Tag: Hollywood

The Rambo Mystique

W.J. Astore

Forgotten Lessons from “First Blood”

I remember seeing the first Rambo flick (“First Blood”) in a movie theater in 1982 when I was nineteen and rooting for Sly Stallone’s character against the police and national guardsmen who are sent to kill him.  The police think it’ll be easy to subdue one man, but we the viewers know better.  As Colonel Trautman, Rambo’s former commanding officer, says in the movie: In war, it’s wise to have “a good supply of body bags” on hand, a telling reminder about the harsh reality of combat.

In “First Blood,” military clothing and the flag offer no protection to John Rambo, who’s treated as a lowlife by the local sheriff 

Yet, there’s a deeper meaning to “First Blood” captured near the end of the movie, when John Rambo, having improbably acted as a one-man invincible army (a true “Army of One”), bitterly reflects on his own post-Vietnam experiences.  Rambo, breaking down, admits he can’t adapt to regular civilian life.  A loner, he feels himself to be a loser, even though he was decorated for heroism in war with the Medal of Honor.  Wounded and haunted by war, his soul seared by violence, he surrenders to Colonel Trautman.

The original Rambo movie wasn’t necessarily deep, but it did remind us that soldiers like Rambo carried hidden wounds of war; it also highlighted a societal suspicion, whether just or unjust, of military veterans.  The sheriff in “First Blood” has no respect for Rambo as a military “hero”; he sees him as a disreputable and dangerous outsider and just wants to be rid of him, one way or another.

Subsequent Rambo films would portray him as a virtually unstoppable killing machine. In the first sequel, Rambo is sent back to Vietnam to rescue American POWs betrayed and abandoned by the U.S. government.  Perhaps the most famous line from that movie is when Rambo asks Colonel Trautman whether, in returning to Vietnam, the government will finally allow U.S. soldiers to win this time.  It was a concise statement of the stab-in-the-back myth, the idea the U.S. military would have won the war in Vietnam if only it hadn’t been betrayed by a duplicitous and spineless government.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/BJ2opOE33fQ?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

“Do we get to win this time?”  That’s a question that should haunt all Americans, since we haven’t won a war since 1945.  But who is to blame for not winning?  And have the wars America has fought since World War II really been worth fighting to begin with?

Update (9/2923): A lot has changed in forty years, as a couple of my friends pointed out in response to this article. We could imagine at least two scenarios for a revised Rambo made in 2023:

Version 1: In 2023, the sheriff wouldn’t have to call in the National Guard.  All his deputies would gear up with assault rifles, sniper rifles, body armor, and MRAPs donated by the Pentagon as excess gear and the local SWAT team would be mobilized and deployed to find and kill Rambo.

Version 2: Perhaps the most likely one: Rambo would be wearing a “blue lives matter” flag, the sheriff’s patrol car would be festooned with “support our troops” stickers, and they’d call a town meeting to give Rambo the keys to the town as a Medal of Honor winner.

Top Dove: Peacenik

W.J. Astore

I’m still waiting for the blockbuster Hollywood production that celebrates peace

Last year, “Top Gun: Maverick” was all the rage. It was a silly war flick with a plot ripped from the original “Star Wars” movie featuring plenty of bloodless, high octane action sequences. I enjoyed it in the way I occasionally indulge in unhealthy fast food. The movie was instantly forgettable except for one scene where hotshot pilot Maverick, played of course by Tom Cruise, meets his old rival Iceman, played by Val Kilmer. In real life, Kilmer suffers from throat cancer, and his condition is not hidden in the movie, where Kilmer is now an admiral who still believes in his old friend, Captain Pete “Maverick” Mitchell.

Naturally, Maverick saves the day, pummeling a nameless enemy (most likely Iran) with bombs because that country is developing nuclear weapons. Nothing, of course, is said of the thousands of nuclear warheads and bombs in America’s arsenal, or that the USA is the only country to have used atomic bombs in war (Hiroshima, Nagasaki). But I digress.

Hollywood loves war movies. They sell well. Yet I still await “Top Dove: Peacenik,” in which an intrepid, brave, determined, and charismatic person stops a war without bombing or killing anyone. What a breath of fresh air that would be!

Exactly ten years ago, I posted the article below at Bracing Views. We need peacemakers now more than ever. Sadly, they are still very much forgotten, or ignored, or dismissed as unserious or even delusional.

Forgotten Are the Peacemakers (2013)

Monument to Elihu Burritt in New Marlboro, Mass. (author's photo)
Monument to Elihu Burritt in New Marlboro, Mass. (author’s photo)
The Plaque in Honor of Burritt
The Plaque in Honor of Burritt (author’s photo)

Being Catholic, I’m a big fan of the Sermon on the Mount and Christ’s teaching that “blessed are the peacemakers.”  Yet in American history it seems that “forgotten are the peacemakers” would be a more accurate lesson.  We’re much more likely to remember “great” generals, even vainglorious ones like George S. Patton or Douglas MacArthur, than to recognize those who’ve fought hard against long odds for peace.

Elihu Burritt was one such peacemaker.  Known in his day as “The Learned Blacksmith,” Burritt fought for peace and against slavery in the decades before the Civil War in the United States.  He rose from humble roots to international significance, presiding over The League of Universal Brotherhood  in the 1840s and 1850s while authoring many books on humanitarian subjects.

Interestingly, peacemakers like Burritt were often motivated by evangelical Christianity.  They saw murder as a sin and murderous warfare as an especially grievous manifestation of man’s sinfulness.  Many evangelicals of his day were also inspired by their religious beliefs to oppose slavery as a vile and reprehensible practice.

Christian peacemakers like Burritt may not have had much success, but they deserve to be remembered and honored as much as our nation’s most accomplished generals.  That we neglect to honor men and women like Burritt says much about America’s character.

For if we truly are a peace-loving people, why do we fail to honor our most accomplished advocates for peace?

Hollywood, the Oscars, and America

W.J. Astore

I finally watched the Oscars last night. Of course, I’d heard about Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock because of a joke Smith’s wife didn’t like. It was an ugly incident, but fortunately Chris Rock kept his cool. Hollywood loves itself, much like America loves itself, and an A-list actor like Will Smith can pretty much get away with anything, including assaulting one of the hosts for a joke that, though apparently well-intended, obviously miscarried. Smith never apologized during the show, though he finally issued a pro forma apology yesterday once he figured out that public opinion was against him.

I’m a movie buff, and I’ve always enjoyed watching the Oscars, but each year the shows get tackier, sleazier, and more morally repugnant. As my wife said this morning, you see a lot of sick people at the Oscars with no morals and apparently no souls.

I did want to mention one oversight at the Oscars. Now, I have to admit I didn’t listen to every word of every acceptance speech, but those I did hear all had one glaring omission: None of the Oscar winners thanked the fans, the movie-goers, the ones who truly pay them and support them. Instead, the winners thanked the usual suspects: agents, mentors, producers, big companies like Apple and Disney and Netflix, with occasional references to parents and to God. After slapping Chris Rock, Will Smith blubbered on about how he was all about serving God and love, apparently seeing no contradiction between his words and his deeds.

Of course, the Oscars are always a self-indulgent spectacle, always an exercise in narcissism and self-promotion. But would it really hurt the Oscar winners to take a few moments to thank their fans and movie-goers, especially when going to the movies was a bit risky given the Covid-19 pandemic? Instead, I heard talk of how brave they all were for continuing to make movies during the pandemic.

Again, I’m a big movie fan, and I don’t dismiss their artistry and often their cultural significance. At their best, movies can truly inspire us; they can help to open doors to new worlds; they are truly part of the human experience. What’s truly sad is how the Oscars and Hollywood’s yearly celebration of itself actually diminishes the movies rather than showcasing and enhancing them.

The Oscars should go the way of the Emmy Awards — they should simply disappear, having outlived their usefulness and having become something of an embarrassment.

A rare moment of grace at the Oscars, as Lady Gaga helps Liza Minnelli announce the award for best picture (Photo by Christopher Polk)

Hollywood Stars and Sports Heroes: Uncle Sam Wants You!

Stewart
No — Jimmy Stewart is not acting here.  He flew bombers in World War II and rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Air Force

W.J. Astore

Back in 2013, I wrote an article on U.S. wars and the absence of movie and sports stars in the ranks of those who serve.  Hollywood and sports leagues such as the NFL and MLB celebrate the military today, but that celebration does not extend to service and sacrifice.  Indeed, the main service is lip service: basically, cheap words to the effect that we celebrities “support” the troops.  It’s not exactly the kind of service we associate with the Greatest Generation of World War II, is it?

Yet the absence of Hollywood celebrities and sports “heroes” in the ranks may be indicative of another, much more serious, issue.  Maybe America’s wars simply aren’t vital to them — or to us?  And if they’re not vital, why are they still in progress?  Why can’t we end them?

Here is what I wrote in 2013:

The tradition of the citizen-soldier is still alive in this country — just look at our National Guard units. But the burden of military service is obviously not equally shared, with the affluent and famous tucked away safely at home. How many people remember that Jimmy Stewart, legendary Hollywood actor, flew dangerous combat missions in the skies over Europe during World War II? Stewart didn’t flaunt his combat service; in fact, playing against type, he stayed home as the unhallowed George Bailey in It’s A Wonderful Life, a movie that celebrated the heroism of the ordinary citizen. In the movie, Stewart’s quiet, home-based heroism, his powerful sense of fairness and decency, is even allowed to overshadow that of his younger brother, who returns from war with the Medal of Honor.

There’s an interesting lesson there. In World War II, celebrities often risked life and limb in real military service, then after the war played against type to celebrate the virtues of a homespun heroism. Today’s celebrities avoid military service altogether but play tough in action films where they pose as “heroes.”

Other than Pat Tillman, who gave up a promising NFL football career to join the military after 9/11, I can’t think of a single celebrity who answered the call to arms as a citizen-soldier.

Then again, that call was never issued. After 9/11, President George W. Bush famously told us to keep calm and carry on — carrying on shopping and patronizing Disney, that is. He did so because he already had a large standing professional military he could call on, drawn primarily from the middling orders of society. This “all volunteer military” is often described (especially in advertisements by defense contractors) as a collection of “warfighters” and “warriors.” In the field, they are supplemented by privatized militaries provided by companies like Academi (formerly Blackwater/Xe), Triple Canopy, and DynCorp International. In a word, mercenaries. These bring with them a corporate, for-profit, mindset to America’s wars.

If we as a country are going to keep fighting wars, we need a military drawn from the people. All the people. As a start, we need to draft young men (and women) from Hollywood, from the stage and screen. And we need to draft America’s sports stars (I shouldn’t think this would be an issue, since there are so many patriotic displays in favor of the troops at NFL stadiums and MLB parks).

Jimmy Stewart served in combat. So too did Ted Williams. So too did so many of their Hollywood and sporting generation.

Until today’s stars of stage and screen and sports join with the same sense of urgency as their counterparts of “The Greatest Generation,” I’ll remain deeply skeptical of all those Hollywood and sporting world patriotic displays of troop support.

If this whole line of argument sounds crazy to you, I have a modest suggestion. Rather a plea. If our celebrities who profit the most from America are unwilling to defend it the way Stewart and Williams did, perhaps that’s not just a sign of societal rot. Perhaps it’s a sign that our wars are simply not vital to us. And if that’s the case, shouldn’t we end them? Now?

Winning the Afghan War — In Hollywood

12STR_VERT_MAIN_DOM_2764x40

W.J. Astore

A new movie, “12 Strong,” is opening on January 19th.  I’ve been seeing a lot of trailers for it while watching the NFL playoffs.  It’s being advertised as America’s first victory in the “war on terror.”  Based on a popular book, “Horse Soldiers,” it features American special operations troops charging into battle on horseback.  The synopsis of the movie (at Fandango) describes it as follows:

“12 Strong” is set in the harrowing days following 9/11 when a U.S. Special Forces team, led by their new Captain, Mitch Nelson (Hemsworth), is chosen to be the first U.S. troops sent into Afghanistan for an extremely dangerous mission. There, in the rugged mountains, they must convince Northern Alliance General Dostum (Negahban) to join forces with them to fight their common adversary: the Taliban and their Al Qaeda allies. In addition to overcoming mutual distrust and a vast cultural divide, the Americans—accustomed to state-of-the-art warfare—must adopt the rudimentary tactics of the Afghani (sic) horse soldiers. But despite their uneasy bond, the new allies face overwhelming odds: outnumbered and outgunned by a ruthless enemy that does not take prisoners.

I don’t think it will surprise anyone that, despite those “overwhelming odds” and being “outnumbered and outgunned by a ruthless enemy,” U.S. troops prevail.

Watching the trailers on TV is a surreal experience.  You get the impression the U.S. cavalry sounded the charge and won the Afghan war in 2001.  You’d never know U.S. forces are still fighting in Afghanistan in 2018, facing a “stalemate” and a resurgent Taliban that controls vast swaths of territory, and that U.S. forces face a “generational” slog to an endpoint where victory is indeed ill-defined.

Even though America is treading water in the Afghan war, Hollywood has cherry-picked an episode from the early days of that war, in the tradition of a John Wayne movie (like “The Horse Soldiers“).

wayne

The Wild West has been reset to Afghanistan with U.S. troops as the new sheriff in town, with the Taliban serving as the “savages” in the old Western tradition.

It’s the U.S. cavalry to the rescue, in the wild Afghan mountains.  Yet highlighting this one episode in America’s quagmire war in Afghanistan is more than misleading.  It’s as if the Japanese made a film about World War II that began and ended with Pearl Harbor.

Remember when Candidate Trump boasted that, when he became president, Americans would win so much, we’d get bored with winning?  “Believe me,” he said.

Maybe this is believable … at the movies.

The Missions Unaccomplished Force

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At least we win in Hollywood …

Tom Engelhardt.  Introduction by W.J. Astore.

Colonel (retired) Andrew Bacevich has a new article at TomDispatch as well as a new book on America’s War for the Greater Middle East (my copy is already coming in the mail). Bacevich’s main point in his latest article couldn’t be more clear: Congressional cowardice.  Congress refuses to exercise the people’s authority over presidential warmaking, a gross dereliction of duty that ensures perpetual wars with missions perennially left unaccomplished.  And that is the theme of Tom Engelhardt’s introduction to Bacevich’s article.

You’ve heard of the Impossible Missions Force, or IMF, which somehow always gets the job done, whether led by Martin Landau or Peter Graves or Tom Cruise?  Well, that’s Hollywood.  In the real world, we have the MUF, or Missions Unaccomplished Force.  Yes, they always muff it, no matter if the “Decider” is the strutting George W. Bush or the cool and calculating Barack Obama.  But let Tom Engelhardt tell the tale …  W.J. Astore  

The Missions Unaccomplished Force, by Tom Engelhardt

It was a large banner and its message was clear.  It read: “Mission Accomplished,” and no, I don’t mean the classic “mission accomplished” banner on the USS Abraham Lincoln under which, on May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush proudly proclaimed (to the derision of critics ever since) that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.”  I’m actually referring to a September 1982 banner with those same two words (and an added “farewell” below them) displayed on a landing craft picking up the last Marines sent ashore in Beirut, Lebanon, to be, as President Ronald Reagan put it when they arrived the previous August, “what Marines have been for more than 200 years — peace-makers.”  Of course, when Bush co-piloted an S-3B Viking sub reconnaissance Naval jet onto the deck of the Abraham Lincoln and made his now-classic statement, major combat had barely begun in Iraq (and it has yet to end) — nor was it peace that came to Beirut in September 1982: infamously, the following year 241 Marines would die there in a single day, thanks to a suicide bomber.

“Not for the last time,” writes Andrew Bacevich in his monumental new work, America’s War for the Greater Middle East: A Military History, “the claim proved to be illusory.”  Indeed, one of the grim and eerie wonders of his book is the way in which just about every wrongheaded thing Washington did in that region in the 14-plus years since 9/11 had its surprising precursor in the two decades of American war there before the World Trade Center towers came down.  U.S. military trainers and advisers, for example, failed (as they later would in Iraq and Afghanistan) to successfully build armies, starting with the Lebanese one; Bush’s “preventive war” had its predecessor in a Reagan directive called (ominously enough given what was to come) “combating terrorism”; Washington’s obsessive belief of recent years that problems in the region could be solved by what Andrew Cockburn has called the “kingpin strategy” — the urge to dismantle terror organizations by taking out their leadership via drones or special operations raids — had its precursor in “decapitation” operations against Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid with similar resulting mayhem.  The belief that “an additional increment of combat power might turn around a failing endeavor” — call it a “surge,” if you will — had its Iraq and Afghan pretrial run in Somalia in 1993.  And above all, of course, there was Washington’s unquenchable post-1980 urge to intervene, military first, in a decisive way throughout the region, which, as Bacevich writes, only “produced conditions conducive to further violence and further disorder,” and if that isn’t the repetitive history of America’s failed post-2001 wars in a nutshell, what is?

As it happened, the effects of such actions from 1980 on were felt not just in the Greater Middle East and Africa, but in the United States, too.  There, as Bacevich writes today, war became a blank-check activity for a White House no longer either checked (in any sense) or balanced by Congress.  Think of it as another sad tale of a surge (or do I mean a decapitation?) that went wrong.

America’s Wars as Bloated Hollywood Productions

Age of Extinction, indeed (Source: Wikipedia)
Age of Extinction, indeed (Source: Wikipedia)

W.J. Astore

Like so many bloated Hollywood movies nowadays, America’s wars may bomb, but they always produce their own sequels.

Look at the latest news from Iraq and Afghanistan.  These wars have persisted for more than a decade, with several re-releases to include “surges” and repeats.  The latest from Iraq is preparations to retake the city of Mosul from ISIS, which promises a repeat of the level of destruction visited upon Fallujah in 2004.  In this there are echoes of Vietnam: in Mosul, we may have to destroy the city to save it.  Five Iraqi brigades, most likely supported by American airpower and some American troops on the ground (air controllers and Special Forces), are poised to strike as early as April.  Doubtless they’ll prevail, at least for the moment, as the city and its civilians pay a price so dear as to be indistinguishable from defeat.  Mosul will be “liberated,” but just look what happened to Fallujah, which after the American “victory” in 2004 is now a devastated city retaken by elements of al-Qaeda in 2014.

(As an aside, it’s interesting that the New York Times uses the word “epic” to describe the Battle of Fallujah from 2004.  Surely a better word is “catastrophic.”  What is epic about a battle that destroys a city, a battle that is ultimately inconclusive?  Check out Bing West’s book about Fallujah, whose title, “No True Glory,” captures the frustrations and contradictions of that battle, mainly from the American perspective.)

Moving to Afghanistan, the latest is that American troops may stay longer than expected (surprise!).  Despite all the talk of “progress” in Afghanistan, the takeaway is the following section, from Secretary of Defense Ash Carter’s recent visit to Afghanistan:

“Despite the aid of American air power, 2014 was the deadliest year for Afghan forces since the start of the war in 2001, and many Afghan and Western officials in Kabul believe that 2015 will likely be worse, particularly with less support from Western allies. That has begun to change the conversation about the possibility of slowing down in the [American] withdrawal.”

In other words, expect more micro-surges of American troops and assets in the coming years, as well as more reports of “progress,” however temporary or illusory (at least America’s best and brightest learned from Vietnam not to talk of seeing light at the end of tunnels).

America’s wars are much like the “Transformers” franchise of movies: thrilling and seemingly conclusive at first, with much talk of missions being accomplished, followed by sequel after sequel of repetitive battles, increasingly loud and destructive, signifying vapidity and intellectual bankruptcy even as a few profit greatly from them.

And no one (certainly none of the producers at the Pentagon) seems to be able to pull the plug on green-lighting ever more sequels to these wars.  Even when they bomb.

(For a different perspective on how recent Hollywood movies support American warmaking through myth-making, see Peter Van Buren’s insightful article “War Porn” at TomDispatch.com.)

Apache Scouts, Listening; Hollywood, Not Listening

Apache Scouts, Listening (National Gallery of Art)
Apache Scouts, Listening (National Gallery of Art)

W.J. Astore

Frederic Remington understood the color of night, and he also understood something of the uniqueness of the Native Americans he painted.  This lesson was brought home to me by David Heidler, a good friend and a leading historian of American history.  Visiting an exhibition of Remington’s nocturnes, Heidler had this to say about how these paintings moved him:

[Remington’s works] reminded [me] of something easily forgotten by the sanitized depictions of Indians inflicted on our own times.  Remington was able to portray them as obviously aboriginal while preserving their stoicism and majesty.  Hollywood Indians, whether in Kevin Costner’s wolf-waltzing epic or the Mohican picture featuring the terminally taciturn Daniel Day Lewis as foil for the grumpily taciturn Russell Means, are simply European ethnics festooned in feathers and possessed of nifty woodcraft.

Remington’s Indians, though, are people so alien that one instantly recognizes them as part of another world uneasily coming to terms with an encroaching one.  His “Apache Scouts, Listening” perfectly captures the odd division between the near-feral instincts of the scouts and the tentativeness of their army employers.  The several Apaches are in various postures, mainly ones of repose, but their necks are elongated, their broad faces frozen with concentration and all directed just beyond the viewer; the two army officers sit on horses in the background, their hands cupping their ears in an effort to hear that the Apaches obviously can detect with ease.  It is night and winter, and a full moon illuminates the scene with jarring clarity, the light ambient from the heavy snow on the ground.

I could still be standing there watching it if allowed to.

Few Hollywood movies that I’ve seen capture the distinctiveness and uniqueness of Native Americans on their terms.  Our movies are mitigated (or polluted) by the Western gaze, tending to portray Indians as either “savages” or mystical proto-environmentalists/Zen gurus.  We see what we want to see, not what is.

Back in the bad old days of John Wayne westerns, Indians were typically portrayed as savages who deserved to be extirpated or shunted on to reservations where they could be “civilized.”  Nowadays, the “magical” Indian is more common, a noble brave and guru to the White man who highlights the White man’s materialism, prejudice, and violence.

Although it’s not a perfect movie (it has its own political agenda), “Little Big Man” with Dustin Hoffman and Chief Dan George captures at least some of the distinctiveness of Indians, at least for me.  The decision to allow the Indians to speak fluently in English (when it’s meant to be Cheyenne) helps to bridge the gap of understanding (no Pidgin English as in old westerns, and no distracting subtitles as in the sanctimonious “Dances with Wolves”).

The depiction of Native Americans in LBM is neither universally positive nor negative.  The brutality of Indians is shown in the opening scene of carnage in the aftermath of an attack on White settlers.  The Cheyenne encampment is described in humorous terms (from my memory): “When first entering an Indian camp, one might be excused from thinking, I’ve seen the dump.  Where’s the camp?”  It’s an amusing reminder that standards of cleanliness for Plains Indians differed from White town folk.  The Cheyenne also eat boiled dog, which the narrator (Hoffman) describes as downright delicate in taste (I doubt that scene would survive Humane Society inspection today).

But for me the most harrowing scene is Chief Dan George’s masterful speech as he holds a scalp.  He explains how the Indians (the “human beings”) believe everything is alive but the White man believes everything is dead.  It captures the animism of the Indians and their connection to nature while highlighting the instrumentalism and ruthlessness of (some) Whites.

The gulf in understanding between our peoples only exacerbated the wars over turf.  And the Indians sensed, as Chief Dan George says in the movie, that they were on the losing side of the demographics (an endless supply of White men, but a limited number of Human Beings, notes Chief Dan George).

But watch “Little Big Man” for yourself and draw your own conclusions.  Even better, take a close look at Remington’s nocturnes.  Try to place yourself in the paintings as my friend David Heidler so powerfully did.  Such a vivid exercise in imaginative exploration — using Remington’s work as a time machine that transports you to a different world among a people who are far more diverse and complicated and alien than Hollywood has ever managed to capture — is both transfixing and transformative.  And fun!

Author’s note: I’d like to thank David Heidler for his permission to cite and share his personal (and moving) reaction to Remington.