# War movies/books that go against "accepted wisdom" **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 1, 2015, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530 "2015-02-01T18:49:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/21 "2015-02-04T18:02:46Z")
The ending of Mel Gibson’s _ **Apocalypto** _ seemed to be presenting the Spanish conquistadores as good guys, whose arrival was necessary to end the barbarity of the Mayans. As I said earlier, that wouldn’t have been controversial 75 years ago, but it seems so now. TODAY, a movie is more likely to show Indians as innocents and Western colonists as evil. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/22 "2015-02-04T18:29:46Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Oh, I’m well aware that there are loads of Southern apologists- but how many movies can you think of from the last 50 years that showed that point of view? [_Gods and Generals?_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_(film)) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/23 "2015-02-04T18:42:23Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > _ **The Outlaw Josie Wales** _ portrays the Union Army as the bad guys in the Civil War, and the hero is an unrepentant Rebel who won’t stop fighting. Not quite. The Redlegs are the bad guys - and they were, despite being on the right side. ---
**Author:** ![muldoonthief](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muldoonthief/32/3188_2.png) [@muldoonthief](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muldoonthief)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/24 "2015-02-04T18:47:27Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Not quite. The Redlegs are the bad guys - and they were, despite being on the right side. The U.S Senator at the beginning who had all the surrendering rebels decently fed then decently shot was pretty bad too. ETA: Damn, didn’t realize Senator Lane was a real person, and was the actual leader of the redlegs. Withdrawn. And Josey would have been happy to stop fighting, if the Redlegs would have stopped chasing him. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/25 "2015-02-04T18:54:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [_Gods and Generals?_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods_and_Generals_(film)) Yeah, he made a slew of them, including Copperhead. Straight out Southern Apologist aka Neo-Confederate revisionism". [http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2003-02-21/entertainment/0302200408\_1\_maxwell-joshua-chamberlain-civil-war](http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2003-02-21/entertainment/0302200408_1_maxwell-joshua-chamberlain-civil-war) ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/26 "2015-02-04T18:58:01Z")
I won’t bother arguing the validity/interpretation of Southern-viewpoint films here, but the handful that exist hardly approach the number of the standard Unionist ones. Despite being substantially told from the Southern side, _Gods and Generals_ depicts Joshua Chamberlain as a hero, and has scenes (from both sides) reflecting on the wickedness and hypocrisy of slavery. ---
**Author:** ![GreasyJack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/df705f/32.png) [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)\ **Post date:** [February 4, 2015, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/27 "2015-02-04T22:51:20Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > Heller started working on the book in 1953 and it was published in 1961. How was it more about that time than about WWII? He saw it the same way as Vonnegut did in _Slaughterhouse-5_, a totally unheroic slaughter. It’s more about the Cold War era military-industrial complex and McCarthyism. IIRC, Heller even said as much in interviews, that his experience in WWII provided the setting but that the book itself was meant to critique the state of the military and government at the time, not during WWII. (I actually was also going to mention _Slaughterhouse-5_ but it’s been so freakin’ long since I read it I don’t really remember it.) ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/28 "2015-02-05T01:29:12Z")
> [@GreasyJack](#): > > It’s more about the Cold War era military-industrial complex and McCarthyism. IIRC, Heller even said as much in interviews, that his experience in WWII provided the setting but that the book itself was meant to critique the state of the military and government at the time, not during WWII. IIRC, there’s also a passage where Yossarian says that defeating the Axis powers was, in and of itself, a worthy goal, and that his objections are to risking his life after the war has largely been won so that incompetent commanders can, essentially, “run up the score” and pad out their military resumes. ---
**Author:** ![Random\_Design](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@Random\_Design](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Design)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/29 "2015-02-05T05:49:22Z")
All Quiet on the Western Front? ---
**Author:** ![Random\_Design](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/58f4c7/32.png) [@Random\_Design](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Random_Design)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/30 "2015-02-05T05:50:32Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > 😕 What are you confused about? ---
**Author:** ![vontsira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/51bf81/32.png) [@vontsira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vontsira)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/31 "2015-02-05T11:10:39Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > The Revolutionary War part of William Thackeray’s “The Virginians” is mostly from a British loyalist’s point of view. > > The video game Assassin’s Creed 3 had the hero assassinating evil Revolutionary War heroes. Am reminded by this post, of a work by the American novelist Kenneth Roberts – one of several of his, set in the United-States-to-be at the time of the War of Independence, and earlier. A couple of his War of Independence ones (_Arundel_, _Rabble In Arms_), are from the point of view of the fighters for independence – in particular, Steven Nason and Cap Huff of the revolutionary army. Another, though, _Oliver Wiswell_, is from the point of view of Americans loyal to, and fighting for, the British: the protagonists, a couple of guys who are rather close Loyalist counterparts of Nason and Huff. _OW_’s protagonists are given to the view that pro-independence zealots are scatty, not-very-rational types with a tendency to run indiscriminately after every novelty that comes along; and that people of good sense will be either Loyalists, or apathetic. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/32 "2015-02-05T12:34:34Z")
_The Best Years of Our Lives_. Made in 1946 after the county was fed a steady diet of propaganda films from Hollywood. It portrayed PTSD, broken soldiers, unfaithful spouses back on the homefront, lack of support for returning soldiers and all the other failings of the country towards returning veterans. The country at the time wanted to forget the war and pretend that everyone returning could just pick up where they left off. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/33 "2015-02-05T13:29:21Z")
**Terry Jones’ The Crusades** made the Muslims of the era look a lot saner and more reasonable than the Christians. **MacArthur’s Children** was told from the point of view of conquered Japanese right after the war. One of the main characters, a Japanese naval officer who had massacred American captives unnecessarily, made numerous efforts to submit himself for trial and not avoid responsibility for his crimes. The Americans kept telling him to go home until one finally arrested him and he was executed some time later. Not exactly “Japan should have won,” but a rare look at this period from the Japanese perspective. ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2015, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530/34 "2015-02-05T21:12:08Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > The ending of Mel Gibson’s _ **Apocalypto** _ seemed to be presenting the Spanish conquistadores as good guys, whose arrival was necessary to end the barbarity of the Mayans. I have never ever heard this interpretation of the ending of that film. My impression (and every one I’ve ever read) was that their arrival is an ominous and portentous one that would not solve or civilize anything, but create a larger threat to the way of all tribal lives beyond their own hostilities. Our hero does not know this (he just seems them as strangers and alien), but we clearly do. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/war-movies-books-that-go-against-accepted-wisdom/711530.md?page=1)