Comments on: War Over War Movies http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/ culture blogging for the good of the planet Thu, 09 Sep 2010 15:59:26 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Lance Mannion http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32822 Lance Mannion Tue, 02 Oct 2007 12:48:04 +0000 http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32822 Ditto what the Viscount says. Forty year streak of treason, eh? Treason being a failure to portray warmongering and slaughtering brown people as both beautiful and holy is what's meant here. Guess those Rambo movies were a lot less subtle in their pacifism than I thought. Oh, wait. I'm confusing them with Hot Shots Part Deux. John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey had a good post last year, that I'll have to go dig out, about how Right Wingers, even ones supposedly in the movie business, don't seem to understand that it is a business. A theme Roy Edroso keeps coming back to his how they don't understand the difference between art and entertainment and propaganda. And our own Self-Styled Siren has been on a mission to show that they don't know anything about the history of movies or to have actually seen any of the movies they discuss. They apparently aren't aware that Apocalypes Now and Platoon were made after we left Vietnam and Three Kings after the first Gulf War. And, besides the movies Bob mentions, they've never seen Windtalkers or We Were Soldiers either. All they know about recent war movies is that none of their friends have told them to go see that great new movie about Iraq where a whole lot of evil towelheads get blown away to riotous applause. Ditto what the Viscount says.

Forty year streak of treason, eh? Treason being a failure to portray warmongering and slaughtering brown people as both beautiful and holy is what’s meant here. Guess those Rambo movies were a lot less subtle in their pacifism than I thought. Oh, wait. I’m confusing them with Hot Shots Part Deux.

John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey had a good post last year, that I’ll have to go dig out, about how Right Wingers, even ones supposedly in the movie business, don’t seem to understand that it is a business. A theme Roy Edroso keeps coming back to his how they don’t understand the difference between art and entertainment and propaganda. And our own Self-Styled Siren has been on a mission to show that they don’t know anything about the history of movies or to have actually seen any of the movies they discuss.

They apparently aren’t aware that Apocalypes Now and Platoon were made after we left Vietnam and Three Kings after the first Gulf War.

And, besides the movies Bob mentions, they’ve never seen Windtalkers or We Were Soldiers either. All they know about recent war movies is that none of their friends have told them to go see that great new movie about Iraq where a whole lot of evil towelheads get blown away to riotous applause.

]]> By: The Viscount http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32702 The Viscount Mon, 01 Oct 2007 11:39:55 +0000 http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32702 Great punchline. Great punchline.

]]> By: Brutus http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32466 Brutus Sun, 30 Sep 2007 14:46:50 +0000 http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32466 Absolutely right. Although movies can at times be purposely political, they are typically too costly to make to risk anything other than the widest possible appeal, which is foreclosed by being too partisan, even toward something as nonpartisan as pacifism. Of course, media theorists recognize that all writing, indeed all creative endeavor, is on some level propaganda, but most movies are only passively so. OTOH, political operatives, press offices, and pundits have taken to throwing out heavily propagandistic rhetoric whenever possible to reframe debate: things like "Why do you hate America so much?" and "They hate our freedom." It's really quite facile but oddly effective. Absolutely right. Although movies can at times be purposely political, they are typically too costly to make to risk anything other than the widest possible appeal, which is foreclosed by being too partisan, even toward something as nonpartisan as pacifism. Of course, media theorists recognize that all writing, indeed all creative endeavor, is on some level propaganda, but most movies are only passively so. OTOH, political operatives, press offices, and pundits have taken to throwing out heavily propagandistic rhetoric whenever possible to reframe debate: things like “Why do you hate America so much?” and “They hate our freedom.” It’s really quite facile but oddly effective.

]]> By: OutOfContext http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32449 OutOfContext Sun, 30 Sep 2007 03:35:50 +0000 http://newcritics.com/blog1/2007/09/29/war-over-war-movies/#comment-32449 Funny you should bring it up but I just caught a few minutes of <i>The Green Berets</i> on TV a few days ago. The scene was a press briefing and the propaganda was thick. I put it on my cue to pick-up at the library because a lot of the pro-war arguments and the disdain for the skeptical reporter were similar to what we hear nowadays. As for DePalma, I don't get the attraction and I don't watch his movies. He knows movie history and seems doomed to repeat it. <i>Carlito's Way</i> is the only one I've seen and still remember liking. Funny you should bring it up but I just caught a few minutes of The Green Berets on TV a few days ago. The scene was a press briefing and the propaganda was thick. I put it on my cue to pick-up at the library because a lot of the pro-war arguments and the disdain for the skeptical reporter were similar to what we hear nowadays.
As for DePalma, I don’t get the attraction and I don’t watch his movies. He knows movie history and seems doomed to repeat it. Carlito’s Way is the only one I’ve seen and still remember liking.

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