Representations of military in popular entertainment

[joebuck20]

@Stranger_On_A_Train

Oh, and Transformers? A Saturday-morning television cartoon writ large, based on a line of children’s toys, about giant friggin’ robots from space that disguise themselves as motor vehicles and household appliances. If this is your example of how Hollywood doesn’t provide realistic or critical depictions of the military then I would say that reflects more on your taste in cinema rather than the machinations of a consortium of film executives and the military-industrial complex.

Well, there’s also GI Joe.

[middleman]

@ExTank

BHD showed the U.S. Army screwing up by-the-numbers; Ranger arrogance/overconfidence, officers/NCOs who didn’t know where to go what to do, poor communications links causing spastic coordination between different units working together on the same mission, and so on.

Yet it was an honest assessment of the action, by Mark Bowden, and it received, to the best of my knowledge, full military support during filming.

@Alessan

I think BHD was an honest depiction of the chaos of battle. Anyone who’s ever studied warfare will tell you that even the greatest victory contains multiple screw-ups and failures. I watched the film and saw a bunch of excellent soldiers doing the best they could under extraordinary conditions.

@Stranger_On_A_Train

To be fair, the film condensed, and in some cases, pretty well mangled details of the actual story (no doubt in order to make it a filmable story with a vaguely coherent plot). The key problem with Operation Gothic Serpent (the objective to capture Mohamed Farrah Aidid) wasn’t want of a failure of military training or tactics per se, but rather a lack of political will to “let slip the hounds of war” and engage with the assets necessary to assure that the objective would be achieved. This necessitated the use of sparse assets without proper overwatch and tactics that were inadvisable for the scenario (i.e. helicopter insertion into a dense urban objective zone). Frankly, no one is more critical of how that operation went down than the military at pretty much every level. Paul R. Howe’s Leadership and Training for the Fight provides a grunt-level precis on the criticism of military operations in Somalia.

Stranger

BHD was a good movie because both sides of the debate can point to it and claim it as theirs. I think the best war movies, or any type of movies for that matter, are complex and don’t assign a white hat or a black hat.

BHD shows the flaws in the American War Machine. From civilian government, down to field level arrogance.

But on the flip side, BHD was one of the best recruiting films ever made for the miliatry. Despite the gore and fear, would be warriors seem to love the glory and technology. A really good film.

@mlees

Well, here’s something to consider:

The whole mess came about because of the “Code Red” (that was instigated, essentially, by the Colonel) that resulted in the death of a Marine.

The “Code Red” culture is almost uniquely military (with some sports organisations having similar issues). This is not shown in a good light.

Colonel Jessup’s monologue about having to stand on the wall and do disagreeable things while the “soft” civilians make party jokes about the military is not meant to portray the military mind-set in a good light.

The heroes, as you mention, are all in uniform, but notice that they are all in the legal profession, and not a combat arm. The script even takes pains to point out that Cruise’s character is the son of a famous lawyer prominent in the Civil Rights fight. I don’t think it’s hard to seperate out lawyers and doctors as “not really” part of the military culture, at least in the minds of some viewers.

True, at the end, LCpl Dawson’s character is made to realise that the “Code Red” culture runs counter to the ideas of honor and integrity in one’s personal conduct (conduct unbecoming), so there are some positives to be found as well.

For me, I don’t consider the movie as a whole as portraying the military in a bad light, but there are some points in there where I can see how a viewer might conclude that it is a negative movie.

I love AFGM, but I think it would have been better had it been un-Sorkened a little by a more neutral director. I love the work of Rob Reiner, but he doesn’t play “in the grey” very well. Both he and Sorkin have a very ideological view of who wears what hat. But the speech Jessup makes could actually have framed an intellectual debate on how much humanity is required when preparing men and women to kill for our country.

In different hands, one could have left the film with a lot to think about and discuss over coffee.

But Reiner and Sorkin did not leave much room debate. The film’s score let us know that Jessup is the bad guy, and his points have no merit.

I like a film that makes you think instead of doing the thinking for you.

[Tom_Tildrum]

Stripes was kind of negative toward the military.

[Zebra]

Apocalypse Now is rather anti military.

Platoon is, I honestly feel, neutral about it and lets you decide for yourself.

The Green Berets is decidedly pro-military. Just look at John Wayne’s film career for more pro-military. Did he do any anti-military?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Platoon was based on Oliver Stone’s real experiences in Vietnam. The Charlie Sheen character was based on Stone himself (Stone dropped out of college to volunteer for combat duty in Nam).