148 thoughts on “Super 8 vs. USAF”

1. Russ, do you feel that the military is also/alternately sometimes glamorized by Hollywood? We were talking about this yesterday in terms of Richard’s Transformers essay….

2. Horror/SF has gone through periods where alien invasions, science “meddling where Man was not supposed to,” children turning into demonic Others were the Fear Du Jour.

   Is Big-Government Paranoia one of those? (“Obama’s Death Panels will kill anyone who turns thirty! And use their bodies for Soylent Green!”)

   And with all those Meskins swarming across our borders, no wonder the “alien invasion” theme is back…

3. Wasn’t the military scientist turned science teacher trying to release secret information to the public. Isn’t that considered treason by many (cf. Wikileaks)? Some do call for death in such cases. I don’t have much of a problem believing the government does nasty stuff when it feels the need to keep secrets. On the other hand, the military guys were pretty generic here. They were also really stupid: only the kids thought of looking in their teacher’s tool shed for all those secret documents. The alien was generic, too, but that train crash alone is worth the price of admission!

   As to Noah’s question: Blackhawk Down, 300, The Hurt Locker, etc. (I could go on) all fairly recently glamorized military might. They’re enjoyable movies, though. If you want to go into classic Hollywood, the list would greatly expand.

4. Yeah, but they shouldn’t have libeled the USAF.

   Just drag in some sinister made-up secret agency like the “Company” in Stephen King’s ‘Firestarter’ and ‘Tommyknockers’.

   Hmm… comics, superhero, the US military– HU should get Russ to review the Captain America movie!

5. Secrets are a blank space into which we can project fear. If you make vast tracts of land off limits, post signs threatening mortal harm, all the while inhaling vast sums of money with minimal taxpayer oversight (thanks national security state!), people might start making up wild stories to deaden the throb of their post Cold War hangovers.

6. The reason why Russ hates Super 8 is precisely the reason why it is so successful as propaganda. It tells its audience that America is better than its foreign policy (and army etc. etc.), when the two are inseparable and complicit. Even badly tortured and very violent aliens like us!! The film critics just lapped this up.

   Apart from that, it is simply a tedious and meticulous homage to far too many of those Spielberg directed/produced flicks which have infected theaters for the past few decades. Robotic and uninvolving.

7. The military was the antagonist of the film, yes, but I think it’s a little unfair to claim that all their heavy-handed techniques were just “to protect a secret.” They were also trying to protect the civilians from a powerful, unpredictable creature that was [SPOILER ALERT] kidnapping and eating innocent people.

   Even Col. Nelec wasn’t all bad. He was ruthless in his interrogation (of a traitor who just derailed a military train killing who knows how many soldiers and freeing a dangerous creature just outside of a small town) and cruel in his treatment of the alien (his real flaw that is the source of everything that happens in the film), but when the bus is attacked and flips he does his best to unlock the door and let the children run to safety. Realizing he can’t, there’s a moment of horror on his face as it sinks in that the kids are going to die and he can’t do anything about it. He then turns and fights the alien. Those moments of compassion and courage humanize him, proving that whatever his other mistakes and flaws he’s not just a sociopathic stormtrooper.

   I’m not saying it was a balanced or realistic portrayal of the military or that Col. Nelec was a nice guy, but there is some depth to the characters and their motivations if you look for it.

8. I think it was a refreshing change to have it be the Air Force that were the bad guys instead of the CIA. It seems like in every movie where the US is trying to kill a person it is evil members of the CIA. What about the NSA and rogue agents in that? Are only Will Smith and Gene Hackman targeted by them?

9. I was being mostly sarcastic in the above post, I realize upon reading it I kind of sound serious. I agree that it is odd how often we make our own agencies the bad guys.

10. “It tells its audience that America is better than its foreign policy (and army etc. etc.), when the two are inseparable and complicit.”

    I don’t know, Suat, it would seem that by your interpretation it’s impossible to make a critique of one’s government, that it is what it is.

11. I haven’t seen the film…but I don’t think Suat’s point is logically inconsistent. Something like The Naked and The Dead criticizes the army without really suggesting that the things that are wrong with the army are an aberration, or that America somehow transcends them. Same with Men Who Stare At Goats (the book, not the movie.) I think there are other examples as well….

12. It’s not the critique of one’s government which is the problem, it’s the insistence on essential (and saving) goodness, sentimentality and innocence so typical of Spielberg’s movies (the first aspect crops up glaringly in Saving Private Ryan). Abrams in his Spielberg homage (unwitting parody?) recreates the persistent idea that a film, whatever its content, should end upliftingly and meaningfully if not heroically. This has an anaesthetizing effect on its audience; granted that Super8 was meant as “popcorn” (I’m treating it seriously here because Russ is).

13. I think Spielberg probably gets bagged on more than he deserves. SPR, for instance, conveys as much as any other war movie ever has the use of men as sacrificial lambs to achieve what needed to be achieved, but it also ends with a bunch of jingoism after having devolved into a fairly generic men on a mission flick. Munich both celebrates blood and family while critiquing our faith in such things. And AI critiques fantasy underlying sentimentalism (Spielberg significantly rewrote Kubrick’s outline). I used to think it was an accident, but there is more going in his films if you care to look.

14. That may be, but I insist that I still be allowed to hate Schindler’s List. Which is a horrible fucking movie. Damn it.

15. First off, apologies for not posting until now. I was in San Diego for the con, and although I allegedly was supposed to have free wifi at my hotel, the Internet only worked the first night — even when I later used a network cable and the wall jack. They kept giving me excuses, like, “Oh, we’ll reset the routers,” and all of that, but I never did see the Internet again. That wouldn’t have been so bad all by itself, but if you add that to the fact that my first magnetic room key did not work; and then later, I found out the alarm clock did not work; and then when I went to call the front desk, I found out the room had no phone — even though it was supposed to; and the fact that my room was above the hotel’s nightclub and it’s late-night, base-thumping music; well, it was all just a frickin’ pain. Thankfully, I had a great time at the con, so I guess it all evened out in the end.

    Noah wrote: “Russ, do you feel that the military is also/alternately sometimes glamorized by Hollywood?”

    Sure. But the reality is that Hollywood most often does not glamorize military service anymore — even in films that are arguably pro-military. In fact, these days, even when it does present material that could arguably be classified as glamorization, it tries to insert dark or gritty material to “even things out” so they don’t get accused of jingoism.

    For example, in “Transformers” (and “Captain America,” for that matter) lots and lots of military people were killed during the process of saving the world. So, while the military people who survived may be depicted as heroes, I’d hardly accuse such fare of “glamorizing” combat.

    However, for those filmmakers with anti-military agendas, the reverse is rarely true. There will usually be no positive to offset the negative. The most frequent “positive” plot exception usually manifests itself in the form of a maverick military guy who bucks the “corrupt” system in an attempt to stop the military from doing whatever bad thing it is doing. Abrams did this very thing with “Super 8” in the form of the science teacher. The scientist was originally in the “system,” but since it was evil and corrupt, he “heroically” tried to right the wrongs being done, but was killed by the system in the process.

    This ploy is an attempt to disguise the film’s anti-military theme by misdirecting the audience with a message that seems to say “See, all military people aren’t bad.” But what it’s really saying is that with the exception of a tiny handful of free-thinking mavericks, military people are blind — and often brutal and dangerous — tools of a corrupt system.

    One final point: There are those who will accuse any film of being jingoistic even if it even partially portrays the military in a positive light — and that just ain’t fair.

16. Charles wrote: “As to Noah’s question: Blackhawk Down, 300, The Hurt Locker” (glamorized the military).

    Why you think “Blackhawk Down” glamorized the military is beyond me. It showed the entire operation as being one big unnecessary screw-up by the U.S. military and their allies that cost the lives of a lot of good soldiers. Soldiers acting heroically under extremely adverse conditions is not glamorization, in my opinion — especially when their actions are based on real events.

    Ditto for “300.” The Spartans all died in the end, remember? And despite the fact that the Spartan society was something its contemporary societies also found distasteful, even Sparta’s arch rivals in Athens had to grudgingly admit that if not for those 300 (and a number of their support personnel), Greeks would be speaking Persian today. One could make the argument that Frank Miller’s stylized version of the story was glamorization, but I don’r seem to recall any new martial societies popping up as a result of the graphic novel or film. After all, let me repeat, the Spartans all died in the end, remember?

17. A3 — I don’t know how many colonels I’ve met and/or have worked with over the years, but it’s been a helluva lot. And compared to all of them, Col. Nelec was a total sleaze.

    But I think the science teacher who the USAF killed in the film made it clear that it wasn’t just a rogue colonel that was evil, it was all of the USAF leadership and personnel who were protecting a classified program who were evil. As a matter of fact, as J.J. Abrams depicted in his story, it was the mean, ol’ USAF that made the poor man-eating monster a dangerous threat in the first place.

18. Russ, having people in the military die in war in film really is not a counterbalance to glamorizing the military. People dying heroically validates the military; it’s one of the big ways the military is validated and glamorized, actually.

    If the deaths are shown as being senseless or embarrassing or stupid (as in Naked and the Dead or Catch 22), that can be a different story. But the guys who die in Guns of Navarone don’t deglamorize the military. At all. Quite the contrary.

19. “People dying heroically validates the military; it’s one of the big ways the military is validated and glamorized, actually.”
    My grandpa was in the Army Air Force/USAF (WWII vet, bomber pilot, the works). When he died the local Army guys asked if they could do the whole flag folding guns shooting thing. Everybody agreed, since while grandpa wasn’t too jazzed on the USAF (he liked flying, not the military), he was proud enough of what he did. So anyway, my dad and uncles are talking to these guys, and they say straight up that they think of their job as in part a recruiting tool, getting kids in attendance to think about a career in the service.
    So yeah, dying in military movies is often just part of the pitch.
    Also, it should be noted that the OWI, as well as individual branches of the service, spent the better part of the 40’s and 50’s making sure that Hollywood was basically a propaganda arm for their interests.
    But what has Hollywood done for the military in the post Vietnam era?
    Well, one of the things its done is to conflate war with the suffering of individual soldiers, which as people like Susan Owens have pointed out, smooths the road to catch phrases like “support our troops.”
    This is all a really long way of saying that I think
    militarism and the valorization of service is fairly well built into our dna. I highly doubt that Super 8 will tarnish the next appearance of the Blue Angels.

20. Noah — Well, we obviously have a fundamental disagreement about the whole dying thing as being “glamorous.” I don’t think dying is glamorous, and neither do most of the military folks I know.

    I think anti-military types believe that popular culture depictions of military people dying for a military-related cause is “glamorous” and “jingoistic” because they bristle at the thought that the military and war has ANY useful or legitimate purpose.

    That viewpoint is both naive and cynical, in my opinion,

    Most U.S. military folks I know are not “pro-war.” In fact, they are usually the last people who want to go to war, and most certainly don’t want to go to war to die. Yet, most understand that dying is a possibility, and they wouldn’t voluntarily be doing what they are doing if they didn’t believe that there are actually some things worth possibly dying for.

    Firefighters and first responders; police; aid workers in civil war-ravaged countries; and animal activists protecting endangered species from poachers in, say, Africa, all know and accept such risks.

    In short, I think a lot of the indignation about “glamorizing” military service is politically motivated. Liberal critics who would rip a true story of the “martyrs” in “We Were Soldiers” fall all over themselves praising the “martyrdom” of the lead in, say, “The Times of Harvey Milk.”

21. “I don’t think dying is glamorous, and neither do most of the military folks I know.”

    That’s not the point at all, though. People who may actually die often don’t think that dying is glamorous. But cultural products which report the deaths often present them as heroic, noble martyrdoms, more or less divorced from whether or not the cause happens to be worthwhile or the circumstances noble. Just because people you know in the military don’t see death as glamorous does not mean that military death is not glamorized by the media. Because it often is.

    You were saying in your previous post that the fact that people are occasionally shown dying in military films means that the military cannot be glamorized in those films. I just don’t think that’s true.

22. In “Transformers” there was no “occasional” dying. The on-screen military body count was in the hundreds — perhaps thousands. In “Captain America,” the military body count was less, but it was still in the many dozens range. And I still don’t see how anyone could classify the myriad of bloody on-screen deaths of soldiers in films about botched military operations like “We Were Soldiers” or “Blackhawk Down” as “glamorous.”

    And think about that for a minute. Even the latter two “pro-military” films are about military screw-ups — probably because jingoistic-sensitive Hollywood types didn’t want to fund a film about a real historical military operation that was actually a success.

    And such stuff happens all the time. Remember Tim Burton’s crappy “Mars Attacks” film? In the storyline of the original Topps card set from 1962, the U.S. military fought and died, at great cost, fighting the Martians. But they eventually turned the tide, and took the fight back to the home planet of the aggressors. However, in Burton’s version of this science fiction tale, the U.S. military was buffoonish and useless, and the world was saved by a lone kid who was a social outcast.

    Yet, anti-military types would no doubt consider the former to be jingoistic and the latter to be acceptable — and that, in my opinion, is just plain wrong.

23. There is a certain if not glamour then ‘cachet’ in doing one’s duty even unto death. Otherwise why would military and national myth across numerous cultures celebrate: The Almo, Masada, Cameronne, Dollard Des Ormeaux, The Birkenhead Drill etc?

    The ‘dying for one’s country’ card is also often played by non-combat militarists when attempting to trump a debate that plays to those issues.

    It’s funny. I’ve met very few veterans who are even willing to acknowledge they’ve had combat experience, but the number of culinary specialists and reservists who like to say something like “My job is to risk getting killed so you can stuff your face at McDonald’s” once debate strays onto uncertain ground for them… is much higher.

24. gah… The Alamo, Cameron etc… I really need to proof my posts better.

25. Russ, dying in a lost cause is glamorous. “Someone had blundered,” as Tennyson says. Being brave and sacrificing yourself even though administrators are idiots has long sanctified military fuck ups, though logically it shouldn’t.

26. I hadn’t realized that Harvey Milk died in combat. What war did he fight in?
    I think you’ll find that liberals have a pretty wide range of beliefs about when war is and isn’t worth the blood and treasure we spend on it. Many seem pretty eager to puff up the “greatest generation,” and a lot of liberals (our current President included) were quick to contrast the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

27. JPG wrote: “The ‘dying for one’s country’ card is also often played by non-combat militarists when attempting to trump a debate that plays to those issues.”

    True enough. But it’s not the fault of those in the military that such things happen. People in the military have a job to do and they do it.

28. JPG wrote: “The ‘dying for one’s country’ card is also often played by non-combat militarists when attempting to trump a debate that plays to those issues.”

    Very true. But it’s not the fault of those in the military that such opportunism exists. Politicians and others with political agendas use such symbolic groups all of the time to coddle, sway or otherwise influence constituents. Unions, teachers, firefighters, military people, working moms, gays, seniors, minorities, etc., all get exploited by those with political agendas.

29. Nate wrote: “I hadn’t realized that Harvey Milk died in combat. What war did he fight in?”

    What are you talking about? Who said Milk died in combat? He died risking his life for his cause of choice — which is exactly what I said in the paragraph leading up to my Milk example.

    And actually, it isn’t just liberals who have a wide view of war, it’s people of all political stripes.

    I’ve been down this road before, but Democrats (the party to which most self-avowed liberals belong) have certainly been the driving force behind their fair share of wars in the past 100 years.

30. Noah wrote: “Russ, dying in a lost cause is glamorous. “Someone had blundered,” as Tennyson says. Being brave and sacrificing yourself even though administrators are idiots has long sanctified military fuck ups, though logically it shouldn’t.”

    Well, it may be glamorous to some armchair general like Tennyson, but to the average schmoe, it isn’t. And are you sure you aren’t mixing up glamorization with someone’s sincere and profound respect towards someone’s commitment to duty?

    Even in Tennyson’s day, riding to one’s death into a thundering artillery barrage may have been considered by some to be glorious, but I doubt it was considered glamorous. And, in the U.S. at least, by WW II that whole “dying in a blaze of glory” simply for the sake of dying in a blaze of glory had pretty much become archaic. Gen. George S. Patton’s WW II-era quote pretty much sums the stupidity of such old-fashioned thinking when he famously said, “No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

    There are still some “dying in a blaze of glory” holdouts abroad even today, of course — most notably Muslim religious martyrs — but in the U.S. it’s really should be a non-issue for all but the looniest of loons.

31. I think there’s still a glamour to dying for what you believe in, even if it’s a lost cause. Put it this way. Imagine the US was invaded. Would it be more glorious to die rather than be subjugated, or should you just lay down your arms if there’s overwhelming force against you? Just war theory says you shouldn’t fight in that situation. But what do you think a movie about that scenario would say?

    The military within recent memory was responsible for Abu Ghraib and the Pat Tillman coverup, and has historically done a lot of pretty horrible things. Is it worse than the police force? Than the educational establishment? Than corporate america? Probably not. And I’m sure there are many good people in the military, as there are good people everywhere. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to pretend that it doesn’t have a lot of problems.

32. RE: Milk
    He didn’t die fighting for what he believed in the same way a soldier does. A soldier enters combat knowing that the stakes are life and death, and that s/he has a good chance of taking a bullet for his or her country. Milk, while almost certainly aware that he faced risks, was assassinated. To me, this is an important distinction. If “doing your job” means fighting and risking death regardless of your view on the cause, then you’re not necessarily a martyr. You might just be cannon fodder. And that’s not necessarily your fault,but it does nobody any good to pretend that dying in a war that you didn’t start isn’t in itself honorable, any more than it’s honorable to die in a car crash.

33. I think “glamour” may be a shorthand for “of mythic stature,” like the dictionary sense of “illusory and romantic attractiveness” but where “romantic” has its older, more chivalric sense. I would probably just use the words “romantic” and “romanticized” but I see where Noah’s coming from with glamour — romantic implies that people know it’s idealistic and illusory, whereas glamour can blind people to the illusion.

34. Noah wrote: “The military within recent memory was responsible for Abu Ghraib and the Pat Tillman coverup, and has historically done a lot of pretty horrible things. Is it worse than the police force? Than the educational establishment? Than corporate america? Probably not. And I’m sure there are many good people in the military, as there are good people everywhere. But I don’t think it’s a good idea to pretend that it doesn’t have a lot of problems.”

    I agree.

    But that’s not the issue of my essay. My point is that Hollywood, overall, is not fair to the military. I’m not advocating they totally ignore the military’s flaws. I’m just pointing out the fact that it is pretty damn obvious that these days Hollywood seems obsessed with almost nothing BUT those flaws.

    Keep in mind that the First Lady (a liberal, for those of you who are keeping track) fundamentally agrees with me and not you.

35. Nate — regarding Milk, I disagree. When he started receiving death threats, rather than withdrawing from his advocacy and playing it safe, he continued to embrace it. The gay community certainly considers Milk a martyr.

36. You don’t want me to start listing my disagreements with Obama. We’d run out of bytes!

37. Ha! Well, what can I say?

38. Why you think “Blackhawk Down” glamorized the military is beyond me. It showed the entire operation as being one big unnecessary screw-up by the U.S. military and their allies that cost the lives of a lot of good soldiers. Soldiers acting heroically under extremely adverse conditions is not glamorization, in my opinion — especially when their actions are based on real events.

    They were certainly in danger and everything didn’t go as plan, but no where does the film critique the military being there to capture the warlords. It clearly celebrates the bravery of the soldiers, particularly in the way they won’t leave anyone behind. The mission is nothing but a brave and correct undertaking in the film. I can’t see how anyone could watch the thing and not be left with the impression that our military is a brave and decent bunch. That’s the point of the film. It doesn’t give 2 squirts about the dead Somali. The way I remember the reaction to the film was that the left tended to be critical of it, while the right celebrated it.

    And, as others have already argued, death for a cause is often a way of celebrating and glamorizing the military. In 300, the limp-wristed democrats did nothing while the strong, war-loving Spartans had to do what was right. This film is pure fascism, and quite obviously so. If you can’t even concede that it glamorizes the military, there’s not much point in arguing about any of the other films.

    Anyway, Hollywood, overall, isn’t much fair to anyone.

39. ——————-
    Nate says:

    …I highly doubt that Super 8 will tarnish the next appearance of the Blue Angels.
    ——————–

    Specially when — after seeing and enjoying the movie, until this thread reminded me — I’d forgotten these generic military types (were they even shown flying any planes?) were supposed to be from the USAF.

    The average police officer spends their entire career never having to draw their gun on a suspect, much less shoot anyone; whist movies and TV make it seem an every-other-week (at least!) occurrence. Don’tcha think most of the audience would know (despite the unfair maligning of the Air Force) that this is Hollywood, not to be mistaken with reality?

    And since the mass of the American people (aside from those whiny, inconsequential liberals) has shown itself at not giving a shit about being lied into wars (Iraq, Vietnam), about our trampling on the Geneva Convention, about America embracing the use of torture, it’s hardly likely they’ll be outraged against the USAF by the milder, fictional goings-on in “Super 8.”

    ——————–
    R. Maheras says:

    Noah — Well, we obviously have a fundamental disagreement about the whole dying thing as being “glamorous.” I don’t think dying is glamorous, and neither do most of the military folks I know…
    ———————

    No, dying isn’t glamorous, but the way it is depicted can cast an ennobling, even glamorous sheen. In art (to pick a couple of notorious debacles)…

    “The Charge of the Light Brigade”:

    http://civilianmilitaryintelligencegroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade.jpg

    http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/97/CatonWoodvilleLightBrigade.jpeg

    http://www.comicbitsonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Charge-of-the-Light-Brigade.jpg
    (By British comics artist Mike Western: http://www.comicbitsonline.com/2010/11/16/an-interview-with-mike-western/ )

    “Custer’s Last Stand”:

    http://www.us7thcavcof.com/ZZZ.jpg

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/scotland/learning/bitesize/standard/history/images/hist_custer.jpg

    http://cms.westport.k12.ct.us/cmslmc/Grade7/resources/custer6.jpg

    http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_LWnjiMxcGt4/TFBrkf4G4II/AAAAAAAAAGk/eEiS-t5fTjQ/s1600/custer2.jpg (Why is the horse the one I can best relate to here?)

    …or in verbiage, whereby the ignobly slaughtered victims of an idiotic tactic (i.e., being ordered to march across an open field into entrenched machine-gun fire, in order to take a strategically unimportant patch of land)* or pigheaded commanding officer unwilling to “lose face” become transmogrified into “heroes who valiantly chose to sacrifice their lives in order that we might be free”…

    * The WW I soldiers who actually were there knew to see beyond the honeyed words of morale-boosting propaganda, referring to the Battle of the Somme as “the great fuck-up”…

40. The only point I was trying to address. Was the catagorical refutation that military deaths had any positive play in movies about the military.

    Like it or not, call it Glamourisation, Romanticism, what you will… Military deaths do have a spin and play in fiction that that is NOT automatically negative for the general public. To say that a movie is predominantly negative or even ‘balanced’ in it’s depiction of war and warfare just because actors playing soldiers portray the deaths of soldiers is… Naive at best, and frankly disengenuous in my opinion.

    As for 300, I found it amusing that the movie played up the “badassery” of the Spartans and their fierce defence of ‘freedom’ while glossing over the fact that every spartan could proudly declare that his profession was ‘war!’ simply because the Spartans had slaves doing all the other jobs.

41. Charles, the decision to go into Somalia and do the things that were done was made by the National Command Authorities, such as the President and the Secretary of Defense, and with the advice and recommendations of the State Department.

    I don’t know exactly who green-lit the mission that resulted in “Blackhawk Down,” but in a tiny but high visibility operation like the one in Somalia, you can bet it wasn’t the local general or leaders of any of the units depicted in the film.

    When the mission began unraveling, the military did the best it could in a bad situation. They tried to regroup and get their people out — all of them. That’s not glamorization or propaganda, it’s the truth. A lot of the people in the U.S. military are, in fact, brave and decent, and they do, in fact, place a high value on saving their buddies if it’s at all possible.

    And if some on the left have a problem with such a reality, then that’s tough shit. I know plenty of liberals who understand how things really are, but they always seemed to be overshadowed by a very vocal lefty minority in the media, in popular culture, or in academia.

    Noah can probably attest to this, but Chicago, a staunch bastion of Democrats for more than 75 years, has the largest Memorial Day parade in the country every year. New York City is no different with its Fleet Week and other events honoring the military.

    As far as the city-state of Sparta is concerned, while they are certainly guilty as charged, the fact remains that if not for what those 300 Spartans did, the entire history of the West would have been far, far different. Again, that’s not glamorizing or propaganda, that’s a fact, and any Greek will tell you that.

    Regarding fairness, Hollywood almost has a formula about who they’ll bash and who they won’t, so don’t tell me they’re not much fair to anyone.

42. Mike, the problem with your examples is they are from a totally different era. I’m discussing Hollywood depictions here and now.

43. JPG White wrote: “Military deaths do have a spin and play in fiction that that is NOT automatically negative for the general public. To say that a movie is predominantly negative or even ‘balanced’ in it’s depiction of war and warfare just because actors playing soldiers portray the deaths of soldiers is… Naive at best, and frankly disengenuous in my opinion.”

    I’m neither naive or disengenuous, and I think you’re wrong.

44. R. Maheras(to me):
    “I’m neither naive or disengenuous, and I think you’re wrong.”

    Then perhaps you’d better clarify what you are saying.

    If you are saying ‘no film in which soldiers die can be accused of Jingoism’ we are going to laughingly agree to disagree.

45. ———————
    R. Maheras says:

    Mike, the problem with your examples is they are from a totally different era. I’m discussing Hollywood depictions here and now.
    ———————-

    Different media, same approach and result! And, not as easy/possible to post links to the heroic/photogenic-death movie scenes in question…

    Thanks to YouTube, though, we can see a modern version, the death of Sgt. Elias scene in “Platoon”:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HzIVc2vwVE&feature=related

    On the one hand, there’s grit and dust, documentary-like lighting; yet the classic-music soundtrack, editing, usage of slow motion, crucified Christ outstretched-arms gesture work to create — even in an antiwar movie — a “Hollywood death”…

    ———————
    R. Maheras says:

    …the decision to go into Somalia and do the things that were done was made by the National Command Authorities, such as the President and the Secretary of Defense, and with the advice and recommendations of the State Department.

    I don’t know exactly who green-lit the mission that resulted in “Blackhawk Down,” but in a tiny but high visibility operation like the one in Somalia, you can bet it wasn’t the local general or leaders of any of the units depicted in the film.
    ———————

    One reason that the soldiers there were so vulnerable was that, though they had asked for heavily armored vehicles to move about, the request by denied by the Clinton administration, which felt those would project an unfriendly image to locals. More details:

    ———————
    Defense Secretary Les Aspin and his deputies rejected sending needed tanks and armored vehicles to Somalia because they feared a political backlash would undermine their pro-United Nations policy, says a Senate Armed Services Committee report.

    The armor, as well as AC-130 gunships that also were withheld, was sought by commanders to protect U.S. troops, the report stated.

    The weapons “could have been used decisively in the rescue operation of Oct. 3-4, [1993] and if available,” could have been used by Army Rangers in a raid to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid, Sen. John Warner, Virginia Republican and report co-author, said in an introduction.

    “Only compelling military – not diplomatic policy – reasons should ever be used to deny an on-scene commander such a request,” he said. “Those officials who advocated and approved this policy must bear the ultimate responsibility for the events that followed.”

    The military raid ended with the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers who were caught in a furious firefight with Aidid forces in Mogadishu, Somalia. Crowds were filmed dragging the corpses of two U.S. soldiers through the streets.

    Armored vehicles may have saved lives and reduced casualties during the raid and subsequent rescue, the report concluded. The report was released late Friday in an apparent effort to mute its stinging critique of Clinton administration foreign and military policy. Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat, is the other co-author.

    The report is based on a two-year study of the firefight in Mogadishu Oct. 3, 1993, and tells how top administration officials, including National Security Adviser Anthony Lake and Mr. Aspin, allowed the United Nations to influence deployment of U.S. forces, with disastrous results.

    It also lays out how U.N. officials pressured the administration into sending 450 Rangers to capture Gen. Aidid, against the advice of senior U.S. military commanders who saw little chance of success…
    ———————
    http://www.netnomad.com/powell.html

    ———————
    When the mission began unraveling, the military did the best it could in a bad situation…
    ———————

    T’was ever thus! From “a totally different era,” yet still timely:

    ———————
    ‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
    Was there a man dismay’d?
    Not tho’ the soldiers knew
    Some one had blunder’d:
    Theirs not to make reply,
    Theirs not to reason why,
    Theirs but to do and die…
    ———————-

    (Damn, I’m actually getting teary-eyed…)

    Natch, that was from “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson. More at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Charge_of_the_Light_Brigade_%28poem%29 ; which tells how…

    ———————–
    …Tennyson wrote the poem in only a few minutes after reading an account of the battle in The Times…It immediately became hugely popular, even reaching the troops in the Crimea, where it was distributed in pamphlet form…

    Each stanza tells a different part of the story, and there is a delicate balance between nobility and brutality throughout. Although Tennyson’s subject is the nobleness of supporting one’s country, and the poem’s tone and hoofbeat cadences are rousing, it pulls no punches about the horror of war…
    ————————–

46. Mr. Hunter makes an excellent point. Mike (if I may be so forward), I’d have to add much more than Tennyson to your point.
    My own country’s depiction of Vimy Ridge (a victory) and Dieppe (a blunder, but one that might have prevented a failure at D-day)
    While not as poetic, was definitely similar, perhaps not glamourising but certainly praising or otherwise putting into a positive light ‘duty unto death’

    And I as mentioned earlier we have:
    The Birkenhead: where soldiers stood fast and at attention while the women and children were launched from their foundering troopship first.
    Cameron: Still celebrated by the French every April 30th as one of the many days the Legion Etranger lived up to the phrase “The Legion dies, it does not surrender”
    Masada: The mountaintop where the Zealots chose suicide over surrender to the Romans.
    The Alamo: which I hope don’t have to explain.
    Dollard des Ormeaux: A Quebecois Alamo.
    Thermopylae: Still making the list despite the travesty of ‘300’
    And I’m sure many more than these few that I can name off the top of my head.

47. Come to think of it…
    from the Japanese perspective: Iwo Jima counts. too.

48. oh… and Roarke’s Drift. For the British.

49. JPG White wrote: “Then perhaps you’d better clarify what you are saying.”

    Perhaps you should, since you’re the one who attacked my original observations.

    For example, since you think my views are so off-base, in your perfect cinematic world, what kind of depiction of the military do you consider to be accurate, fair, and non-jingoistic?

50. Thanks for all those additional examples, JPG!

    Japan also glorified the “doomed but gallant” Kamikaze; and the stirring tale (a natural for Frank Miller!) of the “47 Ronin”:

    ———————
    The tale of the 47 Ronin is one of the most famous in Japanese history – and it is a true story.

    …Ordinarily, samurai were expected to follow their master into death rather than facing the dishonor of being a masterless samurai. Forty-seven of Asano’s 320 warriors, however, decided to remain alive and seek revenge…
    ———————

    The whole story at http://asianhistory.about.com/od/japan/p/47ronin.htm …

    Here’s an alternative to “Hollywood deaths” or the often repellently gruesome reality:

    ———————
    http://www.life.com/gallery/26812/image/50659710#index/0

    The Toll in the Pacific: Buna Beach, 1943

    This photo, in which three American soldiers lie dead in the sand on Buna Beach in New Guinea, was taken in February 1943, but was not published until September. It was the first time an image of dead American troops appeared in LIFE during World War II without the bodies being draped, in coffins, or otherwise covered up…
    ——————–

51. A general comment to all: Historically, and even today, there are many examples of military units being abandoned, mismanaged or sacrificed by their leadership (military or civilian) — sometimes at the expense of the lives of every soldier in the unit. But that’s just another hazard of a business that’s already very hazardous. It’s part of the job.

    This fascinates some armchair generals and other disaffected non-military observers because they cannot understand the mentality of a person who will knowingly and willingly put themselves in harms way despite such natural and SNAFU-related risks.

    Firefighters running into a burning building deal with the same thing (albeit on a smaller scale), and also may face death because “somebody screwed up.” Hazardous chemicals inside a burning warehouse may be unidentified, a commander may have poor communications and send firefighters into an area that is ready to collapse, etc.

    I think it’s this fascination by outside observers regarding such professions that some perceive as a “glamorous glow.”

    But it isn’t glamor, it’s part of the job, and if a person is unwilling to put themselves into such situations, they can always become a poet, a novelist, or a screenwriter.

52. Russ, I don’t think perfect accuracy or fairness is possible, or even necessarily a good goal.

    But…some works which I think don’t glorify the military are Mailer’s Naked and the Dead; Tobias Wolff’s memoir (can’t remember the name); the book “Men Who Stare At Goats.” Having trouble coming up with movies…Starship Troopers the movie is not jingoistic, but I’m sure you’d find it hopelessly anti-military. Same with Full Metal Jacket, I’d guess…. I think Inglourious Bastards is pretty interesting, in that you certainly sympathize with the American military (or at least the special ops team) but they’re also shown to be ruthless and often semi-incompetent…and it has a fairly direct critique of war movies embedded in it….

    Suat’s discussion of War of the Trenches might be apropos here.

    Charles, if you’re still about, what say you?

53. Okay I think we’re getting into some confusion here so let me stipulate a few things.

    1) I’m taking your analysis at face value. I’ve not seen Super 8, the USAF does not -directly- defend my country (we’ll leave NORAD out of this to simply things ‘kay?) – but I’m sure I would dislike Super 8’s portrayal of the USAF as much as you did.

    2) I’m not some granola hugging tree-eater out to score points with you at every turn, in fact I do have my dog tags in a jewelry box around here somewhere.

    3) I’m not saying that Hollywood is at all fair to real life military organisations, especially the US military. (although with it’s UNITED STATES FORCES..(-whisper- and their allies) approach to any battle that had one US soldier in it, Hollywood at other times was pretty unfair to foreigners), Quite the opposite I’d stipulate that usually Hollywood get’s it wrong, in way that seems to be politically and anti-militarily motivated.

    What I disagree with is your repeated and so far insistent assertion that:

    Soldiers dying onscreen = Negative portrayal of the military

    If you are not asserting that, please tell me what you are asserting and I’d -probably- be happy to appologise and carry on.

    In action films, disaster films, and police procedural films, Actors playing characters portray death. Often a lot of deaths.

    In war films these actors mostly wear uniforms and the characters who ‘die’ are mostly soldiers.

    The mere fact of death in uniform is present in all films weather balanced, jingoist, or crazy-left-anti-military.

    Therefore the mere fact that soldier characters die cannot be used to justify a film in one direction or another.

    It’s how these deaths are treated that makes the difference.

    I’ll grant you this to the more general question the best hollywood seems to be able to come up with these days when it is being pro military in a serious film is a kind of “hate the game not the player” ambivalent support of soldiering while sneering at the soldier’s institutions.

    Unless we’re talking some weekend explosion fest ‘action movie’ (especially Independence Day weekend ones) where the Stars and Stripes are in every third shot.

    Hmmm speaking Star Spangled Banner and at the risk of straying off topic. That awesome song was about a battle the US lost wasn’t it? and I’m sure US soldiers died in that battle which inspired a glorious national anthem. (it’s a much more cool song than Oh Canada much as my patriotism would have me say otherwise. Though I think the French have us both beat with the Marseilles – Now THERE’S a song by which to go out an commit war for your country)

    er…

    sorry I digress.

    Anyhow, It seems like you’re saying that simply having soldiers die in a movie makes that movie a negative portrayal of the military. And I can’t agree with that. German Soldiers die left and right in Nazi Propaganda Films. and THOSE weren’t balanced I assure you.

54. Mike re: The 47 Ronin, That would be awesome I wonder if there is sufficient Manga/Anime inspired Japanophilia in North American to get past Holywood’s “not invented here” barrier to actually make it.

    Oh well worst case is they could make them westerns like they did for “The 7 samurai” and “Yojimbo”

    heh, maybe we could get Clint Eastwood on board.

55. Some movies that don’t glamorize/glorify what might be call the ideology of warfare while still admiring the bravery or dutiful nature of soldiers:

    Paths of Glory
    The Steel Helmet
    Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
    All Quiet on the Western Front
    Grand Illusion
    The Bridge over the River Kwai

    I think these are different from, say, Full Metal Jacket, Dr. Strangelove, Starship Troopers or Journey to the End of Night, in that they don’t criticize the soldier concept, but rather the system underlying wars or the bureaucracies involved in the military (River Kwai is the exception here, but I don’t find it to be jingoistic or pro-war, either). All of them could be contrasted to a number of John Wayne’s jingoistic movies, e.g., The Alamo, Green Berets.

56. As for Super 8, it’s more a fear of government bureaucracy than a hatred of the military. The military is the tool of the conspiracy. What’s always paradoxical for right-wingers is that they don’t want to say anything good about the government, but they love the military. Of course, government control ain’t shit without the power of the military (or police) to support it.

57. It’s a shame we can’t edit our posts. I’m going to HAVE to get better at proofing before I click ‘add comment’.

    The actual radio and movietone news formula was something like

    “OUR GALLANT AMERICANS!!!…and their allies…”

    I also noticed few places where a lack of punctuation on my part may have led to confusion. I will not be offended by requests to clarify any of my rather rambling statements in my previous post.

    Chris: In what way did Starship Troopers strike you as critizing the soldier/war concept? I realize it could be seen as an over the top send up of fascist propaganda films and seen in that light may be deemed critical. but nothing in the movie per se, from the triumphal (dare I say Wagnerian?) sound track to any of the characters’ or narrator’s words in anyway seemed to express an outward negative perception of militarism or human supremacy.

58. Lastly, regarding 300, I ran across this essay from the guy who wrote the intro to book that accompanied Snyder’s film:

    So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and monarchy — freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at Salamis and Plataea attested.

    Combine that with the way the film downplays and outright condemns the democrats in the film, while aestheticizing the Spartans, and I don’t see how anyone could say the film doesn’t glamorize the military.

59. In what way did Starship Troopers strike you as critizing the soldier/war concept?

    I’m guessing that’s to me. For one, the film makes it clear that Earth was trying to imperialistically expand its territory. And it shows the way that propaganda and class restrictions are used to get people to join. And it goes through, a la Full Metal Jacket, the procedures through which the youth are psychologically dismantled and reformatted as soldiers. I love the film, but I can see how someone might say it’s anti-soldier.

60. I can answer some of the latter comments in depth later, but let me just say this about Super 8: I wouldn’t have been ticked off at Abrams if (a.) He didn’t portray the Air Force as condoning and practicing cold-blooded murder as part of official procedure, and (b.) He had not shown the Air Force, as part of official procedure, intentionally setting fires that threatened the lives of civilians and their property.

61. Chris: While I agree with you that 300 was glamourising a militaristic mindset that would probably appeal to fascists (as well as a lot of gleaming cut muscle that would appeal in other circles real Spartans (unlike right wing NA conservatives) would have no problem with)

    I don’t think it’s quite fair to say it Glamourizes “the Military”

    It does show contempt by the ‘professionals’ for the citizen-soldier yes.

    It does soldiers “doing their duty as they see fit, in spite of orders by high or national command to the contrary”

    It does go out its way to make the spartans look like badasses among badasses.

    But it falls short of a celebration of military life, military duty. Military pomp and ceremony and other such trappings that would make it a jingoistic pro military movie.

    IMO anyway. I didn’t fill ‘me’ with martial excitement so much as an urge to laugh at it’s surely unintended (since they were otherwise whitewashed) Homoerotic moments.

    Like I mentioned in a earlier post “Starship Troopers” did a better job as a military propaganda piece and I believe it was supposed to be a parody of such films.

62. R. Maharas Writes:I wouldn’t have been ticked off at Abrams if (a.) He didn’t portray the Air Force as condoning and practicing cold-blooded murder as part of official procedure, and (b.) He had not shown the Air Force, as part of official procedure, intentionally setting fires that threatened the lives of civilians and their property.

    Amen. again, haven’t seen the movie but they would be deal breakers for me too.

63. Re: Starship Troopers…Verhoeven has said it’s anti war, and it’s over the top campiness, use of fascist iconography, and not so subtle hints of humanity’s brutality all indicate pretty strongly that it’s undermining it’s own genre.

    Now Starship Troopers the book is something else again.

64. And JPG, his name is Charles, not Chris!

65. oops. Sorry Charles. don’t know where my brain is at this morning.pu

66. Noah, Feel free to refer to me a Joy, since that’s my first initial. It was my own choice to name myself so on this forum but having myself addressed as a image file protocol makes me laugh.

    I chose to see Starship Troopers as a send up. But nothing in the film really alerts you to that. It’s completely true to itself and seems to take itself seriously.

    Heinlein’s novel sounded much more like real life bootcamp combined with the Pre Great War German ‘teritorial’ concept and some really cool power armour. I was actually amazed at how well some of the things spoken about in the novel fitted into the crevices of the movie.

    however. I guess I should shut up for a moment since we’re not talking about 300 or Starship troopers, and barely talking about super 8. I’ll let R.Maheras make his longer comment.

67. I have an essay about Starship Troopers here.

68. I know the point of this discussion is really representations of the military, but I’m pretty seriously disturbed by this statement Russ made:

    Historically, and even today, there are many examples of military units being abandoned, mismanaged or sacrificed by their leadership (military or civilian) — sometimes at the expense of the lives of every soldier in the unit. But that’s just another hazard of a business that’s already very hazardous. It’s part of the job.

    I find myself deeply offended by the implication that military leadership is exempt from criticism for poor decision making and mismanagement.

    A particularly compelling example of “mismanagement” is the situation of the 8th Army in Korea in 1950. They were supposed to have 142 tanks per division — they had 15. They ran out of ammunition. Their divisions, especially the brutalized 1st Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division (Charley Company), were expected to cover an area of territory that should have been held by a force four times their size — against a force 7 times their size. It’s widely believed that our leadership in Tokyo sent the worst-quality commissioned offers to manage the Eighth Army because these were men who hadn’t been fully successful in WWII and the leadership was trying to help them retire with a better pension.

    You could apply your statement to that situation — “their leaders failed them, but that’s just part of the job.” But the problems the 8th Army faced in 1950 were due to political dynamics on both civilian and military sides, not to “military best practices” that they willingly signed on for, or even a sincere effort that went wrong in the unpredictability of battle — failures by not only Truman, who is certainly ultimately to blame, but also by Bradley, and particularly by MacArthur, who in 1949 had told the President he didn’t need the force assigned to him, who underestimated the North Korean forces due largely to racism and personal arrogance, and who allowed the lower-level officers in Tokyo to conduct limp “training maneuvers” without any ammunition, when they were conducted at all, and to cultivate a general culture of self-satisfaction among all the Tokyo-based forces. Inept officers throughout the chain of command were not removed from positions of authority because of political concerns; most dramatically, Truman wanted to fire MacArthur at the start of the war because of the poor working relationship between Truman, Acheson, and MacArthur, but he delayed specifically because he feared backlash from Republicans at home.

    The boys who fought in those divisions, especially Charley Company, and their field commanders, were as you say, aware of their responsibilities regardless of how poorly equipped they were to fulfill them. But to say that what they had to face is just “part of the job” ignores the culpability of the people, civilian and military, who failed them so dramatically and desperately.

    Representations in the movies aside, it’s a serious error to draw a line in the sand between bureaucratic civilian leadership and the highest eschelons of military leadership as clear as the one you’re drawing. Military leaders at the highest level are political leaders; they deal with political pressures just like civilian leaders, and they often make mistakes in dealing with them, just like civilian leaders do.

    I’m not actually all that interested in military history — I know about these battles because I’m interested in Acheson and in what went on politically at the time: MacArthur’s arrogance, Truman’s fear of MacArthur’s popularity, Acheson and Bradley’s joint failure to recognize early enough how treacherous the political dynamic between the civilian and military leadership was to those American infantrymen who were just “doing their job.” But even military historians with military training recognize the utter failure of leadership at almost every level in these battles.

    You seem to me to be committed to an idea that the military is not highly political and that the dynamics of civilian politics are not real and influenceable forces that affect military culture and actions. This makes it hard for you to accept critiques of military politics and culture as anything other than anti-military screed. I think that’s an immensely dangerous and blinkered way to look at things.

69. Caro:
    You have a very good point, especially when you caution against dismissing every critique of military incident as anti-military screed.

    I’d argue however, that experienced soldiers do grudgingly (or maybe even wearily) acknowledge (I’m not sure about accept) that having their ‘superiors’ and especially civilians fail them in some way is, if not ‘part of the job’, certainly a very common hazard of the job. Something likely to be greeted with a ‘So what else is new?’ before they get back to that job.

70. Joy — Sure, but there’s some of that in every job that isn’t the decision-maker’s job, isn’t there? If you have to actually do the dirty work, you might as well just get on with it. But the fact that soldiers face so many hazards we can’t control makes it even more important to be exercised about the ones we potentially can.

    And for those of us who aren’t the people who have to do the job, buying into that attitude — which is really a coping mechanism for a lousy situation — is extraordinarily cynical. If a soldier says “it’s part of my job”, it’s a coping mechanism. But if I not only say it but insist on it, that becomes a “don’t challenge the military” jingoism that makes anathema any criticism of those bad decision-makers or the structures that get in the way of good decision-making. I’ve got a big problem with that. It’s a way of refusing positive political influence and conversation — of pretending the military as an institution is above politics by making debate and discussion impossible.

    Films and books that assert those critiques are one of the ways we remind people to pay attention. Films and books that push the coping mechanism on non-military people have the effect of “militarizing” the population, which makes it even harder for civilian political dynamics to result in good leadership.

    And it’s not just battle logistics: I recently listened to the Senate hearings on DOD spending in Afghanistan (when stuck in Beltway traffic, C-Span’s your only option) and it was pretty distressing how poorly managed the funds were — nobody could even account for which department had authorized certain expenditures, let alone defend why they were authorized. And now we’re in a serious debt mess, some of which is caused by that mismanaged spending, a consequence of which might be direct financial harm to military families.

    The military’s pretty damn political, and foreclosing criticism of it doesn’t hurt anybody more than it hurts soldiers.

71. Caro: I’ll grant you as much of that as you think is fair for a foreign national to opine on.

    …now if we were talking waste and misallocation of funds in OTTAWA… that would be horse of a different colour. (no blue for example, just red and white)

72. Just to clarify the above smartarse comment. I’m a Canadian Citizen and I know that at least SOME americans take umberage at foreigners telling them what is wrong with their country.

    But I will agree in parallel that your point makes sense even when discussing the critique of Canadian military and political institutions and their relation to films and other media.

73. Noah wrote: “Russ, I don’t think perfect accuracy or fairness is possible, or even necessarily a good goal.”

    Of course that’s true, since “fairness” is subjective. But, as I mentioned in my brief answer below, and hinted to in my essay, I wasn’t miffed about “Super 8” simply because the USAF was the villain, it was because their villainy was so callous and ruthless.

    Noah wrote: “But…some works which I think don’t glorify the military are Mailer’s Naked and the Dead; Tobias Wolff’s memoir (can’t remember the name); the book “Men Who Stare At Goats.” Having trouble coming up with movies…Starship Troopers the movie is not jingoistic, but I’m sure you’d find it hopelessly anti-military. Same with Full Metal Jacket, I’d guess…. I think Inglourious Bastards is pretty interesting, in that you certainly sympathize with the American military (or at least the special ops team) but they’re also shown to be ruthless and often semi-incompetent…and it has a fairly direct critique of war movies embedded in it…”

    “Naked and the Dead” isn’t a bad example. I didn’t like the film “Men who Stare at Goats” all that much, but for the life of me, I can’t remember why. I liked “Starship Troopers” well enough, despite its Sparta-like theme and anti-military slant — perhaps because in that particular universe, while military service was rewarded and encouraged, it was not mandatory. It was almost a world where Spartan and Athenian mentalities co-existed in one society, tolerating each other for “the greater good.”

74. Noah — I haven’t seen “Inglorious Bastards” yet. I missed it during its initial run and just haven’t got around to it.

    “Full Metal Jacket” is tough for me to judge from a military standpoint because I’ve never been a Marine, but it certainly was dark, depressing, and anti-war. That said, from a cinematic point of view, it was brilliantly crafted.

    One of my favorite military-related films is “Best Years of Our Lives,” mainly because of its balanced approach.

75. JPG White wrote: “What I disagree with is your repeated and so far insistent assertion that: Soldiers dying onscreen = Negative portrayal of the military

    If you are not asserting that, please tell me what you are asserting and I’d -probably- be happy to appologise and carry on.”

    and…

    “It’s how these deaths are treated that makes the difference.”

    You framed my view pretty good with your latter statement. If combat-related, anti-war films tend to depict combat deaths as meaningless and senseless. If non-combat-related, anti-war films tend to depict military service as meaningless and senseless.

    Since many military people take exception with assertions that their voluntary service and sacrifice is meaningless, they are more likely to consider films where such things have meaning as being pro-military.

    But this does NOT mean that dying for a cause on screen is somehow a “positive” and glamorous military depiction. Death is death, and even one combat death is one too many as far as a dead soldier’s family is concerned.

76. Charles wrote: “As for Super 8, it’s more a fear of government bureaucracy than a hatred of the military. The military is the tool of the conspiracy.”

    If that’s the case, one sure couldn’t tell that from what occurred on screen. In a situation where every single government agency on the planet would normally have showed up in droves, nary a single government agency, except the Air Force, was anywhere to be seen. Even near the end of the film, where tanks are rumbling through the town, Abrams never shows any sort of transition to the Army, so, to the average schmoe, it appears that those are Air Force tanks — a concept that is even sillier than Abrams’ “benign-abused-and-misunderstood-but-carnivorous-killer-alien” concept.

77. Charles wrote about the “300” film: “Combine that with the way the film downplays and outright condemns the democrats in the film, while aestheticizing the Spartans, and I don’t see how anyone could say the film doesn’t glamorize the military.”

    I don’t want to start defending “300,” but the fact is, from a purely historical point of view, the Spartans’ sacrificial stalling tactic pulled together and energized all of the Greek city states, saved the Athenians’ asses, and saved what would later become the Greek Empire.

    That’s not a pro-military slant, that’s what actually happened.

    Did the film “glamorize” the military? Well, if your definition of glamorization is showing combat deaths that have historical consequences and are thus not “senseless,” then yes, it did.

78. Caro wrote: “I find myself deeply offended by the implication that military leadership is exempt from criticism for poor decision making and mismanagement.”

    I’m not implying that anyone is exempt from criticism, but I am a student of history, particularly military history, and I know that, because every military is a bureaucracy of imperfect human beings usually controlled by an even bigger bureaucracy of imperfect human beings, there are always going to be screw-ups during any military action. Some screw-ups, of course, are bigger than others, and in the end, if two militaries are evenly matched in quality and quantity during a given conflict, the side with the lesser screw-ups, and the side that is most resourceful when the inevitable screw-ups happen, will generally win.

    The time-honored military acronym SNAFU (Situation Normal, All Fouled Up), and the famous quote by Field Marshal Moltke, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy,” are but a few examples addressing a reality that is obvious to any seasoned military person.

    The Korean War example you use is actually a perfect example. The U.S. and U.N. allied forces came within a whisker of losing that war because of poor planning, poor intelligence, hubris, politics, stupidity, and lord knows what else. Yet, despite the fact there were plenty of people to blame afterwards, how many were actually fired? Even MacArthur’s dismissal wasn’t for his mistakes on the battlefield – he was fired because he was publicly insubordinate to President Truman.

    One of the things that historically has given U.S. military units an edge in battle is the fact that taking initiative and improvising when a plan goes to hell (as it invariably does) is second nature for many U.S. troops. There will be plenty of time for finger-pointing later, so in the meantime, U.S. troops do the best they can with whatever resources and support they DO still have until their position is overrun, they win the battle, or they retreat to safety. It was this improvisation under fire that helped save us in Korea, despite the fact that we were often greatly outnumbered in battle.

    Caro wrote: “You seem to me to be committed to an idea that the military is not highly political and that the dynamics of civilian politics are not real and influenceable forces that affect military culture and actions. This makes it hard for you to accept critiques of military politics and culture as anything other than anti-military screed. I think that’s an immensely dangerous and blinkered way to look at things.”

    As you can probably tell from my discussion above, I am actually acutely aware of such things. In the case of “Super 8,” I took Abrams to task because he didn’t do his homework when he wrote his screenplay. His portrayal of Airmen and standard procedure was all wrong. And actually, if “Super 8” had been some low-budget science fiction tale that, say, went straight to DVD, I would have shrugged it off. But, since I know most of what the average schmoe knows about the Air Force comes from popular culture, I get miffed when a big production like “Super 8” depicts Airmen so inaccurately.

79. I don’t have a problem with your initial piece, which is transparent about your commitments and critique and completely understandable. I do hear you complaining about more than just “not doing his homework,” though, especially in the comments after the article. I hear an expectation that “respect for the troops” means praising their dedication to duty and always taking care to praise military purpose and “meaningfulness” overall, no matter what.

    And that’s not always the most responsible course. Sometimes the military deserves to be criticized, for specifics and as an institution. It is not insubordination or disrespect for civilians to criticize the military — it’s democracy.

    It’s also worth pointing out that fiction filmmakers have significantly less responsibility than ordinary civilians making political critiques to pay attention to facts — although I reiterate that challenges, like you made, to their choice not to do so are perfectly valid. But it’s fiction — they do get to manipulate facts to make metaphorical or political or other points.

    And most importantly, even in documentary, there are stories that don’t entirely fit the narrative you’re giving above. Imagine yourself as a filmmaker: how would you tell the story of the defeat of Task Force Smith at Osan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Osan ? Would you attempt to make that senseless defeat due to poor preparation and abysmal leadership “meaningful”? It seems to me the important take-home point is that it was NOT meaningful, that those men died primarily for the hubris of the America military leadership, and as hurtful as I am SURE that is for the families of the men who died there, whitewashing why they died to spare those families’ feelings, which is what it sounds like you’re advocating, seems tremendously irresponsible to me.

    But it’s also irresponsible not to tell their story at all, which is, in the end, what has happened. To what extent might the Korean War be “forgotten” specifically because so many of its events can’t easily be shoehorned into the type of narrative you’re advocating?

80. ———————–
    JPG White says:

    …I chose to see Starship Troopers as a send up. But nothing in the film really alerts you to that. It’s completely true to itself and seems to take itself seriously.
    ————————

    There’s no blatant wink-wink-nudge-nudge there; but there’s plenty to indicate that, if not the reality of combat, things like jingoistic propaganda, the soft-pedaling of the fact that it’s the Earthlings who were the initial invaders, the Gestapo outfit of the character in “intelligence” indicating what’s behind the “good guys” facade, show that expectations of a rousing simplistic Good Versus Evil story are being ridiculed and subverted.

    Re the argument as to whether a work is “pro-military” or anti-military,” one may as well debate whether another is “pro” or “anti” human race.

    Militaries and war are far too complex phenomena to be reduced to thumbs-up or thumbs-down judgments.

    Whether in the army of the South or the Wehrmacht, there were individual soldiers and officers who were honorable; valor and self-sacrifice were on display. Are those admirable qualities wholly erased by the fact that those were at work for vile, dishonorable causes?

    (Examples of war films which, though hardly pro-Nazi, were sympathetic to the ordinary WWII German soldier, Das Boot and “Cross of Iron.” [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_of_Iron ])

    While fighting the evil of the Axis, Allied forces still committed atrocities, whether in individual cases, or as the result of calculated policies, like the firebombing of civilians in Tokyo and Dresden. Do these counteract the fact that crushing the Axis was an overwhelmingly morally correct action?

    And even when the basic intent and overall nature of an institution — say, the United States Air Force — is overwhelmingly honorable and admirable, there are bound to be among such huge enterprises those who are incompetent, even criminal. And when orders for criminal actions are given, even those who think they’re wrong are under great pressure to “just follow orders.”

    Alas, under pressure from above or from saber-rattling commanders within, war crimes happen. Aside from massacring civilians during “The Good War,” there are events such as reported at:

    http://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/SAandUSWC.html

    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1309954081.html

    http://alethonews.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/us-air-force-c17-transport-caught-smuggling-arms-and-drugs-into-argentina/

    Surely the regime of Saddam Hussein was evil; but what does it mean when some of the “good guys” — whether through personal initiative or under orders — perform heinous acts?

    http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0206-30.htm

    —————————
    Caro says:

    …Sometimes the military deserves to be criticized, for specifics and as an institution. It is not insubordination or disrespect for civilians to criticize the military — it’s democracy.

    …Imagine yourself as a filmmaker: how would you tell the story of the defeat of Task Force Smith at Osan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Osan ? Would you attempt to make that senseless defeat due to poor preparation and abysmal leadership “meaningful”? It seems to me the important take-home point is that it was NOT meaningful…
    —————————-

    If one is to avoid falling into the trap of pushing simplistic arguments and viewpoints, the way to go is to show other facets. That — as in the case of the Battle of Osan — though the U.S. military command screwed up abysmally, our soldiers overall acted as valiantly as could be expected, and the Korean War was itself a morally righteous one, the invasion of the South by the Communist North deserving to be stopped.

    (Yet there are cases where showing a more complex and nuanced view, though more “fair,” would work against the effect a creator is trying to make, as I argue at https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/movie-review-jean-luc-godards-les-carabiniers/ ).

    BTW, check out the “100 Greatest War Movies” listing at http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/movie-pages/movie_war.html , with separate categories for “Greatest Civil War Movies” and “Greatest Comedy/Satire War Movies.” The last set including, *ahem!* “Operation Snatch – (1962, Robert Day, WWII) (Terry-Thomas, Lionel Jeffries)”

81. R. Maheras your responses evoked many different reactions of my own. I’m going to have to give some thought to a more serious post in order to avoid rambling.

    For now, I just thought I’d comment here about my own reaction to Starship Troopers, the book and the movie.

    When I walked out of the theatre (back whenever it was released) My first comment about the movie was ambivalent. It was something like “I don’t know weather Heinlein is applauding or spinning in his grave right now.”

    On one hand, Powered-armour-suits and certain plot details not withstanding, it was an amazingly accurate depiction of the world Heinlein built for his novel.

    On the other, it showed that world through the distorted lens was clearly an over the top send up of hard core militaristic propaganda films.

    I liked the starship troopers novel as a child (I probably read it before I turned 10 and reread at least twice before age 15). The idea that the pain and humiliation of a public lashing would do more to deter reckless, negilgent or drunk driving than any amount of fines. Appealed to my youthful worldview at the time. The idea that those wanting a say in the running and developing of their country must put there lives at stake for it first was very compelling and in watered down and personalised form was the chief motivator behind my joining the local sea cadet corps rather than the more accessible Guides/Scouts, Later joining my local Regiment of the CF reserves, and finally upon being medicaled out by a pair of metabolic illnesses to my service with a Rural Volunteer crew of my province’s Ambulance Service and being a volunteer firefighter.

    And damn. If I didn’t enjoy the heroic and triumphal sound track.

82. ———————–
    JPG White says:

    …I liked the starship troopers novel as a child…The idea that the pain and humiliation of a public lashing would do more to deter reckless, negilgent or drunk driving than any amount of fines. Appealed to my youthful worldview at the time. The idea that those wanting a say in the running and developing of their country must put there lives at stake for it first was very compelling…
    ———————–

    I actually agree with Heinlein’s politics in a lot of areas, including those…

    Regarding the way the complex realities of war and the military can be chopped-down for pushing certain viewpoints, Steven Biel’s fascinating, lively “Down with the Old Canoe: A Cultural History of the Titanic Disaster”…

    ————————
    …deals not with how the great ship went down but rather with the disaster as a cultural icon and how, from the very beginning, in 1912, it has been used to promote all manner of ideological positions…Feminists and anti-feminists fought over the meaning of the traditional naval call of “women and children first”: Did it reflect chivalry? Or the infantilization of women? Socialists used the sinking to attack the excesses of capitalism. The vessel surfaced in folk music, especially in the black community, where an entire genre of sometimes ribald verses about a black crew member named Shine [who survived and swam away, scorning the millionaires who offered him money if he’d save them!] flourished…
    ————————-
    http://tinyurl.com/3drgjz5

    The wealthy inhabitants of First Class were attacked for their privilege and decadently luxurious quarters, and lionized for letting even the poor, uneducated women and children of the lower accommodations go into the lifeboats instead of them; ministers said the disaster showed the Wrath of God or humans rising to the noblest actions, demonstrating that “Manliness and Godliness” still survived in modern times…

83. Caro and Mike — I’ve never advocated whitewashing military screw-ups, scandals, and the like. My beef with popular culture is their overwhelming propensity of creators since Vietnam of focusing on the military’s negatives. And, in the case of fictional vehicles like “Super 8,” the MADE-UP negatives.

    As I mentioned in an earlier reply, my “Super 8” essay would have never been written if the Air Force players had not been so cold-blooded and callous. If portrayed, say, as the U.S. Marshals were in the film “The Fugitive” — i.e., people just doing their job by the book — I wouldn’t have had a problem with “Super 8.”

84. People in the military often don’t just do their job by the book, though. LIke civilians, military personnel are more often than not stupid, incompetent, lazy, or corrupt, influenced by political considerations, prejudice, vindictiveness, and just plain ignorance. This is actually one of the major reasons that we shouldn’t go to war — that is, because the military is as stupid and corrupt as anybody else, and that is a real problem when you are aiming guns at people.

    The “just doing their jobs” argument is one of the main ways the military is glorified, actually. They’re presented as especially honorable or competent, and therefore are seen as a more viable/effective choice for policy than civilian solutions. That’s Heinlein’s argument in Starship Troopers. And it’s bullshit. IMO.

85. Have you read Heinlein’s book, rather than seen the movie, which for its pluses, nonetheless showed scorn for the source and hardly did its author’s views justice?

    Check out…

    —————————-
    The Pragmatics of Patriotism – Robert Heinlein

    This is from a speech Robert Heinlein gave in 1973 to the United States Naval Academy….
    —————————–
    http://www.phrost.com/blog/the-pragmatics-of-patriotism-robert-heinlein/

86. Yep, read the book just recently. It is entertaining, but evil.

87. Russ,

    My beef with popular culture is their overwhelming propensity of creators since Vietnam of focusing on the military’s negatives.

    You’re wrong, at least in terms of films. For starters, here’s a list of post ’75 WW2 (primarily English-language) films that are fairly obvious in their appreciation of soldiers or whatnot:

    Attack Force Z
    Band of Brothers
    A Bridge Too Far
    Captain America: The First Avenger
    Defiance
    Enemy at the Gates
    Force 10 from Navarone
    Inglourious Basterds
    Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence
    The Pacific
    Pearl Harbor
    Saving Private Ryan
    When Trumpets Fade
    Windtalkers

    During and prior to Vietnam, war-related films were overwhelmingly positive to propaganda-level depictions of the military, but we’re excluding them. Anyway, here’s a list of post ’75 WW2 (primarily English-language) films that contain some critical analysis of what makes a soldier (the bureaucracy involved, propaganda, etc.):

    Cross of Iron
    The Big Red One
    Flags of Our Fathers
    The Thin Red Line

    But, I note, that these still contain a good deal of favorable portraits of soldiers; they just more explicitly analyze the morality involved. In other words, I don’t consider them to be anti-military, but I’ll concede them for the sake of argument.

    I’ll get to Vietnam War and Iraq War films the next go around, which is where you’re likely to see to more negative approaches (for good reason). If you want, make your own list from here.

88. Noah writes: “They’re presented as especially honorable or competent, and therefore are seen as a more viable/effective choice for policy than civilian solutions. That’s Heinlein’s argument in Starship Troopers. And it’s bullshit. IMO.”

    No NO… you miss the point entirely.
    Serving military in Trooper-verse were not allowed to vote.
    The rationale for only letting former military personnel was two fold:
    1) in Heinlein’s book the current civilization was one pulled out of Catastrophic Collapse by Veterans of the wars of that collapse. The institution of Rule by former Soldiers was based on an unwillingness on the part of these ad hoc lights of a new society to let someone who hadn’t been in their shoes use them to start another catastrophe.

    2) Two in actual practice at the time of the novel, Heinlein’s society allowed you to perform your citizenship granting ‘federal service’ any number of ways including non-uniform service the only criteria was that you had to risk your life. The rationale was that the only people who deserved a say in Heinlein’s society were those demonstrably willing to put their life on it.

    Now I may quible with the details. or the extremity of the position. but I defy the catagorization of it as EVIL. No. Sorry. HELL NO.

89. Joy, none of your points actually contests what I’m saying. Heinlein’s rationale is that people who serve in the military are more competent, more knowledgeable, more responsible, and more attuned to reality. It’s an argument for military rule. I’m with the U.S. founders on this; I think military control of civilians, as opposed to civilian control of the military, is extraordinarily dangerous. People in the military are not more moral or more righteous than everyone else; violence does not confer knowledge. Heinlein is an entertaining storyteller, but he’s also, unfortunately, a militaristic quasi-fascist, impatient with democratic process and mesmerized by the “efficiencies” of power. Verhoeven had him dead to rights.

90. You miss the point. It perhaps wasn’t Heinlein’s point. I don’t know, my last reading of the book was over 20 years in my past.

    but what I took away from that book was NONE of those supposed attributions to FORMER military service personnel being as more competent or more honourable than civilians.

    It was simply that Heinlein’s society in that book (I don’t even he portrayed it as an Utopia,) Required that you put your life on the line for your country before you should have any say in it’s governing or education.

    There are arguments against it in practice. But like any idea it deserves better treatment than being dismissed as evil. (your word: EVIL).

    That was the only criterion. It said nothing about honour or competance, or judgement. Just that the founding principal was that if you wanted a say, then you had to ante up.

    I’d argue instead that it’s a mirror image of a famous speech concerning the 54th infantry during your Civil War.

    I hope you know the one I’m talking about. It’s the one that says once a black man has put on a US Army uniform and and been armed. How dare anyone deny his citizenship?

91. Arguing that you have to participate in the military before you are allowed to be a citizen is elevating the military as an ideal of responsibility. Among other things, it would deny certain religious denominations (like Quakers) the opportunity to be citizens, basically on the basis of their religious beliefs. It presumes that only the military puts its lives on the line, and that, indeed, what the military is doing is putting its lives on the line for right (rather than, for example, for the joys of imperial expansion, or for stupid political stunts.) It’s fascism. I think it’s evil.

    I understand the tactical reasons back during the Civil War for arguing that black people cannot be denied citizenship once they’ve fought. But the reason they deserve citizenship is not because they fought. It’s because discriminating against people on the basis of color is wrong, whether they’ve picked up arms or whether they haven’t.

92. Mike: it’s funny you should mention the Titanic. And the conflicting lessons people took from it.

    I recall that you mentioned the concept of ‘Women and Children first”

    I noticed you didn’t (nor did you need to. this is not a criticism) mention the conflicting lessons ascribed to the Dance Band on the Titanic. Some took it to be a “Nero Fiddled while Rome burned” type of folly. Others saw it as a heroic effort to do what your job was in hopes it would have some benefit, even unto death.

    The legend of the Birkenhead, happens to take the latter spin of the dance band and also be one of the first instances that ‘Women and children first” were codified.

93. Noah, what if you expand the concept. What if you were allowed citizen ship for serving in the EMS? What if volunteering to test pilot protection gear or vehicles for EMS/Military within the bounds of a civilian agency counted?

    Would it still be evil then?

94. Mentioning Quaker’s you’ve touched an on again/off again hot button in Canadian Citizenship debates. No asks a Canadian Born citizen for anything in return. They are freely entitled to all the perks and none of the responsibilities that our nation offers.

    This has resulting in cries of religious discrimination from time to time. Since it’s okay for a Canadian Born citizen to adhere to a faith that demands pacifism. But naturalized Citizens only become so after taking an oath that includes a willingness to ‘take up arms for their country’

    Thus, denying citizenship to a number of foreigners such as Quakers, Jehova’s Witness and certain sects of the Methodists. Despite there being plenty Canadian Citizens who shares those beliefs.

    That is why I specifically stated that as a concept there are some flawed details.

95. Noah: I invite you to look carefully at my earlier responses. It should be clear that possibly Heinlein and certainly not I, have ever exclusively made the military the sole avenue for ‘putting your life on the line for your country’

96. “possibly Heinlein”

    I certainly didn’t think you thought it was the only avenue. I think it’s really, really unclear that Heinlein doesn’t.

    No one would expand the concept to include the EMS, is the point. And, in fact, if you included the EMS, why not add coal miners? What about factory workers, who often work in unhealthful and dangerous conditions? What about journalists who publish things inimical to the government? Aren’t they putting themselves at risk?

    The argument is about the military for a reason. The military has a unique glamour, certainly for Heinlein, and just in general in society as well. It’s seen as a special path to duty, to honor and (for Heinlein) to citizenship. That glamour validates military conflict, and not coincidentally, gets more people killed, including soldiers. That’s part of the reason fascism is evil. Heinlein denied he was a fascist, but reading Starship Troopers, his denials look awfully, awfully thin.

97. Noah writes: “Heinlein denied he was a fascist, but reading Starship Troopers, his denials look awfully, awfully thin.”

    Sigh, I cannot, am not even willing to deny, That Heinlein’s apparent love of soldiering in some of his writings, is not unlike Adolf Hitler’s statements on the subject in ‘Mein Kampf’. Actually what Hitler writes about the military making a man out of a youth is not extremely different from many statements I’ve heard on the exact same subject from pro-military pundits who would probably be shocked and chilled at that particular invocation of Godwin’s Law.

    I’m not sure if that makes Heinlein a fascist but it does remind us that a love of militarism is one of the … um… symptoms of Fascism.

    anyhow I suppose I’m straying from the topic at hand again. Sorry for that.

98. ————————–
    Noah Berlatsky says:

    People in the military often don’t just do their job by the book, though…
    —————————

    Does “often” mean fail to do so “several times a year,” or, say, at least “60% of the time”?

    Then there’s the difference between ignoring the “by the book” way because of laziness/crookedness/incompetence, or because in certain instances, not doing it by the book yields a better result for the organization and its goals?

    Yet, in the military there’s a tremendous emphasis on “doing it by the book”; because unpredictable behavior can get people killed…

    —————————-
    Like civilians, military personnel are more often than not stupid, incompetent, lazy, or corrupt, influenced by political considerations, prejudice, vindictiveness, and just plain ignorance…
    —————————–

    “More often than not”? Ouch! No one here is saying that the military are exemplars of superhuman perfection; both military and civilians can be capable and able in their lives and tasks, yet still have either spells of unworthy behavior, or areas where they are stupid or flawed. (I.e., suspicion of women in positions of power.)

    ——————————
    This is actually one of the major reasons that we shouldn’t go to war — that is, because the military is as stupid and corrupt as anybody else, and that is a real problem when you are aiming guns at people.
    ——————————-

    So we should first draft and train really smart, enlightened people before going to war?

    I’ve no illusions about the general smarts of the average, current G.I. (far younger and with less life-experience than those who fought in WW II). For instance, “…as of Feb 28, 06 Almost 90% of US soldiers in Iraq think war is retaliation for Saddam’s role in 9/11.” ( http://netctr.com/iraqwar.html )

    Yet — unlike the case with civilians — soldiers go through an intense period of training and indoctrination into military values and procedures, with punishment for infractions readily handed out. Slackers, incompetents, and loose cannons would fare far better in civilian life.

    ——————————–
    JPG White says:

    …in actual practice at the time of the novel, Heinlein’s society allowed you to perform your citizenship granting ‘federal service’ any number of ways including non-uniform service the only criteria was that you had to risk your life. The rationale was that the only people who deserved a say in Heinlein’s society were those demonstrably willing to put their life on it.
    ——————————–

    I liked that, rather than citizenship being automatically given just by being born, and thus taken for granted, it was considered an honor, with its set of privileges that had to be earned. (Not exactly Constitutional, but…)

    ——————————–
    Noah Berlatsky says:

    …Heinlein’s rationale is that people who serve in the military are more competent, more knowledgeable, more responsible, and more attuned to reality. It’s an argument for military rule. I’m with the U.S. founders on this; I think military control of civilians, as opposed to civilian control of the military, is extraordinarily dangerous…
    ———————————

    It’s not that the military controls the government; rather, that you are required to have previously served…

    ——————————–
    …Among other things, it would deny certain religious denominations (like Quakers) the opportunity to be citizens, basically on the basis of their religious beliefs. It presumes that only the military puts its lives on the line…
    ———————————

    Re Heinlein’s book:

    ———————————
    Interspersed throughout the book are other flashbacks to Rico’s high school History and Moral Philosophy course, which describe how in the Terran Federation of Rico’s day, the rights of a full Citizen (to vote, and hold public office) must be earned through some form of volunteer Federal service. Those residents who have not exercised their right to perform this Federal Service retain the other rights generally associated with a modern democracy (free speech, assembly, etc.), but they cannot vote or hold public office. This structure arose ad hoc after the collapse of the 20th century Western democracies, brought on by both social failures at home…and military defeat by the Chinese Hegemony overseas…

    Heinlein’s Terran Federation is a limited democracy with aspects of a meritocracy based on willingness to sacrifice in the common interest. Suffrage belongs only to those willing to serve their society by at least two years of volunteer Federal Service – “the franchise is today limited to discharged veterans”, (ch. XII), instead of anyone “…who is 18 years old and has a body temperature near 37 °C” The Federation is required to find a place for anyone who desires to serve, regardless of his skill or aptitude (this also includes service ranging from teaching to dangerous non-military work such as serving as experimental medical test subjects).

    There is an explicitly-made contrast to the democracies of the 20th century, which according to the novel, collapsed because “people had been led to believe that they could simply vote for whatever they wanted… and get it, without toil, without sweat, without tears.”
    ———————————-
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Troopers

    Personally, I think holders of political office who’d previously served in the military would be less likely to readily put U.S. troops in harm’s way than “chicken hawks” who felt they had to prove their bravado, either to themselves or voters.

    Meantime, what is the proportionately overwhelming background of our current politicians? Lawyers, then businessmen! What morally superior fields…

    ———————————
    People in the military are not more moral or more righteous than everyone else; violence does not confer knowledge.
    ———————————

    So, that’s all there is to being in the military, “violence”? What about all the training, inculcation of values, the fact that even in times of war, the great majority of the military are in non-combat support roles?

    ———————————–
    JPG White says:

    …The legend of the Birkenhead, happens to take the latter spin of the dance band and also be one of the first instances that ‘Women and children first” were codified.
    ———————————–

    Ah, I remember (quoted from memory; probably read it at least 40 years ago)

    “To stand and be still
    in the Birkenhead Drill
    is a damn tough bullet to chew.”

    ———————————-
    HMS Birkenhead sank off the coast of South Africa on 26th February 1852…The ship was carrying 480 British troops and about 26 women and children. When the ship foundered the soldiers’ commander Colonel Seton told them to ‘Stand fast!’ and allow the women and children to make use of the few lifeboats. Most of the soldiers and sailors on board were drowned or eaten by sharks, but all the women and children survived. The women and children first ethos was later called the ‘Birkenhead Drill’ and was celebrated in verse by Rudyard Kipling in his morale boosting work Soldier an’ Sailor Too:

    To take your chance in the thick of a rush, with firing all about,
    Is nothing so bad when you’ve cover to ‘and, an’ leave an’ likin’ to shout;
    But to stand an’ be still to the Birken’ead drill is a damn tough bullet to chew,
    An’ they done it, the Jollies – ‘Er Majesty’s Jollies – soldier an’ sailor too!
    Their work was done when it ‘adn’t begun; they was younger nor me an’ you;
    Their choice it was plain between drownin’ in ‘eaps an’ bein’ mopped by the screw,
    So they stood an’ was still to the Birken’ead drill, soldier an’ sailor too!

    There’s no reason to doubt that the events on HMS Birkenhead were the origin of the women and children first practise. It seems that the phrase wasn’t used until later though…
    ———————————-
    http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/women-and-children-first.html

    ———————————–
    …The surviving officers and men assembled on deck, where Lieutenant-Colonel Seton of the 74th Regiment of Foot took charge of all military personnel and stressed the necessity of maintaining order and discipline to his officers.

    Almost everybody kept silent, indeed nothing was heard, but the kicking of the horses and the orders of Salmond, all given in a clear firm voice.

    …Just before she sank, Salmond called out that “all those who can swim jump overboard, and make for the boats”. Colonel Seton, however, recognising that rushing the lifeboats would risk swamping them and endangering the women and children, ordered the men to stand fast, and only three men made the attempt. The cavalry horses were freed and driven into the sea in the hope that they might be able to swim ashore.

    The soldiers did not move, even as the ship broke up barely 20 minutes after striking the rock. Some of the soldiers managed to swim the 2 miles (3.2 km) to shore over the next 12 hours, often hanging on to pieces of the wreck to stay afloat, but most drowned, died of exposure or were taken by sharks.
    ————————————
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Birkenhead_%281845%29

    ————————————
    JPG White says:

    …Heinlein’s apparent love of soldiering in some of his writings, is not unlike Adolf Hitler’s statements on the subject in ‘Mein Kampf’. Actually what Hitler writes about the military making a man out of a youth is not extremely different from many statements I’ve heard on the exact same subject from pro-military pundits who would probably be shocked and chilled at that particular invocation of Godwin’s Law.

    I’m not sure if that makes Heinlein a fascist but it does remind us that a love of militarism is one of the … um… symptoms of Fascism.
    ————————————-

    Well, so is admiration for the peasantry, as mentioned at https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/movie-review-jean-luc-godards-les-carabiniers/ . So, should we be chilled when Cesar Chavez does so?

    ————————————–
    In Praise of Peasants

    “Our lives are dependent on the sacrifice of the Campesinos”- Cesar Chavez
    —————————————
    More at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/17-1 .

    And the Nazis were opposed to cruelty to animals, too; should we be wary of Humane Society members?

99. I’m unfortunately under a time crunch, so hence a speed post:

    Charles, your list of “pro-military” films (some non-contemporary, which means you’re reaching pretty hard) means little. Some of the films on your list are actually anti-military films, and I could easily put together an a list of anti-military films from just the past 10 years that would dwarf yours.

    Noah, your comments regarding the intelligence level and moral values of the military being no different that the rest of society are a crock. You’ve obviously molded your views based on popular culture influence and political indoctrination, not reality. About 90 percent of the people who walk in the door of a recruiting office don’t qualify for military service. Most are turned away because they don’t meet the minimum education/intelligence requirements, they have a serious criminal record, they have serious credit issues, they have extremist political views, they have serious psychological issues, or they are active illegal substance abusers.

    Then, once a person is in the military, they can be separated from the service or refused reenlistment if any criminal behavior or other unacceptable activities later surface.

    In short, not only is the military quite selective, it continues the process for those on active duty.

    Of course, this does not mean the military has no dummies or bad eggs, but it’s pretty obvious to even the most casual person paying attention that they try real hard to keep them out.

100. Russ, nobody in civilian life is lining up to hire those with criminal records or substance abuse problems or serious psychological problems either. You’re just saying that the military functions like any other employer. I fail to see why any of those strictures would rule out the usual individual incompetence, not to mention systemic idiocy. And, in fact, there’s a fair bit of evidence from recent history that the military is every bit as capable of individual incompetence and systemic idiocy as any other institution.

     Mike: you say “What about all the training, inculcation of values, the fact that even in times of war, the great majority of the military are in non-combat support roles?”

     Heinlein, though, specifically denigrates those who aren’t in combat roles. HIs ideal military is one in which everyone fights (“everyone drops” I think is what he says.) I think that that’s a pretty accurate rendition of the logic behind believing that the military is more noble than others.

     I don’t think there’s any evidence that those who have been in the military are less likely to go to war or resort to violence. Eisenhower was ruthless in supporting coups and using U.S. military power to topple regimes.

     I think this whole conversation tends to demonstrate that people prickle when you suggest, not that military personnel and institutions are *worse* than civilian ones, but rather that they are *the same* or no better. Thus, anything that does not assert the superiority of the military is denigrating the military. Nonetheless, I continue to believe that people in the military remain people, that the military as an institution remains an institution, and that, therefore, neither military people nor military institutions should be trusted to do the right thing in situations where they have an opportunity to do anything else.

101. Noah, you said, and I quote: “LIke civilians, military personnel are more often than not stupid, incompetent, lazy, or corrupt, influenced by political considerations, prejudice, vindictiveness, and just plain ignorance.”

     This is a far different argument than the one you just made in your last reply.

     You went from comparisons to society in general to comparisons of a gainfully-employed workforce whose employer does background checks, intelligence testing, drug tests, and psychological evaluations on its employees — a group which is a small fraction of society at large.

     The fact is, because of its initial and ongoing screening processes, the general military populace is not like the general civilian populace in a number of ways. Sure, we all share the same general cultural backgrounds, and the variey of personalities in the military mirrors the variety of personalities in the civilian world. But the military does have a higher intelligence level than the general populace, a lower criminal base, and a lower level of nutcases. And, despite the perpetual cloud of old conscript-era stereotypes like Beetle Bailey and other pop culture relics, the military does, in fact, have a lower level of lazy people.

     Finally, unlike people in the civilian world, military people are expected to be apolitical when it comes to performing their mission. That is, regardless of whether or not a military commander is a political supporter of the president and other civilian leadership, that commander, and his/her troops, have all taken a sworn oath to obey the lawful orders of the same.

102. Russ,

     your list of “pro-military” films (some non-contemporary, which means you’re reaching pretty hard) means little. Some of the films on your list are actually anti-military films, and I could easily put together an a list of anti-military films from just the past 10 years that would dwarf yours.

     You said “since Vietnam,” so I used that as my parameter. As for my pro-films being anti-, no, they’re not. If you can find a massive amount of films that are anti-military set in the WW2 from the past 10 years, I welcome your counter-list.

     Here’s my Vietnam list, which I had to break up into more compartments, as the concerns of filmmakers became a little more complex regarding that war.

     Traumatized soldiers:

     Rolling Thunder
     The Deer Hunter
     Coming Home
     Some Kind of Hero
     Birdy
     Born on the Fourth of July

     Critical:

     Go Tell the Spartans
     Full Metal Jacket
     Good Morning, Vietnam
     Casualties of War
     Off Limits
     Flight of the Intruder
     Tigerland

     It’s a dirty job …, or love the soldiers, not the war:

     Apocalypse Now
     Platoon
     Hamburger Hill
     The Boys in Company C

     Soldiers are cool, or hoorah for our side:

     The Odd Angry Shot
     The Last Hunter
     How Sleep the Brave
     Missing in Action 1
     Missing in Action 2
     Missing in Action 3
     Uncommon Valor
     Forrest Gump
     We Were Soldiers
     Rescue Dawn

     I’ve left off TV shows like China Beach and Tour of Duty, which could hardly be considered anti-military. These are all fictionalized films, no docs (same as with the WW2 films). What I’ve called the critical films are hardly the opposite of Chuck Norris, containing very sympathetic portraits of soldiers often butting heads against other soldiers or bureaucracies. I don’t consider that anti-military, but I’m sure you do. Similarly, John Milius (the scenarist behind Apocalypse Now) and Oliver Stone (Platoon) are pretty clearly on the sides of soldiers. Milius is a bit of a military fetishist and Stone served. To see their work as anti-military would be pretty off-based (even though I granted Milius’ Flight of the Intruder in the ‘critical’ category). Maybe I’ll get around to Iraq in film later, but I think this is enough to demonstrate Hollywood is hardly anti-military. Unless, of course, propaganda is the only sort of depiction you’ll accept.

     And, in fairness, some of the “boosteristic” films contain depicted hardships for the soldiers, showing the toll taken on soldiers, such as Forrest Gump and Rescue Dawn. The latter isn’t overwhelmingly positive, gets fairly dark, but has you rooting for the soldiers against their malicious captors.

103. “You went from comparisons to society in general to comparisons of a gainfully-employed workforce whose employer does background checks, intelligence testing, drug tests, and psychological evaluations on its employees — a group which is a small fraction of society at large.”

     I don’t think the gainfully employed workforce is made up of better or more moral people than the rest of society. I believe that people in the gainfully employed workforce, like those outside it, and like soldiers, tend to be stupid, incompetent, and corrupt when they have the chance.

     “Finally, unlike people in the civilian world, military people are expected to be apolitical when it comes to performing their mission. ”

     People in the civilian workforce aren’t expected to let petty rivalries or interpersonal squabbles interfere with their jobs either. And yet, somehow they do. I have no reason to believe that the military is any different.

104. Oh, shit, I forgot the most popular of all Vietnam-related films: the Rambo series. There’s a glamorized depiction, even if the soldier is kind of an anti-hero.

105. Incidentally, the belief that people who are gainfully employed are morally better than others is not unrelated to the problems that result when you occupy a place where most of the people are not well educated and are very poor. Imperialism has more than a little bit of class prejudice in its workings.

106. Noah, Russ isn’t saying “that people who are gainfully employed are morally better than others”. You are over-fond of these rhetorical weaselings.

     He says that the Armed Forces have a very strict filter to keep out undesirables as best they can.

107. The strict filters aren’t any better than those used in civilian life by all sorts of organizations. Furthermore, strict filters don’t necessarily prevent either incompetence or corruption. To claim they do is to claim that people who are gainfully employed are morally or intellectually superior to others.

     People in the military aren’t better than people outside the military; the institution of the military is no better than other institutions. These statements should not be controversial.

108. Re ( I think) miltary hagiography such as “the Charge of the Light Brigdage” or the vast pan-cultural number ‘Alamo’ style myths R. Maharas Wrote:

     “I think it’s this fascination by outside observers regarding such professions that some perceive as a “glamorous glow.”
     But it isn’t glamor, it’s part of the job, and if a person is unwilling to put themselves into such situations, they can always become a poet, a novelist, or a screenwriter.”

     Re R. Maharas and mine own debate regarding the negative or postive meaning of on screen depictions of military deaths, I wrote:

     “What I disagree with is your repeated and so far insistent assertion that:
     Soldiers dying onscreen = Negative portrayal of the military
     …
     In action films, disaster films, and police procedural films, Actors playing characters portray death. Often a lot of deaths.
     In war films these actors mostly wear uniforms and the characters who ‘die’ are mostly soldiers.
     The mere fact of death in uniform is present in all films weather balanced, jingoist, or crazy-left-anti-military.
     Therefore the mere fact that soldier characters die cannot be used to justify a film in one direction or another.
     It’s how these deaths are treated that makes the difference.”

     To which R. Maharas replied:
     “ “It’s how these deaths are treated that makes the difference.” (mine)”
     You framed my view pretty good with your latter statement. If combat-related, anti-war films tend to depict combat deaths as meaningless and senseless. If non-combat-related, anti-war films tend to depict military service as meaningless and senseless.
     Since many military people take exception with assertions that their voluntary service and sacrifice is meaningless, they are more likely to consider films where such things have meaning as being pro-military.
     But this does NOT mean that dying for a cause on screen is somehow a “positive” and glamorous military depiction. Death is death, and even one combat death is one too many as far as a dead soldier’s family is concerned.
     ++++++

     We have a difference perception when we speak of depiction. For you it is content based: the sense or nonsense of the event.

     For myself, what I meant by depiction was … Presentation.

     I do not think a faceless ally disappearing bloodlessly from the scene, (weather by collapsing neatly or devoured instantly in a flash of blue radiation) and never commented on by the rest of the cast, carries much impact (negatively or positively).

     I think a character that the creator has tried to introduce to the audience. Carries more impact. Especially if the movie maker is trying to evoke sympathy from the audience for the character’s hopes and dreams. Even more especially if other characters visibly mourn for him or her.

     Weather that impact is Positive or Negative regarding war, military service, etc. depends on further aspects of depiction and details of content. One such detail is the sense or senseless of the death, though honestly I do no personally consider it an overriding detail. Another detail is, in a movie about a war between two peoples, how deaths on the opposing side are treated.

     What kind of music is played, how various characters react, how detailed and in what way portrayed is both the life that was lost and the manner of it’s passing.

     If everyone dies bloodily, painfully, onscreen, including the enemy. If there is grief expressed at their passing, if music intended to stir sad, regretful, or other negative emotions is played over their death scene and greiving scenes. If everyone who dies has a Name. Then yes I believe the audience is meant to take an negative opinion of either war or warriors away. Heck, even if a large measure of the above is in play I’d argue there is an anti-violence message at the very least.

     If, instead, the character is portrayed as someone who the audience is inclined to dislike unto death, dies in a faction that can be perceived as comic or even ‘just’, if the music is deliberately corny etc. etc…Then not so much.

     Frankly, any death that’s portrayed with a lot of the trappings of heroic legend. Or even one that suffers from what Star Trek fans would call the “Redshirt phenomenon” I consider to be treating war and military service in a romantising light if nothing else. Simply, because it underplays to the audience the real impact of that death.
     Are there people would take offense anyway? Service members and their dependents perhaps. But they do not form the only audience. To limit yourself to them is to say the rest of the civilian population doesn’t matter.

     Sorry, they do. They are the pool from which the military recruits, they are people either buy war bonds and hold ticker tape parades Or conversely aid and abet draft dodgers while holding protest marches. They are, in a democracy anyway, ultimately the people whom the service takes it’s orders.

     As to the sense and senseless of military deaths being a key or sole arbiter of a movie’s positive or negative spin…. Well I was inclined to agree until I thought of one of my favourite war movies.

     “A Bridge Too Far” is a movie about a battle which Failed in it’s stated objective. Was depicted as failing in part due to Gen. Montgomery’s staff arrogantly ignoring the voices of Dutch, Polish, and Low ranking British personnel when they suggested problems with the plan that was launched. And shows one brave Subaltern risking enemy fire to retrieve supplies from out in the open, only to die as the supply crate reveals itself to be full of spare red berets.

     It is a grandiose, Pro British, Pro Allies, World War II movie. But perhaps not by your standards?

     Anyhow, My own analysis suggests we are going to have to agree to disagree about the intent and/or meaning of military deaths in films.

     I think we also disagree on the degree to which Military myths from The Alamo to Cameron are a part of military culture.

109. Noah Writes:”People in the military aren’t better than people outside the military; the institution of the military is no better than other institutions. These statements should not be controversial.”

     I differ. I think institutions are all have different criteria and different levels of screening capability and intent.

     they are all… snowflakes.

110. Mike Hunter writes”

     “(quoting me) ‘I’m not sure if that makes Heinlein a fascist but it does remind us that a love of militarism is one of the … um… symptoms of Fascism.’
     ————————————-
     Well, so is admiration for the peasantry, as mentioned at https://hoodedutilitarian.com/2011/07/movie-review-jean-luc-godards-les-carabiniers/ . So, should we be chilled when Cesar Chavez does so?
     ————————————–
     In Praise of Peasants
     “Our lives are dependent on the sacrifice of the Campesinos”- Cesar Chavez
     —————————————
     More at http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/04/17-1 .
     And the Nazis were opposed to cruelty to animals, too; should we be wary of Humane Society members?”

     Well Mike, I read ‘Mein Kampf’ as well as ‘Das Capital’ and a ‘complete’ edition of “The Count of Monte Cristo” because I’m curious reader with delusions of erudition. Hitler’s turgid and incoherent ‘manifesto’ was an early such read. It predated my military service. The chilling moment for me was during boot camp when a couple of us took our most sad sack platoon member and tried to coach him into not being our NCO’s natural target. While giving said sad sack a extemporaneous lecture on Posture, Precise dress, comportment and linking it with morale and self confidence I caught an echo of Hitler’s passage on the benefits of military service to young men.

     It sure has HELL, chilled me.

111. ———————
     Noah Berlatsky says:

     …I think this whole conversation tends to demonstrate that people prickle when you suggest, not that military personnel and institutions are *worse* than civilian ones, but rather that they are *the same* or no better. Thus, anything that does not assert the superiority of the military is denigrating the military…
     ———————-

     I don’t think the military is, overall, better than the rest of society in every way; for example, critical questioning of orders is (understandably) hardly encouraged, thus ending up with modern-day troops who did atrocities unquestioningly repeating the Nazi war-criminal excuse, “I was just following orders.”

     And a volunteer military, while having the strength that its members actually want to be there, has the weakness of being “staffed” with ideologically a more right-wing group than the rest of society. Had there been proportionately more liberals to express qualms, would an Abu Ghraib or abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo have been less likely to happen?

     ———————–
     Nonetheless, I continue to believe that people in the military remain people, that the military as an institution remains an institution, and that, therefore, neither military people nor military institutions should be trusted to do the right thing in situations where they have an opportunity to do anything else.
     ———————–

     By that thinking, people in the medical field remain people, medicine as an institution remains an institution, and, therefore, neither doctors nor hospitals should be trusted to do the right thing in situations where they have an opportunity to do anything else.

     So if you have appendicitis, let any schmo down the street operate on you; what’s the diff?

     ———————–
     JPG White says:

     …Hitler’s turgid and incoherent ‘manifesto’…predated my military service.
     ————————

     I recall one top Nazi referred to “Mein Kampf” as “that silly book”!

     ————————
     The chilling moment for me was during boot camp when a couple of us took our most sad sack platoon member and tried to coach him into not being our NCO’s natural target. While giving said sad sack a extemporaneous lecture on Posture, Precise dress, comportment and linking it with morale and self confidence I caught an echo of Hitler’s passage on the benefits of military service to young men.

     It sure as HELL, chilled me.
     ————————-

     Oh, come on; any self-esteem coach would argue (and studies have proved it) that if you slouch, dress like a slob, and your life is a chaotic muddle you’re liable to think poorly about yourself. And if you stand up straight, dress and carry yourself with crisp neatness, are organized (even if it’s an order imposed by military routine) you’ll feel better, and project an image which is more likely to get good reactions from employers, prospective lovers, NCOs; thus adding positive feedback to the “feeling good about yourself” cycle.

     —————————
     10 Ways to Instantly Build Self Confidence

     …Although clothes don’t make the man, they certainly affect the way he feels about himself. No one is more conscious of your physical appearance than you are. When you don’t look good, it changes the way you carry yourself and interact with other people…

     Similarly, the way a person carries herself tells a story. People with slumped shoulders and lethargic movements display a lack of self confidence. They aren’t enthusiastic about what they’re doing and they don’t consider themselves important. By practicing good posture, you’ll automatically feel more confident. Stand up straight, keep your head up, and make eye contact. You’ll make a positive impression on others and instantly feel more alert and empowered…

     Along the same lines as personal appearance, physical fitness has a huge effect on self confidence. If you’re out of shape, you’ll feel insecure, unattractive, and less energetic. By working out, you improve your physical appearance, energize yourself, and accomplish something positive. Having the discipline to work out not only makes you feel better, it creates positive momentum that you can build on the rest of the day…
     ——————————–
     http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/10-ways-to-instantly-build-self-confidence/

     If that reeked too much of pop culture, from “Scientific American”:

     ———————————
     Stop Slouching!
     Good posture boosts self-esteem

     When you were growing up, your mother probably told you to sit up straight, because good posture helps you look confident and make a good impression. And now it turns out that sitting up straight can also improve how you feel about yourself, according to a study in the October 2009 issue of the European Journal of Social Psychology. Researchers asked college students to rate themselves on how good they would be as job candidates and employees. Those told to sit up straight with their chests out gave themselves higher ratings than those instructed to slouch while filling out the rating form. Once again, Mom was right…
     ———————————-
     http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=stop-slouching

     (In one of the comments to that article, someone wrote, “I…recall my years in the Army, when a proper uniform and correct military posture really did improve my self esteem.”)

     Along that vein, a “True Story” cartoon from Derf: http://www.derfcity.com/newstuff/newtoon1.html

     Just ’cause Hitler said it, doesn’t necessarily make something evil…

112. “By that thinking, people in the medical field remain people, medicine as an institution remains an institution, and, therefore, neither doctors nor hospitals should be trusted to do the right thing in situations where they have an opportunity to do anything else.”

     Appendectomyis a relatively simple procedure. The medical profession’s handling of obstetrics in this country., on the other hand, is a scandal, and suggests strongly that neither doctors not the profession as a whole should be trusted.

113. Mike, you’re missing my point about my personal experience. Just as I’m sure I’d have agreed with ‘Mein Kampf’ if he’d argued that water was wet, or that it was bright when the sun was shining. I mostly agreed with the sentiment of that passage, and the writing of it was… actually good. Thus, making it stand from the rest.

     It was still disconcerting to be lecturing someone else and realize to my chagrin that I was plaguerising a man I despise.

     That moment was deeply disturbing. It gave me brief and quiet pause then, and is a moment that lingers in my mind to this day.

114. Mike, Noah: my thinking on the point you’re debating right now is a synergy of your opinions.

     I don’t think it’s just the military profession that has ‘cachet’, putting it on a pedestal.

     As Nurse I’ve seen both sides of that veil in the medical profession too.

     In the past year, I’ve the police in my hometown do things both institutionally (G20), and personally (drunk driving, slow and patronising responses to real emergencies) That my attitude towards them has changed from a mild hero worship to something like: “Wearing a funny suit doesn’t give you a free pass”

     The above has caused a cascade of altering attitudes since it is our faith in the state, and certain professions that allow them to function properly.

     though I’ve never had a problem with them personally, I can’t think of my State’s internal security troopers with the same trust and pleasure, that I used to when I just thought they were one of our national symbols and a bunch of badass cops.

115. Clergy (of all faiths), one could argue, also fall into the category of a profession with special priviledges/status, that at times have proven to be a case of misplaced trust.

116. It’s kind of odd — nobody in these comments is actually disagreeing overall with Russ Maheras.

     Russ, you’re one of those guys who can’t take “yes” for an answer….

117. The Devil is in the details. … and the side issues.

118. I don’t doubt JPGWhite’s good intentions but his comment re: the clergy originates from the kind of sensational misinformation, anti-clericalism, and uglier hatreds that have seriously downgraded discussion in the public square. Any unbiased look at the statistics will show that desp[ite a fraction of perverts that are bound to turn up in any institution, what is marvelous is how statistically RARE these cases are in the Church. May I suggest that this has to do with some institutional values and respect that the institutions we’re discussing could profit from studying–seriously, and without relying on the media.

119. STM, Joy’s comment was very mild. It seems like you’re channeling some other argument that nobody here made.

120. I should clarify again that I don’t hold him in particular at fault but I think he’s clearly speaking in a style of wry understatement about controversies that originate and refer to a overheated climate of exaggeration and distortion. Re: a discussion of institutional values, I think it’s relevant.

121. Sorry, I didn’t realize Joy is a she.

122. I’m not sure Joy is a he? Joy, what pronoun do you prefer?

     Joy specifically wasn’t talking about a particular denomination. There are lots and lots and lots of reasons, many of them voiced most articulately and forcefully by Christians, to not completely trust institutionalized churches. I presume you’re talking about the Catholic Church’s pedophile scandals…but that really is you who’s talking about that. Joy didn’t bring them up.

123. ————————–
     Noah Berlatsky says:

     …Appendectomy is a relatively simple procedure.
     —————————

     Compared to brain surgery or a heart bypass, sure it is. Would you want the kids at Quikee-Lube to get some minimal training and be performing appendectomies?

     And, the reason why surgeons do appendectomies, instead of technical assistants, is because things can go hideously wrong; other conditions can be discovered once the patient is opened up…

     —————————
     The medical profession’s handling of obstetrics in this country., on the other hand, is a scandal, and suggests strongly that neither doctors not the profession as a whole should be trusted.
     —————————-

     Well, whaddaya mean by “trusted”? To most of us, it’s to “expect a certain degree of technical competence.”

     But to some, to “respect/trust” the military, or doctors (as “AIDS is a hoax” believer Ace Backwards maintains) means to have blind, unquestioning worship; to hold those groups up as infallible demigods.

     Sorry, I don’t think anyone here is so worshipful.

     Pretty much agree on your condemnation of the way obstetrics is practiced. One could add as other examples of the profit-mindedness of the medical biz the pushing of the wholly unnecessary (but profit-generating) surgery of circumcision; the fact that surgical treatment for breast cancer varies from state to state, following the local “fashion”: with some using a simple lumpectomy, others of the “let’s whack ’em both off to be on the safe side” school.

     Despite the fact that many studies have shown…

     “95 percent of “preventive” mastectomies offer no benefit, study finds”
     http://www.naturalnews.com/029105_mastectomies_scam.html

     ——————————
     Mastectomy Not Necessary for Early-Stage Breast Cancer
     Many Women Not Told That Breast-Conserving Surgery Is an Option

     Two landmark studies confirm what a small group of maverick surgeons proposed nearly 40 years ago: Women need not lose a breast to survive early-stage breast cancer.

     After 20 years of research, the studies — published in the Oct. 17 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine — show that removing just the tumor offers women an equal chance of survival compared with removing the entire breast and many surrounding tissues.

     “It’s a footprint in history,” says Bernard Fisher, MD, director of the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project. “The studies [unequivocally] show that more is not better, that the mutilation surgery performed in the past can be put at rest, that it is now part of medical history,” he tells WebMD. Fisher is the lead researcher of one of the NEJM studies.
     ——————————–
     http://www.discussanything.com/forums/showthread.php/16416-Mastectomy-Not-Necessary-for-Early-Stage-Breast-Cancer

     ——————————-
     After monitoring more than 2,500 breast cancer patients for 20 years, researchers have concluded that women fare just as well with an operation that removes the cancerous lump as they do with having the entire breast removed.

     Some medical experts said they hope the findings, by researchers in the United States and Italy, will end a simmering debate over whether it is really safe to offer a lumpectomy, rather than a mastectomy, to most women with breast cancer…
     ——————————–
     http://articles.sfgate.com/2002-10-17/news/17568327_1_lumpectomy-breast-cancer-wars-lymph

     …breasts are still getting sliced off right and left!

     Yet, despite those gross offenses, I still have a fair degree of respect and trust for the medical profession. Not necessarily in its overall morality, but in expecting an amount of expertise and technical ability. (Which wouldn’t stop me from, in some serious situation, getting a second opinion, or researching an illness online.)

     …And a fair degree of respect and trust for the local police, for that matter. While aware that for all I know, all may not necessarily be honest, or averse to cooking up some evidence to ensure a conviction…

     ———————————–
     Alex says:

     It’s kind of odd — nobody in these comments is actually disagreeing overall with Russ Maheras.

     Russ, you’re one of those guys who can’t take “yes” for an answer….
     ————————————

     Heh, heh! Though I’m afraid that nothing but near-total reverence for the military (while admitting that a few, rare “bad apples” squeak through) will satisfy him.

     Not that my arguments against Noah’s “the military is no better than any other group of bozos” viewpoints means I’m blind to deep flaws in the system. There’s the disgracefully frequent case of modern-day generals who push for certain weapons systems retiring, then getting highly-paid executive positions with the very companies that made those systems, for one:

     ————————————-
     … there was a time when retiring flag officers (at least those who weren’t associated with airplanes) thought it dishonorable to accept a job working for a munitions maker. High ranking WWII officers I knew told me that, in the decade after the war, it was considered entirely proper to accept an executive position with a major civilian corporation – and a number of the most distinguished WWII generals did just that. On the other hand, back then any general who retired to a job in the defense industry was viewed with contempt by his peers.

     Now we jump to the present, where Bryan Bender of the Boston Globe recently wrote a thorough expose of the current decisions and character of our generals after they retire from serving our country…
     ———————————–
     Read it and barf: http://archive.truthout.org/solution-fixing-general-disgust66776

     See also: http://www.truth-out.org/buying-and-selling-pentagon-part-ii

     ———————————–
     …The Pentagon is not just incompetent. It is corrupt. In November 2009 the Pentagon’s Defense Contract Audit Agency (DCAA), the federal watchdog responsible for auditing oversight of military contractors, raised the question of criminal wrongdoing when it found that the audits that did occur were riddled with serious breaches of auditor independence. One Pentagon auditor admitted he did not perform detailed tests because, “The contractor would not appreciate it.”

     Why would the Pentagon allow its contractors to get away with fraud? To answer that question we need to understand the incestuous relationship between the Pentagon and its contractors that has been going on for years, and is getting worse…
     ———————————-
     http://www.alternet.org/news/151617/why_is_the_most_wasteful_government_agency_not_part_of_the_deficit_discussion?page=2

     …The facts that soldiers are lied to by their superiors about health hazards they may be exposed to, made to use dangerous, badly-produced equipment with major design flaws; are deceived by recruiters about the choices and occupations they may have when they enlist; get their benefits slashed by politicians who portray themselves as defenders of the military; are treated like crap at VA hospitals…

124. “There are lots and lots and lots of reasons, many of them voiced most articulately and forcefully by Christians, to not completely trust institutionalized churches.”

     Christians have always been the most articulate and forceful critics of their institutions but we are speaking of “trust” that is inherent to the demands made of its members. Criticism that distorts the faith collapses under its own contradictions.

125. re: Gender, I’ll answer to Joy and Will be pleased if you refer to me in the feminine. but will not take undo offence over errors caused by a name full of initials on a Faceless forum.

     re: clergy. I brought them up only exactly as an example of both ‘placing on a pedestal’ and tearing it down.

     the phrase ‘of all faiths’ is key. Sensational stories of some quite rare Catholic priests really barely fit in it. Of those who claim to speak for the Westboro church I’m sure some claim to be clergy. The Dove church’s publicity stunt of last year involved clergy of that church. I’m sure there was someone claiming the role of clergymen in “Church of Yayweh” which shoved a prediction of nuclear rapture within (then) two months under my door in 2006. For those who see the past as something more than the last twenty Minutes I hold up the Thirty Years War. A little unfair perhaps but Christianity was about as old then, as Islam is today. Some of the voices of Islam for good or for ill, are clergy…

     …I should stop now. I hope I haven’t over stated my point. I don’t want to turn this into a religious debate.

126. Mike Hunter writes: “…And a fair degree of respect and trust for the local police, for that matter. While aware that for all I know, all may not necessarily be honest, or averse to cooking up some evidence to ensure a conviction…”

     Mike, I long for the day when I was that trusting. However last year despite a billion dollars spent on security, despite a police to ‘persons present downtown who might be participating in some way’ ratio that I’m sure many G20 teams would have DREAMED of, despite an almost orwellian level of intelligence about which groups planned to do what and when…

     The Toronto Police managed to somehow slip up and allow about 150 wannabe anarchists, about 40 minutes of cordoned off police and media supervised playtime and then used that incident to attack the remainder of the (very loosely defined) protestors and shut them down. Secret laws were enacted and then abused. People were interned for periods longer than that is lawful under our code of rights in what would meet the Boer war defnition of ‘concentration camp’. Police claimed on national television that the chainmail shirt of an SCA enthusiast on his way OUT of town, was proof of an organised attempt to armour protesters….

     I could go on. It was a joke compared to what dictators routinely and publicly get up to. But I still think it was one of the worst attacks on Canadian democracy in my lifetime.

     Since that event. I’ve personally confronted multiple police officers who think a badge in their back pocket excuses their drunk driving. And a three hour response time to an attempted murder that was capped with the patronising “don’t worry citizen he cannot have gone far”. The above said while the patronizing officer was standing under a city bus stop about a minute away from a depot where a subway line, three sattelite stops for neighbouring cities bus services and an Intercity commuter bus station all were collected to together.

     No my faith in organs of my state is rather low right now.

127. Luther sure didn’t trust the Church. Niebuhr sure didn’t trust the Catholic Church. And on and on.

     I’m very sympathetic to Christian perspectives. But suggesting that a mild comment that various churches as institutions may not always be trustworthy is somehow a duplicitous and misinformed assault on the faith which collapses under its own contradictions…come off it. If any church really was unable to deal with criticism that mild, it would be completely broken as an institution, and should absolutely not be trusted at all.

128. “Well, whaddaya mean by “trusted”? To most of us, it’s to “expect a certain degree of technical competence.””

     Trust means trust. It’s expecting not just technical competence, but good will and best practices. It’s assuming that a person will do their job well — that for a doctor the person will provide good care. Obstetricians in the U.S. don’t do that. Our care is substandard, unnecessary procedures are regularly performed, and as a result people have bad outcomes at ludicrously high rates compared to the rest of the world. Yet most people trust their obstetricians. And they shouldn’t.

     I don’t think people worship doctors. But they trust them way too much. I think that’s true of many institutions, the military not least among them. And the military is much closer to being routinely worshipped than doctors are.

129. Of course the obverse side of that speaking as a nurse is having to deal with ‘wikipedia doctors’ who feel competent to micromanage and even override you. Makes one wonder why one spent those years in nursing school.

     I’m sure military types feel similar frustration and contempt towards their civilian bosses at times.

130. Noah Writes:
     “I’m very sympathetic to Christian perspectives. But suggesting that a mild comment that various churches as institutions may not always be trustworthy is somehow a duplicitous and misinformed assault on the faith which collapses under its own contradictions…come off it. ”

     Thanks for the support Noah. My comment goes even beyond that, I said ‘all faiths’ not all christian faiths. and by that I even meant hipsters overdoing their ‘faith’ in the flying spaghetti monster. not just Christians. not by a long shot.

131. Holy crap! I miss looking at this thread for a-day-and-a-half and there’s like 40 new posts.

     All I have time to say at this point is to Mike, who, as he is wont to do, has totally misrepresented my viewpoint to make his arguments seem more reasonable.

     Mike said: “Heh, heh! Though I’m afraid that nothing but near-total reverence for the military (while admitting that a few, rare “bad apples” squeak through) will satisfy him.”

     Of course, I neither said, nor even inferred, anything of the sort. My argument regarding “Super 8” and other such military-related popular culture stuff is that more often than not their portrayals are dumb, stereotypical and anti-military. And despite Mike’s inferrences that I am over-the-top sensitive to such things, there are lots of other people, of all political stripes (non-veterans and veterans alike), who have observed and commented on the same issue in recent years.

132. So I’m jumping in here really late, but here goes…

     This is mostly a response to Charles Reese’s comment way up there: I think focusing on war movies is too restrictive, since the military appears in many other genres. Super 8 and Transformers 3 are not war movies, but the military is featured prominently in both.

     As for military portrayals: I’ve seen a grand total of 4 movies this summer: Thor, X-Men First Class, Transformers 3, and Captain America. Three of them had appearances by the military and one (Thor) had a military-ish black ops agency, SHIELD. Only the X-Men movie actually portrayed the military in a genuinely unflattering light. Transformers 3 and Captain America were practically love letters to the US military. Thor I would split down the middle: SHIELD is portrayed as pushy, federal bullies, but ultimately they seem to be well-intentioned. I also saw Battle Los Angeles on DVD (it came out back in March) and it’s basically a 2 hr recruitment ad for the Marines.

     So a couple of major Hollywood releases are anti-military, but overall I’d say the military had more positive than negative portrayals in 2011.

133. Richard, of your four I’ve only seen one but I would agree with your assessment of Captain America.

134. I agree with you, Richard, but there are only so many minutes I’ll devote to compiling lists on a blog post, you know? (You can read my take on Cap by clicking on my name.) There are also tons of quasi-war films that tend to be pretty favorable, if not propaganda: Top Gun, Red Dawn, Commando, Predator, Aliens, etc.. Russ is blinkered by his own ideological attachment. There have been plenty of TV shows with good guy military figures, too. The most negative recent assessments of the military come from docs, such as The Tillman Story and Standard Operating Procedure.

     What next, a former cop complaining about the negative portrayal of his colleagues?

     In truth, scientists probably have the most to complain about.

135. Here are a few anti-military films from just the past four years. They don’t include documentaries. All but a handful were box office failures, so it’s tough to argue that they were being done for commercial, rather than political, reasons.

     2007 – In the Valley of Elah
     2007 – Grace is Gone
     2007 – Rendition
     2007 – The Kingdom
     2007 – Redacted
     2007 – Lions for Lambs
     2007 – Home of the Brave
     2008 – Gran Torino
     2008 – Stop Loss
     2008 – War, Inc.
     2008 – The Incredible Hulk
     2008 – Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay
     2009 – Brothers
     2009 – The Hurt Locker
     2009 – Avatar
     2009 – The Men Who Stare at Goats
     2010 – The Losers
     2010 – Green Zone
     2011 – Super 8
     2011 – Source Code

     And don’t even get me started on video games…

136. R Maharas writes: “All but a handful were box office failures, so it’s tough to argue that they were being done for commercial, rather than political, reasons.”

     Really? now Really. just because they sucked or didn’t capture the fickle public they MUST be political screeds. Sorry no. I don’t buy that. Whatever else we might agree or disagree on about the nature of these movies I DO NOT agree with logic above.

137. I’m not exactly sure I’d call Men Who Stare At Goats (the film) anti-military. The crazy hippie military commander is ultimately shown to be correct, and to have figured out a way to self-actualized through developing mind over matter. In addition, the movie carefully undermines the central insight of the book it’s based on, and so essentially covers up and ignores evidence that the military engaged in torture and possibly assassination to cover it up. In short, it took a non-fiction book which presented evidence of military corruption, and fictionalized it to make the military look better, if not perfect. That doesn’t really seem anti-military to me.

     Source Code definitely presents the institution of the military as flawed and corrupt…but the military saves America from hideous terrorist attacks, and the hero is a upright military man who bucks the system. It’s definitely a film where the problem with the military is an individual ambitious idiot, not a systemic failure, I think.

     Those are the only two I’ve seen, so can’t speak to the rest!

138. The Kingdom was a political and FBI story. It made statements about American and Saudi policy that were critical. It had a cute bit where both sides vowed of the other side “We’re going to kill them all.”

     But I’m sorry I can’t describe it as anti-military. AT best it’s anti-American foreign policy and I thought we agreed that in a democracy soldiers don’t MAKE policy?

     I didn’t see all of Gran Torino so perhaps I missed the part where the army shows up and acts like dicks. Or is it because it’s a Korea vet who is so Awesomely and Righteously out of step with his over entitled and excuses filled times that somehow makes it anti-military?

     The Hulk played one General and one Foreign Mercenary in a bad light. Everyone else was just doing their jobs with honour and bravery. I’m willing to concede it was Anti-military but only EXTREMELY mildly so. And frankly even there it had the comic tradition of a dangerous Hulk and General with personal motives yes, but legitimate concerns. How far did you expect it to stray from the comics just to make the military look good?

     Avatar was just dumb. It was Custer’s last stand written from a native point of view and stopping at the high point for the natives’ side. The Black Hills eventually got mined and Sitting bull eventually was exiled to Canada. and how can you take movie hero seriously when his renegade name is ‘MORON’? besides the ‘bad guy’ was a BADASS. He was too tough to breath. oh and he was a company merc. Not any nation’s soldier.

     Men who stare at goats struck me as mocking new age hippy theories rather than the military. but that’s me.

     I haven’t seen the Movie. But I’m curious. are you familier with the original DC comics ‘The Losers?’ it was set in the same DC ‘verse WWII as “Sgt. Rock” and “The Haunted Tank” I wonder if you think THAT version of ‘the Losers’ was anti-military.

     As for the rest. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t seen. and I thought I was a war movie buff.

139. I didn’t see it (nor will I), but wasn’t Grace is Gone more anti-Iraq War than anti-military?

     The Kingdom features the FBI.

     Lions for Lambs seems more critical of politicians behind war than the military, such as these politicians don’t know enough to make military decisions.

     Isn’t Home of the Brave just about a soldiers acting bravely on a mission?

     As mentioned by others, Gran Torino’s only ex-soldier is the hero of the story. It’s also Eastwood’s best character in years.

     Were there any military characters even in War, Inc.? Satirizing foreign affairs is anti-military?

     The Incredible Hulk features the military trying to stop a huge monster. Granted, we’re supposed to identify with the monster, but I’m not sure that makes the film anti-military, any more than it’s anti-dude running in fear on the street.

     Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay? Really? They smoke pot with Dubya.

     The Hurt Locker glamorizes soldiers and takes no political stance on the Iraq War.

     The Losers is a glamorized depiction of a black ops team who are framed by an evil rogue agent. Was Quantum of Solace anti-secret agent because a few bad apples fucked over James Bond? I’d suggest that this kind of film (much like The Hurt Locker) sells a fantasy of heightened individualism within government service.

     The Men Who Stare at Goats – what Noah said.

     So, I’ll concede In the Valley of Elah (even though it features both decent and psychologically corrupted soldiers), Green Zone (about a heroic soldier betrayed by his superiors) and Redacted (definitely critical of military bureaucracy). Not sure about Brothers. Hardly, an anti-military trend. I’m not sure how you’d allow for drama within the military, since any sort of tension between soldiers is deemed anti-military.

140. From what I read, Stop Loss seemed a balanced account of the emotions and thoughts surrounding the titular policy. Is that anti-military?

141. Now that you’ve all had a chance to digest my list, how many of the films listed, or other films from that same period (“positive” OR “negative”), do you think came out that accurately portrayed military life as most military people experience it? Not many — and most of those were documentaries that the average populace probaly will never see.

     The fact is, most popular culture depictions of the military are shallow, inaccurate, over-the-top, and poorly researched. And, as some of you mentioned, while this is also certainly true regarding a few other professions, so what? My essay is about popular culture depictions of the Air Force, and the military in general, because I’ve been around the military extensively for about 30 of the past 33 years.

     The sad part about this whole discussion is even if you all saw every film on ANY recent list of nationally distributed theatrical releases that you, I or anyone put together, you STILL would not have a clear picture of what life is like in the U.S. military today. You’d have some glimpses, but those would be drowned out by all of the background noise.

     It’s no different for the majority of mainstream media coverage. For example, without Googling, do any of you have any idea of what role the U.S. Air Force played during and after the recent tsunami in Japan and subsequent nuclear reactor disaster? Probably not. And you almost certainly won’t find out later in some popular culture vehicle.

142. But…movies don’t give an accurate portrayal of anything. It’s not just one or two professions…they don’t give an accurate portrayal of how human beings think, or act, or talk, or how institutions work, or any of that. They’re not really even making an effort to do that, for the most part. And when they are, they often don’t do it very well.

     The fact that movies don’t accurately portray the military isn’t a sign of anti-military bias. It’s just a sign that movies aren’t real.

143. Russ (May I call you that? I hate using people’s last names when I’m talking to them, it strikes me as rude)

     Perhaps your above post wasn’t addressed to me. But I’d already stipulated that every complaint you’ve made about Super 8 is one with which I’d probably agree. Likewise you don’t have to tell -me- or anyone else who has earned their dog tags how often and how badly the media messes up. As a Nurse, I guarantee you House Grey’s anatomy etc. do very little to capture my current reality either.

     Where you and I have butted heads, is over assertions in the comment section that I’ve interpreted as:

     a) the simple fact of military death. is of such overwhelming negative impact that no film that has military death can be pro military.

     b) Military hagiography is a creation of armchair enthusiasts and has no connection with military culture.

     c) a Film without any military involvement (such as some of the ones on your most recent list) is still anti military for some reason I cannot fathom.

     It is on these points where we seem to continue, and I’m beginning to suspect, always will.

     Joy.

144. err… I suspect always will disagree.

145. Russ as to the final point in your most recent post. I think it’s getting a little off topic but I’ll answer it.

     It always sucks when an institution you love is treated with ignorance by others. And you’re right I don’t know the half of your beloved United States Air Force is still doing today.

     On the other hand I love my country and I bet you’re equally ignorant of Canada’s contributions. Weather it’s aid to Haiti, (yesterday’s news I know) A Canadian commander for the NATO mission into Libya, or whatever our nation might have done in turn for Japan.

     Now you could argue that your special interest is more special or more interesting than mine. but the fact remains we all have things we care about that the general public doesn’t even know about, possibly doesn’t even want to.

     You have my empathy but I’m not sure what you expect everyone to do to make you happy.

146. —————————
     STMurphy says:

     …Any unbiased look at the statistics will show that despite a fraction of perverts that are bound to turn up in any institution, what is marvelous is how statistically RARE these cases are in the Church. May I suggest that this has to do with some institutional values and respect that the institutions we’re discussing could profit from studying–seriously, and without relying on the media…
     ——————————

     Indeed, pedophile priests are pretty rare. Where things get sticky is when higher-ups decide that, in order to protect the image of the institution, not to mention the job security of even the offending members, incidents of abuse are covered up; the child abuser simply shipped off to another parish where “fresh meat” awaits. Which makes the entire institution complicit in the crimes involved.

     It doesn’t help that this institution — the Catholic Church — holds itself up as “holier-than-thou”; goes about preaching total abstinence (even masturbation is a sin) to teenagers with hormones coming out of their ears, when it can’t even keep its priests — trained, supposedly committed adults — from having sex.

     JPG, sorry to hear about your dismal experiences with the Toronto police. (Though it’s unfortunately no surprise that, like cops here, they act like repressive tools of the Power Structure whenever any group might threaten it; ’cause that’s part of their job too, like it’s unfortunately due to political pressure a part of the U.S. military’s mission to protect the economic interests of American corporations, even overthrowing governments that might nationalize assets which Big Biz here wants cheap.

     ——————————-
     Noah Berlatsky says:

     …Trust means trust. It’s expecting not just technical competence, but good will and best practices. It’s assuming that a person will do their job well — that for a doctor the person will provide good care.
     ——————————–

     I’ll assume that, but won’t totally take it for granted; keep an eye out for possible errors, treatments that don’t yield results; research the condition online, for added info…

     ——————————–
     I don’t think people worship doctors. But they trust them way too much. I think that’s true of many institutions, the military not least among them. And the military is much closer to being routinely worshipped than doctors are.
     ——————————–

     I certainly agree with “trust them way too much,” as opposed to maintaining they shouldn’t be trusted any more than the average guy…

     ——————————–
     R. Maheras says:

     Mike said: “Heh, heh! Though I’m afraid that nothing but near-total reverence for the military (while admitting that a few, rare “bad apples” squeak through) will satisfy him.”

     Of course, I neither said, nor even inferred, anything of the sort. My argument regarding “Super 8? and other such military-related popular culture stuff is that more often than not their portrayals are dumb, stereotypical and anti-military. …despite Mike’s inferrences that I am over-the-top sensitive to such things…
     ———————————

     Oh? So, what are some movies you’d suggest as offering an accurate portrayal of the military, warts and all?

     But reading farther down, I see that it’s virtually impossible for a film to do so; because your ideal would be for them to “accurately portray…military life as most military people experience it,” and since most in the military aren’t involved in the audience-exciting biz of combat, how many would buy tickets for the nonadventures of “Joe Schlopotnic, Supply Requisition Clerk”? Or, “Aircraft Maintenance Technician!”)

     And how could a film cover every single solitary facet of what it’s like to be at war? It’d take 24/7 coverage of the whole experience of every soldier to do so.

     ———————————-
     …even if you all saw every film on ANY recent list of nationally distributed theatrical releases that you, I or anyone put together, you STILL would not have a clear picture of what life is like in the U.S. military today. You’d have some glimpses, but those would be drowned out by all of the background noise.
     ———————————-

     And, you “…would not have a clear picture of what LIFE is like,” either. Because filmmakers know audiences prefer, as Hitchcock put it, to get a slice of cake, rather than a slice of life in their movies.

     Why, to look at Hollywood or TV fare, people never have to trim their toenails, raising kids takes but a few minutes a day, you hardly ever have to show up to your job, most Americans are financially very well-off…

     ———————————
     Here are a few anti-military films from just the past four years…
     ———————————

     To pick a few that I’m more familiar with… (Spoilers at all the plot summaries in the sites linked to)

     The baddies in “Avatar” — as the movie clearly states– are not military, but corporate mercenaries, no different from Blackwater “contractors,” for all their olive-drab gear.

     Reading the synopsis of “The Hurt Locker” at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hurt_Locker , it’s fairly evident that not only is the military not being attacked, but that it’s the stress of combat in a guerrilla situation, with IEDs planted all over the place, which is the film’s subject.

     I guess what makes “Gran Torino” “anti-military” is that “Walt Kowalski (Clint Eastwood), a…Korean War veteran…is a difficult man, unloved by his two sons and their families…”? That “Walt…[tells a young guy seeking revenge] that he is too young to kill and that killing a man is the worst thing that ever happened to him”? Well, gee, a lot of vets weren’t happy about having to kill other human beings, no matter how moral the cause. [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Torino ]

     Ooh, I can see the image of the military being forever besmirched by “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” (more spoilers):

     ————————————–
     On an airplane bound for Guantanamo Bay, Kumar eventually apologizes and the two forgive each other. They manage to escape (by using one of Harris’ mace cans) and cause Fox [the “obsessive and racist Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security”] and his assistant Beecher to be killed in the process. After crashing through the roof of George W. Bush’s house in Texas, the three bond while smoking marijuana. The President then promises to pardon Harold and Kumar…
     ———————————–
     We’re talking documentary realism here!

     Re “The Kingdom,” rather than the military being involved, the heroes are a batch of FBI agents investigating a terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia. But it discusses “…the origins of U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations… the conflicts that have risen since the late 1940s for the rightful ownership of the oil industry…explains the 9/11 terrorist attacks and how the majority of the hijackers were Saudis. This raises serious questions on the relationship between Saudi Arabia and the United States…” [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kingdom_%28film%29 ]

     Is questioning U.S. foreign policy “anti-military”? A classic tactic; make the policy, no matter how atrociously misguided, beyond criticism by claiming it’s the troops that are being attacked.

     ———————————–
     R. Maheras says:

     …All but a handful were box office failures, so it’s tough to argue that they were being done for commercial, rather than political, reasons.
     ————————————

     Oh, so if a film isn’t sufficiently gung-ho and lays an egg at the box office, therefore those far-leftist Hollywood producers, not particularly concerned with making money, thought it was worth making?

     Reading on, I see some of my comments have been anticipated…

     ————————————-
     Charles Reece says:

     I didn’t see it (nor will I), but wasn’t Grace is Gone more anti-Iraq War than anti-military?

     …Lions for Lambs seems more critical of politicians behind war than the military, such as these politicians don’t know enough to make military decisions.

     …Were there any military characters even in War, Inc.? Satirizing foreign affairs is anti-military?…
     ————————————–

     http://i1123.photobucket.com/albums/l542/Mike_59_Hunter/penguinhatestroops2.jpg

     And the same gang maintained that criticizing George W. Bush’s actions meant that you were “anti-American”…

     ————————————-
     Noah Berlatsky says:

     But…movies don’t give an accurate portrayal of anything. It’s not just one or two professions…they don’t give an accurate portrayal of how human beings think, or act, or talk, or how institutions work, or any of that. They’re not really even making an effort to do that, for the most part. And when they are, they often don’t do it very well.

     The fact that movies don’t accurately portray the military isn’t a sign of anti-military bias. It’s just a sign that movies aren’t real.
     ————————————-

     Speaking of another field, I read some books by real-life medical examiners, who griped about how, thanks to “Quincy,” people expected them to be able to tell somebody’s height, weight, personal habits from a single hair…

147. Mike: using the 40 minutes of supervised playtime of about 150 people in order to excuse the suppression, asault, illegal confinement of thousands was not a personal experience. but It happened in my town and set my faith in cops teetering.

     What toppled it was widespread small scale personal corruption (“the rules don’t apply to me because of the brass shield in my wallet”). And the patronizing incompetence “don’t worry your little head, citizen he can’t have gone far” (only like Halfway to Ottawa!!)

     One of things that underpins our firearms debates here is the complete discredit that self defence has with the general public. Which is sad because If you actually need police protection they should show up in about enough time to tie a tag on your toe.

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