think about Saving Private Ryan. That was unquestionably an anti-war movie, and it didn’t even paint a rosy picture of the American serviceman—they were harsh, cruel, uncertain, and filled with doubt about their mission. But they were human—not victims, not monsters, nor saintly heroes. Just, regular humans caught in a war far larger than themselves. It was brilliant.
I would question, however, the roles games play. They’re just as often about being damned fun as they are about messages. And modern warfare makes for some great game scenarios—like having to run through a city only shooting bad guys but avoiding the innocent bystanders. That’s a highly complex simulation, and intense to unravel.
That’s my point. I think that war games are replacing Hollywood in this sphere precisely because they aren’t about message. They’re entertainment products, unashamedly so. They allow players to live vicariously through the soldiers, trying to invoke concepts like honor and sacrifice (better shown in the WW2 series, “Brothers in Arms”) without getting preachy. Actually, they even do anti-war better than Hollywood - in “Call of Duty 4,” there is a section where you play as the gunner in a AC-130 gunship, and you can hear the other crewmembers chatting. It’s all quite faithfully represented (all the dialog sounds like it’s been ripped from those Youtube feeds of AC130 gunships) and thus a little bit disturbing, when you blast terrorists with a 105mm howitzer from above and hear your crew dispassionately saying “kaboom” or joking about that “being one for the highlight reel.” No heavy-handed messages, it just lets you draw your own conclusions.
There has been one recent hamfisted message game, “Blacksite,” led by Harvey Smith (who suffers from acute BDS.) SPOILER ALERT: It flopped too, and Smith has left the studio.
I think that “Stop-Loss” tried. I think it tried to really be fair. But at the heart of it, unless it’s grossly mis-titled, it’s about how the solider is a victim.
It’s interesting that you list Blackhawk Down and Saving Private Ryan as “anti-war.” I think that anything done *well* is going to be honest and it will be both anti- and pro- in all sorts of directions.
You’ve got Colby Buzzell who wrote a scathingly critical book about his time in Iraq and none of the “usual suspects” tear into him about it while Beauchamp gets reamed and the author of “Jar Head” is scorned as a whiner.
Pro-America would be nice. And pro-victory, certainly. But I’ve come to the conclusion that what people would *really* like is a pro-WARRIOR movie. And I mean pro-warrior and *not* “pro-troop” because a lot of people have very strange ideas about what “pro-troop” means. So pro-warrior.
People liked 300 precisely because it was pro-killing, mass killing at that without any excuse of “diplomacy”. In fact, one of the most popular scenes was when Leonidas booted off those emissaries. Didn’t these people ever hear of “diplomatic immunity”? Guess not, and the folks ate it up precisely because of that.
The thing with the war is that too many people have preconceived filters about it. When they see something in a movie or in a speech, they always have to run it through their political filters concerning Iraq. However, if it isn’t about Iraq, then what you get is a straight line access to people’s cognitive and emotional centers.
Instead of making a big deal of our military heroes we ask them not to speak at High Schools and try to block statues of them in public parks because a bronze statue of the local son holding a machine gun at rest will scare the children.
It is not the children that are scared, Synova. It is the socialists that see the military as being competitors for the loyalty of the next generation. That’s why such standards of military heroism must be locked away, never seen by children.
This is like something someone would see in a movie and figure it never really happens in real life that a few people really won at almost 1 to 10 odds. Oh, maybe it was 1 to 8… just to be sure I don’t exaggerate, hum? And an ambush, too. So the other side should have had an advantage. And not combat troops either, but military police. (Hence the two female members of the patrol.)
I remember that story. The sergeant in charge demonstrated great tactical preparation by drilling the troops in how to setup their humvee munition geometries so that they could reach in and automatically get what they need without wasting time, which means lives, figuring stuff out with the Mark 1 eyeball.