Posted on 07/27/2007 5:35:11 PM PDT by lowbridge
First it was the traumatized Vietnam veteran, now are Iraq vets set to become the next "progressive" cliché?
Being the strapping patriot sort of folks that they are, the Hollywood left is gearing up to release a bunch of anti-military movies that portray veterans of the Iraq war as deranged psychopaths, screwed up by an "unjust" war. The New York Times's Michael Cieply reports (h/t Instapundit):
Now some in Hollywood want moviegoers to decide if the killing is emblematic of a war gone bad, part of a new and perhaps risky willingness in the entertainment business to push even the touchiest debates about post-9/11 security, Iraq and the troops’ status from the confines of documentaries into the realm of mainstream political drama.
On Sept. 14, Warner Independent Pictures expects to release “In the Valley of Elah,” a drama inspired by the Davis murder, written and directed by Paul Haggis, whose “Crash” won the Academy Award for best picture in 2006. The film stars Tommy Lee Jones as a retired veteran who defies Army bureaucrats and local officials in a search for his son’s killers. In one of the movie’s defining images, the American flag is flown upside down in the heartland, the signal of extreme distress.
Other coming films also use the damaged Iraq veteran to raise questions about a continuing war. In “Grace Is Gone,” directed by James C. Strouse and due in October from the Weinstein Company, John Cusack and two daughters struggle with the loss of a wife and mother who is killed on duty. Kimberly Peirce’s “Stop-Loss,” set for release in March by Paramount, meanwhile, casts Ryan Phillippe as a veteran who defies an order that would send him back to Iraq.
In the past, Hollywood usually gave the veteran more breathing space. William Wyler’s “Best Years of Our Lives,” about the travails of those returning from World War II, was released more than a year after the war’s end. Similarly Hal Ashby’s “Coming Home” and Oliver Stone’s “Born on the Fourth of July,” both stories of Vietnam veterans, came well after the fall of Saigon.
Of course, these movies aren't politically motivated at all:
“Media in general responds much more quickly than ever before,” said Scott Rudin, a producer of “Stop-Loss.” “Why shouldn’t movies do the same?” He said his film was deliberately scheduled to be released in the middle of the presidential campaign season.
That impetus for immediacy is driving other filmmakers and studios as well. In October, for example, New Line Cinema will release “Rendition,” in which Reese Witherspoon plays a woman whose Egyptian-born husband is snared by a runaway counterterrorism apparatus. Paul Greengrass, the director of “The Bourne Ultimatum,” in which the bad guys belong to a similar rogue unit, is adapting Rajiv Chandrasekaran’s book about the Green Zone in Baghdad, “Imperial Life in the Emerald City,” for Universal Pictures.
Brian De Palma’s “Redacted,” focusing on an Army squad that persecutes an Iraqi family, is to be released in December by Magnolia Pictures. And Sony Pictures is developing a film based on the story of Richard A. Clarke, the former national security official and Bush administration critic.
Isn't it wonderful how the left can with one hand decry the "unfairness" of the one medium that the right dominates (talk radio) while shamelessly making politicized movies (and television shows for that matter) explicitly designed to whip up anti-war frenzy and bash our nation's military?
Here are some FR threads that have more detail about his beliefs: Jon Voigt FR Threads
Re 58, Hollywood doesn’t get my time anywhere along the line. Just don’t watch their output in any format.
Do you avoid all movies or just Hollywood movies?
Practically all movies. I went to the one about the Battle of Thermopolie and I think I went to Star Wars I. I don’t watch many TV shows either. I was randomly selected to be a Nielsen rater once and logged only 90 minutes in the week—local news and weather.
I’ve seen precisely two movies at a theater in the last few months, after avoiding them for over a year. If Hollywood starts ramping this crap back up, its back to books for me.
When we are completely taken over....Hollywood will be the ultimate propaganda arm.
#####That’s why I only watch old movies most of the time.#####
Ditto. I got my Film Noir Classic Collection #4 box set from Amazon today. Older movies on average are much better than most of the garbage that comes out today.
Well, there are more movies for me not to go and watch.
I just think it’s a bizarre attitude. Akin to not listening to any music because of Gangster Rap and not reading anything because of select books.
I have been to plays, operas, stage reviews, concerts, athletic events galore, and country music festivals and other events where weirdos don’t try to insult my intellegence or morals, nor pander to outrageous causes in the name of art. I read considerably more than the average person and my choices range from mystery to Shakespeare. I enjoy history and biography. I spent many years as a military officer and still keep up with professional reading in that field. I have read great literature in English, Latin, French and Spanish, but I don’t read garbage in any language nor listen to it nor watch it. IMHO what’s bizarre is a person with a modicum of education or taste who intentionally exposes himself to trash. Life’s too short to spend any of it sifting through garbage for some occasional nugget when there’s a gold mine right at hand.
So you make those distinctions in the other arts but not in cinema? There’s good and bad everywhere. My contention is with people who see a bad movie and assume the medium is inherently bad.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.